The Habit of Witness
The Power of Spiritual Habits September 28, 2025 Acts 4:29-31 Notes
Jesus empowers us to be a witness to his work in our lives so others can experience his love. But it’s also a key part of our own spiritual formation. Find out why this Sunday.
In the book of Acts, Luke recorded that the first century believers were committed to witnessing to others about Jesus and the church exploded upon the scene, experiencing exponential growth in spite of persecution. We can cultivate a habit of witnessing to others about Jesus.
Audio
Well, good morning, church. It's good to be with you this morning. We are concluding our series today entitled the Power of Spiritual Habits. And it's been a great series and I'm thankful to be with you today and especially on a day like today when we get to celebrate three people following Jesus through the obedience of baptism. So it's been a great day already today and we want to conclude this series well, and what better topic to finish on than the spiritual habit of witnessing what we'll be talking about today.
Our theme verse is found in Ephesians 4:23-24 (NLT) 23 “Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. 24 Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.” And so it's the Holy Spirit in us when we become believers. It's the Holy Spirit in us that begins to change us and to sanctify us, which means making us like Jesus. It's his work.
But we are called to yield to that work, to ask the Holy Spirit and to yield and repent of our sins, continually wanting to be shaped by Him. And it's spiritual habits or spiritual practices or as the first century believers in the early church used to call it, Christian disciplines. These are not ends, but these are means to an end. They are not the end goal, but they are means to allowing the Holy Spirit so that these are spiritual habits. And we've talked about several over the past seven weeks.
We've talked about quiet time, a daily quiet time, getting alone with the Lord. We've talked about fellowship, which was partly what we're doing right now. Right. We've come together corporately for fellowship and worship. These things God can use, the Spirit can use to open up our hearts more and more to him.
The habit of service, of serving the Lord. And by the way, we had a great time yesterday morning serving alongside several churches in Wilson County. We met over at Farmington Heights Church for an opening prayer. And then we went to our different assignments and Eastgate Church. Our assignment was Vincent Bynum Elementary School.
We did a landscape project over there and we put in some flowers and different things to make the school look nice. And we also hung basketball nets on the four outdoor goals that were pretty tattered and torn up. And so we were happy to do all that. And plus I had a lot of fun holding the ladder for Jeff Webb as he hung those up there. That was a lot of fun.
But that's the spiritual habit of service, of serving people that yields to the Spirit in us. We talked about the spiritual habit of rest of Bible study and of generosity. And now today, the spiritual habit of witness. Now, what is witnessing? Well, Dr. Bill Bright gives us a great definition.
He says, “Witnessing is simply taking the initiative to share Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God.” Talking about Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results up to God. Let me put it even simpler for you than that. It's telling others what Jesus has done for you. That's what witnessing is. Being a witness means you've experienced something, you've seen something, and now you're telling others what you've seen and heard.
And by the way, you're the worldwide expert on one topic. You know more about you than any other human right. And so when you tell others what Jesus has done for you, you're an expert on that. And so that's what being a witness is.
It's telling others what Jesus has done for you in the power of the Holy Spirit, leaving the results up to God. Now, why should we witness? Why witness? Let me give you four quick reasons. Here's the first reason.
It's because Christ commanded it. If you're a believer today, he's commanded you to be a witness. It says in Mark 16:15 (ESV) And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” And so Jesus has commanded us as believers to be witnesses of Him. Here's the second reason.
It's because people are lost without Jesus. Do you believe that? That people without Jesus are lost and they need a Savior? This is what the apostle Peter said in his sermon to the Sanhedrin. He's preaching to those that would judge him.
He says in Acts 4:12 (NLT) “There is salvation in no one else! There is no other name in all of heaven for people to call on to save them." In the name of Jesus alone are people saved. People are lost without knowing that. Here's a third reason.
Christ's love compels us. It's a love of Christ in us, his love for the sinner within us that causes us to be compelled. It says in 2 Corinthians 5:14 (NIV) “For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.” We've died to self, and we live for him.
And his love within us compels us to tell others about Jesus. But now here's the fourth reason, and I'll move on from here because this is the reason that I have interest in this series. Because we're talking about spiritual habits. And it's this fourth reason why we witness. It's necessary for our spiritual growth.
Did you know that the habit of talking to people about Jesus, cultivating that is necessary for your own spiritual growth? Here's what we read in Philemon 1:6 (ESV) “I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ.” The apostle Paul is writing to Philemon, and he connects spiritual growth, knowing more about Jesus, growing in the knowledge of Jesus, to sharing your faith. How about that?
Sharing your faith is connected to your spiritual growth, he says. The truth is, I don't know if you remember how excited you were when you were a little kid for Christmas. Like when Christmas time would come, you couldn't even sleep the night before. You were so excited. You remember that.
You remember that feeling. Then as you grow older, maybe it's your teenage years, maybe, maybe it's before that or after that. But at some point it's just, it gets to be old news. You're like, yeah, it's Christmas. You know, it's Christmas.
It loses its, you know, its special nature to you. But if you get married and have kids, then that first kid that finally, you know, maybe they're one years old, maybe they're one and a half, two years old, and they're looking at the Christmas tree and the presents and all of a sudden just telling them about it makes Christmas come alive in you all over again. Can you relate to that? It's something about telling someone new about it that's never known about it. And that's what I think sharing Jesus with others does to us.
It reminds us of how much he loves us, how much he loves them, and it opens us up to further spiritual growth. Well, that's our focus today. It's this habit of witnessing and how it's important to our spiritual growth. Barna says that only three out of four believers, people who say they're born again, believe that we're supposed to witness. So 73%, just under three out of four, say that.
And if you ask this, three out of four, according to the survey, only 50% say that in the last year they've told anyone about the gospel. So three out of four believe. You're supposed to only out of that, only one out of two have actually talked to anyone in an entire year about Jesus. God forgive us. God forgive us for that.
Maybe you're thinking in your own heart right now. I hope you are. Holy Spirit, examine our hearts. When's the last time you told anyone what Jesus has done for you. That's what I want us to think about today.
When's the last time that you told anyone what Jesus has done for you?
Why is this happening? What are some reasons that people give for having not shared their faith? Here's one. Lack of knowledge. They're afraid someone's going to ask them a question they don't know the answer to.
Lack of knowledge. Rejection. I'm afraid they won't like me. I fear rejection, disapproval. I'm afraid they'll think I'm too religious, that I'm uncool, just not cool in school to talk about Jesus.
It's impolite. It's not politically correct to talk about Jesus. And here's a reason, and this one is the one that I think is so on target for many of us. No desire. I just don't really want to.
I'm an introvert. I don't like talking to people anyway.
I don't want to talk about it. You know what this really lends itself to? It really is spiritual apathy. It's really spiritual lethargy that we've lost our passion. Here's what I know.
We always talk about that which we love. I love football, by the way. It's football season. I don't know how the Panthers are going to do today. I try to pull for them.
That's the team in our state, right? It's been hard to be a Panthers fan lately. They did win 30 to nothing last week though. Go, go Panthers. Last week.
But we'll see what happens this week. Who knows, right? You know it's hard, but it's easy for me to talk about football because I love football. Some of us love to talk about our favorite new restaurant. In fact, some of us love it so much we do
this very unusual thing that I never noticed in human history until the invention of social media and smartphones is that we like to take a photo of our plate of food.
Whoever looked through their grandparents photo album and they look, well, there's aunt Susie, well there's Uncle George and wow, look at that great plate of food. Never saw that ever until lately. But boy, we love talking about restaurants and food. We'll talk to a total stranger in the Walmart checkout about the new restaurant. And how about that, that new bride to be, she just got that ring on her finger and she just can't help talking to people about that because she's in love.
Oh, what's that on your finger? Oh, I can't believe you noticed.
No one has to make us. No one has to command us, no one has to teach us to talk about what we have a passion for. Passion always leads to proclamation. But we've lost our passion for Jesus. Is that the heart of it?
Is that the real reason why? Well, in the Book of Acts, Luke recorded that first century believers had a passion for Jesus. They were committed to bearing witness of what Jesus had done and was doing for them. And the church in the first century exploded on the scene and it grew exponentially because the people had a habit of witnessing. And I believe we can have a spiritual habit of witnessing today.
As we look at the text, I think we'll see three essentials for cultivating this spiritual habit of witness. Let's dig in. Acts 4:29-31 (ESV)
29 “And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, 30 while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” 31 And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.” This is God's word.
Amen. We're looking for three essentials for cultivating this spiritual habit of witnessing. Here's the first:
1. Prayer. Ask God to grant you witnessing opportunities.
Pray and ask God to grant you witnessing opportunities. Look at the text notice in verse 31 it says, “And when they had prayed,” this is the end of a longer prayer we picked up at the point of request. We didn't read the opening praise. And where they were, where they were praying back to the Lord, their reading of his Word. I think God loves it by the way, when we pray his word back to him.
And so they did that. They quoted from psalms, and we didn't cover all of that, but we picked up where the request section began. And how did they request, what did they pray for? Well, they began by praying for 29 “And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness,”
That's their big ask. That's the key to what they're asking right here. Grant to us. And what I'm saying is that the spiritual habit of witnessing begins there. It begins with prayer.
It begins asking the Father to grant you the opportunity to talk to someone that needs to hear the name of Jesus today. It begins there. And so prayer is not a footnote to evangelism. It's a priority for evangelism because can your witness save someone? Does your witness save people? Does you telling someone about Jesus, does that save them?
No, what saves them is the Lord. You can't save anybody. But God partners with you. He's chosen to use the means of your witness in order to save them through the power of the Holy Spirit upon them. And so he's chosen our obedience to that as the means of salvation.
And so it takes the pressure off, but it begins with prayer. Here's a way of looking at prayer. It's the plow that prepares the soil of the heart for the seed of the gospel. You got to think like a farmer here. The word of God's often compared to a seed, and the heart is often compared to soil.
And a lot of people. Maybe it's someone you love. Maybe it's a father or father in law, maybe it's a mother in law, maybe it's a sister or brother or a next door neighbor. And you know of someone right now who has a hard heart towards God. They have a hard heart towards the gospel.
It's prayer that will plow. It will break up the hard soil of the heart. You can pray like that. Lord, grant us opportunities with this person. And you name them like that.
And so pray like that. Ask for witnessing opportunities. Now, let's do a little background here, because that's not how he starts, though. That's not how people start their prayer. And now, Lord, we've talked to you.
It starts back there in which declares, Acts 4:24, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of your servant David your father said by the Holy Spirit..." And they quote Psalms and they quote the part where you prophesied, Lord, that we would get under, you know, threat and persecution. And didn't it happen with Herod and Pilate? And they threatened and killed your son Jesus, but he rose from the grave.
They're just like praying that out loud. They're not even asking for anything. They're just saying, you're sovereign, Lord, and we're not afraid because we know nothing can touch us unless it passes through your fingers first. So they're just reminding themselves in prayer of what's true. Nothing catches you off guard.
God, you're sovereign, you're on your throne. That's how they started the prayer. That's a pretty good prayer. And now, Lord, we've got a couple things we want to ask you. It's really short.
First of all, you look at their threats. They want to kill us. They've threatened us and they've told us, stop saying Jesus. Stop teaching and preaching in the name of Jesus. Now here's the background.
Chapter three. Peter and John. They're just going up to the temple to pray. Three times a day the Jews prayed at the temple. Morning, midday and evening prayers.
They're going up and they happen to be going up to the gate called Beautiful. They're walking up the steps. There's a man that's been there. His family takes him there every day. He can't walk.
Was born a cripple, he can't walk. His legs and his feet are twisted from birth. He's 40 years old. That's been what he's done every day. Everybody knows, man, you can't get past that cripple dude at the gate called Beautiful.
He's going to ask you for money. Well, here goes Peter and John, they're walking up the steps to the gate called Beautiful. And they did the thing, you know, every one of us in the room knows when you see that guy at the red light or the stop sign, holding that sign, you do not make eye contact with that guy. Everybody knows that.
Peter and John apparently didn't know that. They looked, it says they looked right at the guy. And the guy's not looking back. And so Peter, to make sure, says, look at us. And he looks up at him, he says in Acts 3:6, "Silver and gold I have none but what I have I give you:
In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk!" And the man leapt to his feet. Now look, that's a miracle. He'd never taken a step in his whole life. His legs got straightened out, his feet uncurled, his ankles formed up.
But this man, you got to understand, he was born that way. He had never walked.
That's pretty amazing. My oldest son walked at nine months. That's pretty early, isn't it? It took him nine months to crawl around before he could walk. Not only did he heal his legs, he taught him how to walk in one word in the name of Jesus.
The man got new legs and knew how to walk. And not only that, if you read chapter three, he's doing calisthenics in the temple. I mean, he's leaping, he's jumping, and he's grabbing onto Peter and John and he's giving glory to God. Hallelujah. And a crowd gathered because they've been seeing that guy for 40 years.
People avoided the gate called Beautiful because you had to get past this guy. That was his full time job. And then Peter starts going, do you know how this happened? Right? It's because the one you killed, now, you did it out of ignorance.
You didn't know any better. And even the leaders, they didn't know any better. But the one that was prophesied by Moses saying, another is coming, the man named Jesus, it's in his name that this man was healed and he began to preach the gospel. Well, then the Sanhedrin heard about it, had him arrested, and kept Peter and John overnight. The next morning, they met with them and said, how'd this happen?
And he says, I'll tell you how it happened. It was in the name of Jesus who you crucified. And they went, man, this guy's bold. And they said to each other, step out of the room for a minute.
And they turned to each other and they said, these are unschooled ordinary men. But aren't they the ones that were with Jesus for three years? They took notice of that. They called them back in because they realized, we got the cripple guy here that's no longer crippled, and the people are rejoicing, we can't kill them. So they threatened them.
They said, you got to stop in the name of Jesus, this preaching in the name of Jesus, teaching in the name of Jesus, you can't do it anymore. And then Peter said, well, you have to decide should we obey man or God. Now, that gets you up to speed. Then they come up and there's a prayer meeting going on, praying for them to get out of jail. And here we are.
And they show up and they go, well, Sovereign God, and now here's how they're going to pray. Now, how would you pray, verse 29, “And now, Lord, look upon their threats…” I'd have been more there a little bit. I'd have hung out there a little longer.
I'd been like, lord, them people over there, could you kill them, Lord? Could you get us out of Jerusalem? Get us away? I would have spent a little bit more time in the prayer request arena about the people over there that threatened me, not these guys. I'm humbled by their prayers.
They said, lord, you're sovereign. If somebody's supposed to threaten us, if this trouble's supposed to be in my life, if I'm supposed to be going through this thing in my marriage right now, if I'm supposed to be going and facing this physical trial right now, if I'm supposed to be suffering for you right now, you're, you're sovereign. You're God, and I'm not. You handle that. Would you take a look at that Lord, and your will, whatever it is, I'm fine with that.
But, Lord, in the midst of this, in the midst of this, 29 “...grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness,” Grant unto us your servants to keep on continuing to talk about Jesus.
That's how they prayed.
That's how Paul talks to the church at Colossae when he writes Colossians to them. He asked for prayer. He says, Colossians 4:3-4 (ESV) 3 “At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— 4 that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.”
He seems to be asking for a different open door than I would have prayed for. If I'm in prison. If I'm in a Roman prison and I'm praying for an open door, I'd be praying for the jail cell door to be opened. Like, lord, could you open the jail cell? That's not how he prayed.
He didn't pray to get out. He didn't pray to get out of jail free.
He said, lord, open the hearts doors of the people that I'm here to preach to. Because if I'm here, it must be because you put me here. Anything that's happened to me has to first pass through the fingers of the sovereign God. I just trust you, God. So if I'm in prison, there must be someone here I'm supposed to preach to.
And just kind of remind yourselves of the Philippian jailer and his whole family who came to Jesus because Silas and Paul were in there praying and singing at midnight. That's how Paul thinks, man. He's not praying for an open door to the prison. He's praying for an open door of people's hearts because that's why he's there. So he's praying for God's power, but he's also praying for clarity.
Verse 4, “that I may make it clear.” Here he is, one of the greatest evangelists, maybe the greatest evangelist who's ever lived for the Christian church. Today, here he is. That I can speak clearly, Lord, you know, before I come up here, before I step into this pulpit every Sunday, and especially today, perhaps I was really feeling it today, Lord, what a privilege it is that a sinner like me unworthy a sinner saved by grace, that you would allow me to preach your holy word. What a privilege that you would let me do that, Lord.
But it doesn't matter what I say. If you don't move, if you don't show up, nothing happens. God, if you don't show up, nothing happens. I can preach, it won't matter. But if you show up, oh, my and Lord,
here's the other thing I'm worried about. That I won't speak clearly, that I'll mispronounce words, that I'll get confused when I preach. I recognize there's always a spiritual battle. There's a spiritual battle for my mouth, and there's a spiritual battle for your ears, for your distractions. Jesus was always saying, “he that has ears to hear, let him hear.”
This thing that's going on in this very moment, as you and I are looking back and forth at each other, this is a moment where God is moving.
His word never returns void. I'm humbled. God, open a door. God, let me speak clearly.
God, open their ears. That they have ears to hear. I'm reminded of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch and how sensitive Philip was; he was a new deacon, but he turned into an evangelist very quickly. And he
was listening to the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit said, you see that chariot over there? And he goes, yeah. He goes, I want you to go over and talk to that guy. Have you ever had the Holy Spirit give you a nudge?
Go over there and talk to that person. Have you ever been, like, you're there with your kids at the McDonald's, and you're sitting in the booth and your kids are all in the ball pit? They're all in there. And you look across the booth and there's another mama sitting there, and she's facing you. Both of you were looking in the glass.
But then you look back and you see her looking back, and you kind of smile and then the Holy Spirit goes, talk to her about Jesus. And you go, but I don't know her. Is that you, Holy Spirit? I'm not sure I'm supposed to do this.
You feel awkward. I don't even know her name. Here's what I know. When that happens to me, I'll go, is that you, Spirit? Is that you, Holy Spirit?
And then I quickly will go, well, I know it's not me, because I wouldn't be thinking this. It's got to be you. And you learn more quickly. Philip has learned very quickly.
He feels the spirit's nudge, and he walks over and he goes, what are you reading? Because he sees him there. He's holding a scroll. He's just purchased a very expensive scroll because there were no printing presses, and it cost a fortune to buy something that had been written by a scribe by hand. And he, boy, he went out and bought the biggest scroll they had.
The book of Isaiah. And he's opened it up and he's at chapter 53, the suffering servant. And he goes, who is this that's being described? This man of sorrows, this one who will be pierced for our iniquities? Who is this?
And Philip says, I know who he is. I know his name. He says, climb up. And he gets in the chariot and he talks to him about Jesus. He preaches Jesus.
He tells him about Jesus and how he's been fulfilled. The fulfillment of Isaiah 53. And he baptizes him. Right there next to the road, there's some water. And he gets baptized.
And he baptized him. Why? Because he was prayed up and he was looking. And when the Holy Spirit nudged, he was ready to go.
Is that you? What an adventure to live like that. Ready to talk to people about Jesus? Well, the first essential is to pray. Grant me the opportunity today to talk to someone about you.
You might be thinking, you know, God doesn't answer my prayers, or God rarely answers. You might be thinking that. But let me say something to you. Are you praying? Our Father, which art in heaven, my will be done prayers or thy will be done prayers?
If you're praying, thy will be done prayers, know this. Christ has commanded us to talk to others about him. If you say, lord, open the door for me to talk to someone about you. Get ready. You're going to have an opportunity to talk to someone about Jesus.
I dare you to do it. I dare you to ask the Lord. Give me an opportunity to talk to someone about Jesus, because he will. And then it'll be up to you. Will you boldly speak out about Jesus?
I pray that this week, I just. I pray this week that somebody here says, I'm going to talk about Jesus for seven straight days and see what happens. And I want you to report to me and say what happened, because you're going to have a story that's going to blow us all away.
Here's another way this might look to you. I want to remind you, we've been doing this since the first of the year. You see this container over here with these orange cards? It says, it's time. It's time to start talking to people about Jesus.
And one way we can do this is write down the names of people that you know are far from God and come over here and just drop it in the container, put your hand on the container and say, lord, I pray that you'd stretch forth your hand with healing and signs and wonders and power. And lead this person to you in the name of Jesus. And if it's possible for me to be the one that talks to. To them, give me an open door to talk to them about. And as you're doing it, you're praying for all these.
Everything here. All those cards represent people far from God that we're praying for.
It begins with prayer. It begins with prayer. Here's the second. Here's the second essential. Boy, that was a good one.
I couldn't hardly get off of it. I'm going to have to speed up. Power.
2. Power. Rely on the Spirit to empower your witness.
Rely on the spirit to empower your witness, Lord. You consider their threats. I'm not going to worry about those threats. Grant to us to speak your word with all boldness. And then verse 30,
while we're speaking about you, Jesus, here's what we're asking you to do. 30 “...while you stretch out your hand to heal,” Stretch forth your hand. Take hold of people. Heal marriages, heal sickness, heal infirmities, heal people. And as I'm talking to them about Jesus, heal people.
30 “...and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” And so we're going to give all the glory and all the credit to your holy servant, Jesus. Stretch forth your hand. Can you picture that in your mind?
Can you think of somebody right now that's far from God? And just picture the Lord stretching forth his hand and shaking them up, touching them, asking God for the Holy Spirit's power to inhabit the words that you say, but also to move in their life.
You might look at this almost like prayer evangelism. Prayer evangelism would be praying for somebody by name and asking God to move miraculously in their lives and to show you a need that you can join God with through acts of radical kindness and then give Jesus the credit for it. When you meet the need in Jesus' name, just trust me. It's just going to open up people's hearts to be receptive to hearing the gospel. Lord, stretch forth your hand.
Because I can't save anybody. I'm just this crazy guy up here waving his arms, talking about Jesus. And I can't help a single one of you. I can't. I'm powerless.
But he has all the power to change your life. And I'm bragging about him to you. I'm pointing to him and saying, Jesus is the name that will change your life. I know him. He's changed my life.
Come on, get on board with Jesus. Get excited. Fall in love with Jesus.
You can rely on the spirit of Christ. You can ask in his name. And what happened when they did this?
I think God was up in heaven. He was like, look at these people. Look at my church. They're not asking me to rescue them. They're not asking me to get rid of the threat against them.
All they're asking is, can we obey you to talk more about you? I think heaven started shaking first, and then God stretched forth his hand and an earthquake hit the church. He shook him up. He shook them up like a salt shaker and spread them all over the earth and turned the world upside down.
Some have looked at this and said, well, it was a spiritual earthquake. I think it was. But it says the place was shaken. Oh, man. What was that like?
What was that like? Oh, Lord, come on, stretch forth your hand and shake up this place, people. Shake us up, Lord, out of our lethargy, out of our passionless view of Jesus. Just going through the motions. Shake us up, Lord.
Fill us afresh. Because that's what happened. He shook the place. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.
And what did they do? They went out and did what they asked God to do. They went out and spoke the word of God boldly. They continued to do it. It was a way of life for them.
Our power to witness comes from the Holy Spirit. When Jesus was about to ascend in the early part of the book of Acts, chapter one, really at the end of Luke. Acts is kind of like Luke 2. It picks up where Luke left off.
And so he's at the Mount of Olives. And the Mount of Olives, elevation wise, is higher than the Temple Mount. It's one of Christ's favorite places. And you can stand on the Mount of Olives, and you're looking at the eastern Gate, the Golden Gate. You can see into the Temple Mount area.
You can see the open courts and stuff from the Mount of Olives. And just beneath, there's the Garden of Gethsemane. And then you go down into the Valley of Kidron. That's where he's at. And he turns to his disciples and he says, it's time for him to return to the Father. And he says this to them, Acts 1:8 (ESV) “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.” He gives them both the source of their power for witness and the strategy for their witness. What's the source of their power? The Holy Spirit. You tell them what I've done.
You tell them how I died for their sins and how I was raised from the grave and how I've changed your life. You tell them that, but that won't save them. What will save them is the Holy Spirit's power that will empower your witness. That will open their hearts, open their ears to hear. And here's where I want you to start.
I want you to start where you are. I want you to start at home. I want you to start in Jerusalem. That's the hardest place though. Lord, I'd rather talk to a stranger than to talk to my mother in law.
Now he says, I want you to start at home. Then the larger area of Judea and then Samaria, which is near, but it's a people different from you. It's the people on the other side of the railroad tracks from you and then to a whole world.
Here's what he's basically saying, I want you to wait here and pray. And they waited for ten days, right? They prayed and the Holy Spirit came on them in tongues of fire. And Peter goes out preaching because our witness is like a lamp that hasn't been plugged in.
If we don't have the Holy Spirit empowering it, we have to plug in.
This is the second essential; The spiritual habit of witnessing. Here's the third: We've said prayer is the first essential; power from the Holy Spirit is the second.
3. Proclamation. Boldly speak of Jesus to others.
The third is proclamation. They boldly speak of Jesus to others. We're at the final part of verse 31. It says, 31 “And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.” As a result of their prayer, as a result of the Holy Spirit moving and shaking them up, it says they continued to speak the word of God with boldness. They went out and they continued.
It was their habit. It was their way of life. They continued in it. They proclaimed Jesus everywhere they went. Here's Paul again talking to the church at Colossae.
Look what he says. Colossians 1:28 (NLT) “So everywhere we go, we tell everyone about Christ. We warn them and teach them with all the wisdom God has given us, for we want to present them to God, perfect in their relationship to Christ.” Everywhere we go; this Paul is crazy for Jesus.
Everywhere we go, we tell everyone about Jesus.
You know, some of us are sitting here right now and you have a friend that you've been talking to for a little while now. You've been getting to know each other and it's already past the point where it's going to feel really awkward to talk to them about Jesus because if he was really that important to you, you would have already told them about Him.
You need to boldly go ahead and break the ice on that one. Stop beating around the bush. Tell them who you are. Tell them your new identity in Jesus. That should be something.
It
probably should have been one of the first conversations that you had. A good conversation. Really? Really. It gets easier from there on out because I tell everyone everywhere we go.
I don't have my phone with me, but I've got notes in my phone. And some of you are going to think I'm crazy, but I'm not crazy. I'm just getting old and I forget things. Maybe I'm a little crazy. I'm crazy for Jesus.
And I'll go to a restaurant and I'll ask the waitress, hey, you're new here. I eat here a lot, on Tuesdays or whatever. What's your name? Well, my name is, you know, Susie or whatever. Hey, Susie, we're getting ready to pray for our meal.
Is there anything we can pray for for you? And I'll often have someone just start crying right there. Like she start crying and then tells me. I was at Fuji, the Asian restaurant over in the Staples strip over there, and I was talking to a young lady last year, Chinese girl, and asked her, and she said, I left my child, my son, in China in order to come here and make money, and I haven't seen him for a year. She started crying, which, if you ever work with the Asians, that's a very rare thing for them to expose emotion like that. And I said, what's his name?
And what's your name? She told me her name, something like, Sally. And I said, yeah, but what does your mother call you? And then she said it, and I went, okay, I'll call you Sally. I couldn't pronounce it, but I typed in.
And I typed in what I was praying for. And so what I'll often do is I'll sit in my car before I go into Fuji, before I go into Porfirio's, before I go into… You fill in the blank. Those are close to me where we work here, right? And I'll sit in the car and I'll go, okay, I'm looking for Susie.
So when I see her, I'm going to go, how's your son? Have you heard from him? Because I'm forgetful and I'm trying to keep where I'm at with the progress report of these people I'm talking to about Jesus and my fishing holes. And by the way, I get a good meal while I'm there, too, which is okay. Am I bragging about myself?
No, I'm just telling you. I'm a forgetful old guy that tries to love on people and I can't remember their names and sometimes I can't pronounce their names. But I could pray. I can ask God to stretch forth his hand and do something in China for someone that's here. Can you do that?
Yes, you can do it in the name of Jesus. It can turn into an adventure for you. Everywhere you go, everywhere you eat, everywhere you buy something, everywhere you work. Tell everyone about Jesus. Peter says this.
He says, 1 Peter 3:15 (NIV) “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” Always be prepared. So we pray first.
God give me opportunities. Open the door of people's ears and hearts to hear and then God empower me to speak so I have clarity of speech and I know what to say that's unique, the thing that that person needs to hear about Jesus from me and then do it. Then obey and watch God move. Watch God use you. Watch him stretch forth his hand and save people and heal people and rescue people.
I dare you, I dare you to start talking about Jesus every day to somebody that needs to hear his name.
Let's pray. Father, thank you for Jesus. For there's no other name given under heaven by which we might be saved. And I speak the name of Jesus now over those that are listening. Have you ever given your life to Jesus?
Right where you're at, right in your seat, answer that question. Have you ever given your life to Jesus? You can pray with me right now. You can surrender your life to Jesus. Pray like this.
Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. I've been living my life according to my own will, my own plan. But today I repent of my sin and I turn my life to you. I believe you died on the cross for me, for my sins. That you were raised from the grave.
I believe that. And that you live today. I believe it. Lord, I invite you now to come into my life as my Lord and Savior. I surrender my life to you.
Forgive me of my sins. Make me a child of God. I want to follow you all the days of my life. If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing you can just say thank you right now. Because he hears your prayer and he's ready to change your life and to save you.
Maybe you're a believer and you've already given your life to Jesus. Would you pray as the first century Christians prayed? Lord, would you handle what I'm facing right now? You know my troubles. You know the trials I face.
You know what's heavy on my heart. But I don't want to camp out there right now, Lord. I've heard your word, Lord. Grant me opportunities to talk about you to people far from God. Forgive me for losing my passion.
Forgive me for losing my love and my fire. Right now, Lord. Fill me afresh. Shake me up. I want to talk about you to others everywhere I go, to everyone I see.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Audio
Good morning, church. Welcome to our 10 year anniversary. We're so thankful for you this morning. So thankful you're here. We've just about broke our whole system this morning with everything we're trying to do.
So if you normally come, you know, we're a little. Normally our transitions are a little bit better than this, but maybe I'm the only one that cares about that. I hope. But I'm very thankful for you being here today. If you're new here, this is a little different than what we normally do together.
We don't have all of these features every week, but today is a great day to be here. We had breakfast for you. We have lunch afterwards. All right. So please, if you can stick around, we've got plenty of food for you.
We've got bouncy houses out back, I think, although I haven't seen them yet. I think they're back there. Has anybody seen them? They're there. Praise God.
You know, I'm drumming and if you can play drums, let me know after service. I don't care if it's your first Sunday. I'd love to know, but what a great day to be with the Lord Jesus in community. And I'm very thankful for a bunch of people. Let me give a shout out to a handful of people.
First and foremost, the Capellettis have done an incredible amount of work. If you don't know them, that's Christy and James. They're running around, they're cooking, they making things, they got the tent for us, the canes, who Only half of them are here. Kendra and Michael are very thankful for them. There's been people all.
Izzy. I don't know where I think she might be serving. She's apparently the balloon master. So if y' all need balloons pumped up. I'm just saying she's pretty good at it.
But anyway, there's been people working all over the building and my tech team today, I thank you. You know, it's been a morning, but we're having a great time. We're finishing up a series together. And if it's your first time with us, don't worry. These have all kind of stood alone in a way.
And so we've been going through this series called the Power of Spiritual Habits, the Power of Spiritual disciplines, if you will. And we've talked about our devotional life, our fellowshipping together, even our generosity. We've been talking about these things for six weeks now. So you've come on the tail end. Totally fine.
But we're picking up today on the habit of witness. And that's where we're going to finish next week. If you come back, we're going to jump back into the book of Hebrews. We've been working through that for several years. We are finishing Hebrews together this fall.
And so I know that will be a blessing to you, so please come back and check that out. But this morning we're digging into our last spiritual habit and there are many more than the seven that we've worked on. But these were just some big topics that we wanted to deal with with you. And so I want to remind you of something and I want this to be so I want you to hear this above all things this morning. Spiritual habits, spiritual disciplines are not ends.
They are means towards an end. So what I mean by that is your devotional life, your prayer life, these are not the end goal. The end goal is what? To know and worship and enjoy Christ forever. That you would learn Christ likeness, that you would spend quality devotional time with him.
And witness is no different. It's not like the end of once I finally become the perfect Christian, just so you know, that never happens. When Christ comes and takes us home, perhaps we will finally be without sin and we will finally know what that means. But until then, we're working towards that destination. So witness is not like the final boss of your spiritual life.
It's just one of many habits that lead you and help you learn more about who Christ is in your life. So I pray that you can hear this this morning and yield to the Spirit as he works on you and on your heart. And the series theme has been for this whole series out of Ephesians chapter 4, it says, instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature, created to be like God, truly righteous and holy. So that's my prayer for you, that's my hope for you, is that you will let the Spirit lead you and renew your thoughts and attitudes, such then you can become the witness that Christ has made you to be.
This is a spiritual habit. I don't know if you've ever heard it put this way before, but your witness is one of your spiritual disciplines. I'm not sure if you've thought of it that way, but I pray after today you would consider this, that witnessing is a part of what it means to be a believer and a part the process of being in faith, that we would also share our faith. And so what is witnessing? Well, here's one of the simplest definitions I've ever heard.
I was in Campus Crusade for Christ when I was in college. And so I studied a lot of the material that Bill Bright put out. He's the one who founded that. But this is a very simple explanation. He says witnessing is simply taking the initiative to share Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God.
It is very simple, although it is very frightening for some of you. It is terrifying. And so I want to give you, really develop something for you today that I hope will not only relieve that tension, but also encourage you to live out the purpose that God's really called you to and to be. So why witness? Here's four really quick reasons and then we're going to dig into our text.
First of all, Christ commanded it. Christ commanded it. I recited this verse earlier when we were doing baptism together, and that's out of Matthew 28. We call that the Great Commission. But it also appears again in Mark 16 where it says, he said, he here is Jesus.
He said to them, go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. This is the instruction he gave to his disciples and now to us, his modern day disciples. He commanded it. Here's a second quick reason. Because people are lost without Jesus.
It's simple, but it's true. They're walking blindly without salvation in Christ. Acts 4:12 says, There is salvation in no one else. There is no other name in all of heaven for people to call on to save them. Did you know that verse was in the Bible?
There's salvation in no one else but Jesus. Number three. A third quick reason is because Christ's love compels us. It compels us. It pushes us.
2 Corinthians 5 says, Christ's love compels us because we are convinced that one died for all and therefore all died. And so in Christ Jesus we have this love pushing us. And then the last reason, and this is the reason that I want to dig on today, it's because it is necessary for our spiritual growth. It is necessary for our spiritual growth. I don't know if you've considered this before.
I pray today we'll encourage you in this. It says in Philemon 1:6, I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ. There's something powerful that happens in your life when you say yes to Jesus and telling others about the gospel. Something powerful happens. It's like when you go from being the learner, the student, to being the teacher.
Some of you have had this opportunity in your workplace, maybe some of you are teachers. I guarantee what you've learned is this. You get, you learn, you embrace so much more when you have to tell others when you have to teach it. Because then you have to kind of be ready for that little kid. If you're a teacher, you gotta be ready for that little kid to ask you something you've never thought of.
And kids will do that. They will ask the most absurd stuff. And you gotta be ready for that and be poised for that. And that's what begins to happen in, in your witness too. That the more you do it, you start to encounter people who have different thoughts, different observations that actually grow your faith.
So this is where I want to dig in today. That the fourth reason is our focus. The habit of witness affects our spiritual growth. Now here's a couple of statistics and then we're going to dig quite into this thing. According to Barna, which does a lot of research on churches, only 73% of born again believers believe that they have a responsibility to share their faith.
That means about a quarter of believers believe they have no responsibility to share their faith. First of all, that is simply not true. Based on what we've already read together, there is a push from Christ to be disciples who share their faith. And this is an even more challenging statistic. Only 52% say that they actually shared their faith with someone this past year.
So clearly inside of the church. Now that may not be our church. I have no idea. I've not done some kind of survey on our church with this. But it, I bet is the case that many of you are scared or there might be a variety of reasons why you've not shared your faith much in your life.
And I want to encourage you this morning not out of a sense of guilt, but out of sense of God is ready to do something miraculous in your life if you'll let him. If you'll, as we said earlier, yield. So let me relieve the tension for just a second, okay? I already know why so many of you haven't shared your faith much. There's reasons that we all have in common.
Maybe a big one that I hear from a lot of people is this. They fear that a question will be asked that they can't answer. They're afraid they don't have enough knowledge. I'll refute that right away. Let me just tell you this.
When you tell somebody else, hey, you know what, I don't know the answer to that one yet, but I'm going to look in to it and let's talk again. I've never, ever encountered someone or met someone that said, oh, you don't know this answer now? I'll never listen to you again. I've never met that person. Instead, it seems like most people would give you enough grace to say, okay, well, bring that back to me, because I've been wondering that a long time.
Or rejection. Maybe they fear that the person won't like them anymore. That could be the case. That's a legitimate fear, similar to a disapproval that maybe I'm going to come across as too religious or uncool. You're uncool already.
Let me just give you that. I mean, it's. It's. You know, at some point you become uncool. It's happened to me now.
My kids call me Unk sometimes. So I'm like, what is going on? What's going on here? And I am a little. I am a little.
I'm having some leg pains lately. I'm full on broke. But, yeah, it happens to all of us eventually. You know what, though? Let me just point this out.
Let me put this out to you. I think even when I was in high school, I was a little bit goofy. I don't think I've ever been cool. And guess what? Most people aren't.
When I interact with teenagers that call me Unk, let me just tell you this. They are not cool. They say ridiculous things. They don't know what they're talking about, but they also think that of me. So guess what?
We're all uncool. So let's just stop worrying about that part. But I get it. Hey, that disapproval can be. It may even seem impolite to discuss Christ.
I found, though, something interesting just to point out. Discuss the person of Jesus instead of the church or religion. Something's more powerful there. Let's talk about Christ. Let's talk about the Resurrection.
Those things seem to be a better place to spend your time than Baptist or this denomination. Those things are. I try to stay away from those. Or perhaps, and this is some of you in the room. Let me just go ahead and relieve the tension.
I'm an introvert. I don't really want to talk to anyone. I know who you are. I know who you are because we've never talked. Right?
I'm just kidding. I'm a bit of an introvert, too. I have to really push myself by the grace of God to do beyond that. And so let's dig in today. I hope that today will not only relieve those tensions, but also encourage and challenge you to yield to the Holy Spirit in your life.
Because guess what? Here's what I know is true. This is just a fact. I cannot be in your workplace to share the gospel and no one else can. And if you think it's an accident that God put you in the position you're in, you'd be wrong, my friend.
He put you where you are to be the light in your workplace and no one else. Now, you might can ask him, and I would encourage you to do so. Why did you choose me to be in this? That's a fair question and he's not going to hesitate to answer it. You'll immediately start to feel something.
God, hey, why me? I've asked him that many times for this role. Like God, why me? I feel very much like I'm not the right guy sometimes. And I bet you feel that way.
But I can't be where you are and none of the rest of us can. He's uniquely gifted you and called you to be a witness right where you are. So hear that? We're going to be in the book of Acts, chapter four together today. I know that this is going to encourage you.
We're going to be here reading from the writer Luke here, who writes and records the early church. That's what the book of Acts is all about, is the early history of the first century church. And here he recorded that the first century believers were committed to witnessing to others about Jesus. They were committed regardless of persecution, regardless of fears. And these are legitimate fears, my friends.
There are real things out there that would cause you to run from this. But they decided to stay committed and the church. Guess what happened? The church exploded. It is because of the first century church that you and I are in this room today.
So I'm very thankful for them. But there's another generation that's going to be thankful for you, my friend. There's another generation coming that's going to be thankful you said yes and yielded to the Holy Spirit. So let's dig in. We're going to see how we can cultivate a habit of witnessing to others about Jesus.
And I believe the text will give three essential reasons we can cultivate this habit. So let's dig in a few verses out of Acts chapter four. It says, Let me go to my next page here. Acts 4. 29.
It says, Now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal. And signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant, Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. This is God's word. Amen.
I pray this encourages you today that you would feel that you can yield to what the Spirit's doing in your life right now. Three essentials for cultivating the habit of witness. The first one, and maybe the main one. This is the starting point, the middle point, the end point. It's a big point.
And that is we start with prayer. Prayer, the number one essential to yielding to the Spirit in the habit of being a witness to be an evangelist in your workplace, among your family. It starts with prayer, asking God to grant you witnessing opportunities, to give you the right words, to give you the wisdom to know how to say it. Prayer. Look what it says.
It says, after they prayed, verse 31. Look what it says, Lord. Verse 29, Lord, look upon their threats. This whole thing is a prayer. Prayer, my friends, is not a footnote to evangelism.
It is not. It is the foundation. It is the starting point. It's the plow, if you will, that prepares the soil for other people to hear. Long before someone says yes to Jesus, you've probably been praying for them.
Some of you have been praying for family members for years. One day they're going to come to faith, and you're going to remember the time spent just asking Lord, please. And it'll be even more outstanding when he shows up. It seems we do this thing here at our church, and I would encourage you on your way out, there's this little table off to the right that has just a few of these little envelopes. And on those, they're orange.
It says it's time. But inside it says long shots. Some of you need to write that down. Today. There's somebody in your life that is a long shot.
It seems impossible for them to come to faith. In fact, I want you to write that name down and put it in that bucket. And we're praying for those every week. I go by that thing every week and just put my hand on it and pray. I don't know who's in there, but I'm with you.
We're praying together. There's some people that are going to come to faith. And where does it start? It starts with prayer, asking God, hey, not only would you move and stir their heart, but give me an opportunity. This is where the disciples.
This is where the early church Began their ministry in prayer. Look what it says in verse 29. It says, Lord, look upon their threats. They don't waste any time worrying about what's going on around them. You gotta really love this.
You gotta love their approach. Because I have to admit something to you. I would be terrified. Guess who's in the room? They get captured for speaking the name of Jesus among the Sanhedrin, among some of the same people that tried and crucified Jesus and Peter and John and whoever else there is in their group, their entourage together.
They get taken and they are told, stop speaking that name. And they just say, well, who are we to listen to you? We have to listen to God. We have to do what God tells us. And they just keep on speaking boldly.
These are the same men that just crucified their Savior. I gotta tell you something. Maybe I'm not quite where they are. I want to be. I gotta admit something.
There are times where I'm like, lord, can you please remove this thing from my life? Whatever this thing is, it's too hard, it's too tough. It's causing me stress, and I complain and I'm anxious and, God, take it away. That's not how they pray. Do y' all see how they pray?
Hey, God, you see that over there? I'm gonna leave that to you. What a cool way to pray. Instead of, hey, God, would you do something about the Sanhedrin? Just go ahead and remove them and just toss them over there, right?
Just go ahead and put them right in the sea. I'm done with them. That's how you and I might pray. And I don't blame you for that, my friend. That's not how they pray.
God, look on their threats. But for us, for us, let us preach a boldness. That's the only thing they pray for themselves. They don't pray. Hey, remove the obstacles.
Remove that terrible boss in my life that is making my life miserable. It's not what they pray. Hey, God, you see that? He's making it difficult to be a Christian. But God, you look upon him, Help me to preach, to speak your word with boldness.
That's a different way to pray. Lord, I'm heading home. Some of you, the season is coming, right? We start getting deep in the fall, and the season comes where you start being with family. And some of you are praying about that already because it's hard.
Thanksgiving doesn't always feel so thankful. Christmas is tough, right? And you gotta do it like you just feel like. And every year, you and your Spouse get together and go. I wish we could just stay home.
I know a lot of you are out here. I get it. What would it look like instead to start saying, look on their threats. God, go ahead and look at my mom or my uncle or my sister, my sibling, whoever it is that makes this so difficult. God, would you see that?
Help me to just be a light when I go home over the holidays. Help me to speak your word with boldness. That workplace, I bet you're bumping into people, a lot of you, that reject who you are. God, look on their threats. I love this.
Instead, he says in verse 29, Grant to your servants the word servants. Here is the word, Doulos. Most often in the New Testament. This is translated slave bondsman, servant of the Lord. He says, grant to your slaves, your servants.
We are servants of no one else but you. Lord Jesus, give us boldness. I love this freedom in speaking. Speaking what? He says, your word.
That is the gospel, the word of God. We are out here, and you know what they're getting in trouble for? They're getting in trouble for one thing, really. It's this one name. And this one name.
We just sang about it. I speak Jesus. There's something special about it. There's something powerful going on when you speak that name. And the Sanhedrin are saying, stop saying that name.
Who are we to tell God, no, we're going to keep going. Help us to speak your word with boldness. The name, the gospel of Christ. The Apostle Paul asked the Colossians to pray for open doors for the Gospel. This is a consistent theme, if you look through the New Testament, of praying, praying, praying for us to have opportunities to witness, not praying for the removal of hard things.
That's there sometimes, but most often it's open doors. Colossians 4, it says, at the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the Word to declare the mystery of Christ. On account of which I am in prison, that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak. Why in the world is Paul not saying, pray for me to get out of prison? It's not there.
Pray for me to have an opportunity to speak the Gospel although I'm in prison. Well, pray to get out of prison. Nope. Y' all know this other prison story with Paul? There's another one.
The jailer comes to faith. Some of the inmates probably come to faith. God blows the doors open. Your situation is on purpose, my friend. You're where you're supposed to be.
Say yes and yield to the Holy Spirit in your life. He's put you where he wants you to share the faith, right where you are. I love it. This is how the men of God prayed in the New Testament. It's how the men of God, the people of God still pray.
There's a couple of wonderful stories. I don't want to read these completely out because they are rather long, but they happen later in the book of Acts. Acts, chapter eight. And then in Acts chapter 16, there's this wonderful story in Acts chapter eight where Philip is praying and seeking the Lord. And the Lord tells him exactly where to go.
He's not out, like canvassing randomly. No. He's asking God, what would you have me do? And the Holy Spirit tells him, hey, go over to that chariot and speak the word of the Lord to him. And the Bible goes on to say that that man came to faith and they were baptized there.
And then something really cool happens. You need to read this story. Acts, chapter 8. All of a sudden, Philip is just taken to another place, like 30 miles away. I don't know what's going on there.
That's pretty cool. That's never happened to me, but I'm longing for it, alright. I just want to be sharing the faith with somebody. They come to faith and then, boom, I'm in Wilson or I'm somewhere else. That would be sweet.
I don't know if it'll happen. God doesn't do a lot of encores. He does other things. So Philip. The story, though, is Philip's responding to the Gospel.
Paul is also in prayer that he might continue. Did you know when Paul first starts his missionary journeys, he's trying to go east, he's trying to go towards Asia. And God provides him a dream that there's a man in Macedonia calling to him and he prevents him from going this way. Now, why that is, I don't know. We'd have to really pray and ask the Lord why.
But he has his reasons. Instead, he calls Paul towards Greece, towards Macedonia. And then the church explodes. But it all began with prayer. Do you see this?
The people of God are praying for open doors. So, friends, the first essential to the spiritual habit of witnessing is your prayer life. Devote yourself to prayer. It's not a footnote to your evangelism. You want to see people come to faith around you.
You want your kids to come to faith. You should be praying every day. You should never tire of praying for your children. I don't care if they're one or 21, be in prayer for them and their faith. Be in prayer for your families, for your co workers.
It starts with prayer. You got it. I hope so. I'm done with this point, so I don't know. I hope you got it.
Here's the second essential power. I like this one. Prayer's fun. I want some power, too. Look at how they prayed, and look at what they're asking for.
They're asking for the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God, for the Lord himself to empower their witness. I got to admit something to you, Church. I've not prayed much like this in my life, but I'm going to start working on that. They come out and say, hey, Lord, look at their threats. But give us just one thing.
Grant us just one thing. Let us speak with boldness. But then, Lord, you do something only you can do. You stretch out your hand to heal. You do signs and wonders, O Lord Jesus, you show yourself off.
What a way to pray. Hey, Lord, if people want proof, you be their proof. I can't do it. Guess what, Church? Your words will never be enough to prove the truth of the gospel to anyone.
They never will. The Holy Spirit of God has to come and move. Apologetics is a class I really loved in seminary, and I think it really can build your faith. But you can know all the details of how to deal with an atheist or an agnostic and all the details about how to deal with other world religions. But guess what?
Words will never save the Holy Spirit of God. Will and can and does. This is how they're praying. Let us speak with boldness. Yes, God, but you, please, Lord, heal.
Stretch out your hand for your name's sake. This is all here in verse 30. I love what Barnes one commentator writing on this says. He says the apostles not only desired boldness to speak, but they asked that God would continue to work miracles and thus furnish to them and to the people evidence of the truth of what they delivered. Y' all ever prayed like this, God?
You do something powerful in people's lives so that they would believe. Show them yourself and move them and stir them. And it's all around. What? Look at verse 30.
The name of Jesus, through the name of your holy servant, Jesus. There's power in the name. And guess what happens? They start praying like this. I don't think we'd be ready for this, Church.
I'm just going to go ahead and throw this out here. It says the place verse 31 was shaken. I think all of our electronics are already messing up. That would probably do them in fully Right. We'd be done today.
I just have to shout at you. That'd be pretty cool, though. We're in here praying together. Lord, make us bold. Lord, heal and make signs of wonders.
And all of a sudden, shaken. Almost every commentator I read on this agreed that this word here, shaken, probably means the idea of an earthquake, that suddenly the ground shook.
I've had some pretty amazing experiences with the Lord, but this one would have been pretty encouraging. To be with the church, to be with believers. And the building's rocking. It says then verse 31, they were filled with the Holy Spirit supplied. This is always going to be true, my friend.
This is why. This is one of these spiritual habits. This is one of these spiritual disciplines. Because at the end of the day, the goal in Christian life is to be filled with the Holy Spirit. That is the ultimate goal, to know God, to walk with him and be filled with the Holy Spirit of God.
Then the things we say, the moves we make, the way we think, it's all inspired by God. It changes us wholly completely. I've had people ask me before, if I come to this Jesus, if I come to Christ, is he going to change this stuff? Yeah. I'm not going to lie to you, my friend.
He probably wants to change everything. But look at you and look at me. We're a hot mess without him. Why don't we just go ahead and say yes? Let him begin to move and stir and change the things that we always were broken about and miserable about.
Let him in and yield to that. And something powerful happens. When we start saying yes to Jesus in our witness, when we start saying, okay, you can have that too. I'm afraid you lay all that at his feet. God, I'm afraid.
I don't know what's going to happen. My family might, like, disown me and push me out. My co workers. I'm not going to have any friends. I don't know what's going to happen.
You see how. Now this might cause you to grow in your faith. It causes you to trust, say, okay, it's up to you, Lord, it's up to you.
Acts 1:8 says this very plainly. That Jesus, before the ascension, he says, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and where the ends of the earth. We're in the ends of the earth now. We're not in any of those places. The gospel has gone to the ends and we get to be a part of that.
There's a lot of things operating in here today. There's this wonderful projector above me, right? All of these things are working. And there's lyrics on the screens because none of us know all the words. I mean, there's stuff happening all around us.
Guess what happens to. I'm just going to admit something to y'. All. Y' all might not know this because our band is great. I mean, they're solid.
But if the power goes out, we don't know a single one of these words. Hardly.
Christy might, but I don't. I don't have a clue. And what's even worse, y' all don't know this. We got these little numbers running at the bottom of that screen back there. They actually tell us what to play.
If you learn those numbers, now we know. Oh, that's a G. That one's a G. That's how bad we are. All right. I know they're exceptional, right? They're great.
But we have to admit something. The power goes out. It gets weird around here.
It could get good, too, you know, this is what's incredible about the gospel. What's incredible about our witness is some of us have tried this in the past. Some of us have tried to share our faith without the power of the Holy Spirit. We tried to do it as a box to check off. Maybe it was something you did back in Sunday school.
Maybe you were on a youth camp or something in the past, and the guys were shouting and say, hey, let's all. We're going to hit the streets. And I've been at youth camps like that, and you end up sharing your faith, and some poor guy at the door answers and dumbfounded by what you just told him. And that can work. I'm not belittling that.
That could work. But I know for me, sometimes it's checking off a box. I had a class, in fact, in seminary called Supervised Field Ministry, which sounds wild. Supervised Field Ministry. We all went out as a team to share our faith.
And we were getting. This is crazy, y'. All. Y' all are gonna think, man, this is some broken stuff. We were actually getting critiqued by someone.
There was. There was an instructor that was watching from a distance. How we did, how we presented was spooky.
And I don't think a lot of us had a lot of success that day. Now, I'm not saying God couldn't have done that. He could have. But here's. I know what was wrong with me.
I had to get an A on this class. That's no Reason to share your faith, my friend. God doesn't need you to share the gospel to save people. Do you understand that? He's saving people all the time, with or without you.
This is an opportunity for you to grow.
And I've had some wonderful experiences in my life. But I got to tell you, seeing someone else come to salvation is up there, maybe tops for me. Knowing this person, we're walking into eternity together. That's amazing. And how that builds my faith.
Remember this. It's the power of God. Invite people then just to the name. Invite them to Jesus. Tell them about the cross and the resurrection.
You don't have to know all the answers. I haven't studied every aspect of my Bible. That's okay. Just tell them about Christ and what he's done for you and start there. And here's the third essential, and this one makes a lot of sense.
Prayer, power and because I love you proclamation. You see in peace. It's because I love you, I care. Right? You're not going to remember these tomorrow, but you might.
Prayer, power and proclamation. Now do it boldly. Speak of Jesus to others. I love that in these just few verses we get the answer to prayer. Look at the very last sentence it says.
And they continued to speak the word of God with boldness. That's what they were praying for. And they very well did it. Awesome. Awesome.
This was the grace they had asked for in just a few verses before. And God gave it to them. And all the grace is necessary for them. Their threats didn't stop them. The fear.
Hey, there's some legitimate stuff for us to be afraid of. But we have to admit something. It was spookier then. It was life and death then. It's probably not generally life and death for us, although it is in other parts of the world.
It says they spoke boldly. Paul said that they talked about Jesus everywhere they went. In Colossians chapter one, it says, so everywhere we go, we tell everyone about Christ. Do you see his evangelism strategy? It's not, hey, what is the doctrine of justification?
Hey, can we talk about baptism? Hey, you can. You guys need to come to a good old Baptist church. That's not his way. Everywhere we go, everyone we meet, we talk to them about who, Jesus.
That's a good start. Now I'm not saying those doctrines, a lot of those super important redemption, justification, all of these things super important, and they're in the scriptures. But it begins with the name of Jesus. He says we warn them and teach them with all the wisdom God has given us for we want to present them to God, perfect in their relationship to Christ. And when we revere Jesus like this, we're always ready to talk about him.
Here's my prayer and has been my prayer for you all week. It starts getting way easier to talk about your faith when you just wholeheartedly fall in love with the Savior. Follow me for a second. This isn't a guilt trip. I'm not trying to make you feel ashamed.
But just consider this for just a moment. Some of you in the room have just started dating. You just got engaged, you just got married. You're new to some love. If I come up and ask you about him or her, I don't even, let's be honest, I don't even have an ask.
I can come up. Just say, how's life going? What's new? You gotta meet.
This is the best thing that's ever happened to me. I don't even have to work at it to find out what you care about. You see what I'm saying? When you fall in love with something, hey, you first start a job. That's finally the thing you studied for the career you've been hungry for.
And you finally get in there. It truly is the thing you were purposed and made to do. And then I ask you, hey man, how's life? I love my work. I'm doing something important.
Or conversely, if you absolutely hate it, you can't help but talk about it then too.
What does that mean? What does that mean? It's about passion. It's about the fire.
So what am I saying? What are you saying, Jonathan?
When you find your heart set on Jesus, witness just becomes breath. Do you see what I'm saying to you? The Savior of the world took on the cross so that you and I could be free. Not just now, but forever. We get eternity of freedom.
Brokenness paid for. The pains of your past dealt with the messed up stuff you've yet to do, paid for. You understand the cost of the cross. The more you spend time with him. And this is true in your relationships, the more you spend time with people that you love and really devote yourself in those relationships, the more you talk about it.
I just pray church that you would find your passion in Christ Jesus. Because part of your spiritual act of worship is witness. These things are not to be separated. It's not like, hey, one moment, I can be praising on the way to work. I've got my tunes on, I've cranked it up and I'm praising.
I speak Jesus all the way to work. And then I get in the doors and I don't speak Jesus. It's confusing. I just want you to know, stop separating the two. You can come in humming it.
I'm not quite ready to sing it, but come in humming. What you humming over there? God's really moving in my life today. It's not that. I mean, we'd make it overly complex speaking in the car and in the.
And then some of you speaking on the way home. Because, boy, you really need to get back into worship on the way back from work before you come into your homes and totally just claymore all of your children. Like, ah, today was awful. Speak Jesus on the way home, too.
This Christian life was never meant to be dissected like we're waffles or something. Supposed to compartmentalize every part of this. No, it's all meant to just bunch together my worship and my praise and my prayer and my devotional life. It all just mingles together.
These three essentials match so well with the church's early history. If you go back and read the chapters before Acts 4, and I would encourage you this week, if you're looking for something to study, study Acts, the book of Acts, from one on. And you're going to just be moved and stirred in the way God has called them and in the way they reacted. But in Acts chapter one, it says what we read earlier that you will receive power. Holy Spirit's going to come on you.
You're going to be my witnesses everywhere. And then guess what they did next. Jesus tells them, hey, go back to Jerusalem and. And stay there until the Spirit falls. Stay there.
This is what's fascinating is they go back and they prayed for 10 days and then they spoke. I've said this before. Some of you have been around long enough. We get that backwards. We'll preach and we'll praise and we'll do all that for 10 days.
But we only spoke or we only prayed for a few minutes. Understand the pattern of the early churches. Pray a ton and then preach. And that's our pattern should be pray a ton and then speak boldly. Then the Spirit came in Acts chapter two.
And then Peter preaches in Acts chapter two, and 3,000 people get saved. Now you can ask some really interesting questions there. It's like God told them. Christ told them, hey, wait until the Spirit falls. And when the Holy Spirit comes upon you guys, then you go preach.
Now, why did he wait 10 days? Just so you know, if you ever ask the Bible a why question you may not get that answer. Alright. They're not always there and I'm not sure what the answer is other than this. I think the Lord Jesus wants us to really be devoted in our prayer.
Spend a lot of time with him in humility and then he moves. Incredible. This third essential is about relying on the power being in prayer. And then finally, when the timing's right, proclaiming. And we will know that the first century believers were threatened to stop speaking this name.
I want to give you one application today. All right, These points, if you notice these three essentials. Normally if you come here, I give you these like really applicable points. This time I gave you these three words and they are certainly application. But let me encourage you to try one thing this week.
It's going to be a little spooky. Alright, one thing. Try to bring up the name of Jesus every day to someone outside of the faith. Just try to bring up the name Jesus every day this week. I got a feeling if you'll come back to church next week, we're going to hear some stories.
We're going to hear some stories. Oh, Jonathan, I don't know. What does that even mean? Just what's he doing in your life? What's your walk with Christ looking like right now?
Find a way to weave it into some conversation this week. Just one a day. It might get to be so fun. You'll do it more than once a day. But I'd love to hear how God moves in your life.
I got a feeling if you'll say yes to that first challenge. When we have a passion for Jesus, when we love him above all others, we get this kind of boldness. When we decide to cultivate a spiritual habit of witness, incredible things begin to happen. So will you do these three things this week? Pray.
Pray diligently. Rely on the power of Christ. Ask him to move. Lord Jesus, I say yes. I'm going.
Sorry, that was spooky. I'm going to speak your name every day. Would you now move? Pray like the disciples prayed? God, you stretch out your hand, all I have is words.
Will you move? Pray like that. And then boldly proclaim, he's with you. Let me end with this final verse. We recited it earlier in baptism.
We talked about the Mark passage. You know what Jesus says in the Great Commission? All power has been given to me, all authority. So go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And he ends by saying this.
And behold, I am with you. Always to the very end of the age. He's with us. Fear not, friends. Pray boldly.
Let's pray now together. Heavenly Father, thank you so much. That you are a good and gracious and merciful God, that you love us and set us free. That the whole reason for our witness, the whole reason that we can't seem to be quiet about Jesus is because of what you've done. God, I was far from you, a broken man and I've done many things wrong.
And that is your congregation today. That is this church. We come here broken, having made mistakes, and yet Christ Jesus, you saved us and set us free. I pray that that would so encour encourage us today that we would be so reminded of that today, that it would embolden our speech, that we would have such a heartfelt passion for what Christ has done, is doing and will do in our life that we can't help but speak up God, would you do that in your people? I'm convinced of this, Lord, no matter what we try outreach wise, the tools we use to try to reach people online in the city and the loving actions we do where we give and we're generous and all of those things are great and they're useful.
But God, nothing has changed since the church started. Your most powerful tool of bringing people to faith is your people, us.
Embolden your people now that in their workplaces they are the one true light, that you put them there for a specific purpose, to bear witness of your good gospel. Would you encourage them, remove their fears, help them to lay that at your feet so that they could say yes, God, I will be your witness in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, to the ends of the earth. I'm going to do it in my home, I'm going to do it in my community, I'm going to do it in my workplace. I'm going to do it as far as you tell me to go, Lord, it's a yes from me. God, I pray your people would say that today and as a result that you would move and stir in their life.
We pray boldly as a church today. Would you stretch out your hand in Rocky Mount, God, with healing, with signs, with wonders. Would you do miracles in our city so that people would know that it was the name of Jesus, that it was the great gospel? They would know it and they would come to faith, do the part only you can do and bringing men to yourself. We pray boldly that Lord Jesus and help us simply to speak your word boldly, pray all these things in Jesus name.
Amen.