The Promise & Provision of Power

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." (Matthew 28:18–20)

...for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now... But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:5, 8)

The book of Acts is unfinished—and you are part of the story God is still writing by His Spirit.

Christ Will Accomplish His Mission Through His Church

Over the last several weeks here at Cross Connection we've been talking about the church—not just this church specifically, but the larger body of Christ. One of the points we looked at was that Christ will accomplish His mission through His church. That's a good reminder. I was on the Joshua Project website recently; they have researched unreached peoples throughout the world for many years, and by their calculation there are still nearly 6,889 people groups unreached by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Yet we know scripturally that God will accomplish His mission through His church.

We also saw that the church is God's plan for restoration. The overarching story of the Bible breaks into four chapters: creation, the fall, redemption, and restoration. We're in the middle of that redemptive chapter, where God is writing His story and leading us toward that great day of restoration. He will use the body of Christ—His people, called and empowered by Him—to bring the gospel to all peoples.

From Tabernacle to Mobile Temple

Under the old covenant, the descendants of Abraham were instructed to build a tabernacle. God revealed the plans to Moses on Mount Sinai, gifted artisans like Bezalel and Aholiab to build it, and moved the hearts of the people to give gold, silver, skins, and more. The Levites bore the tabernacle from place to place, and God dwelt in the midst of His people. But under that arrangement, if you wanted to connect with God, you had to go to Him—seeking Him out and approaching Him through that tabernacle. It was an interim design, not a perfect one.

God had a plan to change from the old covenant to the new. On the night He was betrayed, Jesus took the cup and said, "This is the blood of the new covenant." Under this new covenant there is no physical temple for seekers to approach. Instead, God goes to us. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 3 and 6 that you and I are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Colossians 1:27 says Christ is dwelling in us. So now, for God to connect with humanity, we go—we take Him with us wherever we go.

Why does this matter? Paul tells us in Romans that there is none who seeks after God. If it were left up to us to make some pilgrimage to a temple, we would never go, because we will not seek for Him. But He seeks for us. Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost. So now God compels us, His people, to go and connect a lost and dying world with Him. We are His representatives, His ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5), the means by which the disconnected are connected with life found only in Christ. That is why the commissions are given in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Acts: Go.

The Ministry of Going Is for All Believers

The problem is that we tend to think "going" only means going somewhere far away—that we're only really going if we board an airplane, spend ten to fifteen hours in flight, go through customs, and carry a passport. But the fulfillment of that command happens every single day through our lives. When you step out your door, you're going. You're on mission for the Lord.

The ministry of going is for all believers, at all times, in all places. We've been seduced—I think by the enemy, and it fits our comfort-loving flesh—into thinking that "going" only happens on a short-term or long-term mission trip. But even if you never buy a passport (and I encourage you to), even if you never board an airplane, you are still going in fulfillment of Christ's command, empowered by His Holy Spirit. The word in Matthew 28 carries the sense of as you are going—as you're on the path, engage people with the truth of who Christ is.

We also wrongly assume this command is only for the professionals—those with seminary degrees or the titles missionary, pastor, or minister. But this work goes on in fire stations, police stations, corporate offices, college campuses, construction sites, coffee shops, the tennis court, the gym, the gas pump, the grocery store. If you're a lawyer, you represent Christ in your practice. If you're a carpenter, you're in good company—Jesus was a carpenter. The same goes for the teacher, the engineer, the architect, the banker, the mechanic, the retail clerk, the hairdresser, the postman, the trash man, and the stay-at-home mom.

Moms, your children were born disconnected from God. You're there to be His representative in their lives, to introduce them to Jesus. Maybe God will one day call you out of your Jerusalem to the uttermost parts—or maybe not. No matter how small your Jerusalem seems, God has called you and gifted you to be a light there. Sometimes I come home to four screaming kids, and my wife feels trapped—her Jerusalem feels very small. But God has called her, gifted her, and commissioned her to be a light right there.

God Works Through Those Who Know Their Insufficiency

How many of us will admit we feel unable in ourselves to fulfill this commission? We do—and we should. I'm more concerned, and I think God is more concerned, when someone says, "I've got this." Consider Moses. At age 40 he thought he had it: schooled in all the wisdom of Egypt, able to lead, able to speak. God had to break that self-confidence out of him in the back side of the desert for forty years. When God finally came to him in his eighties and said, "Go tell Pharaoh, let My people go," Moses said, "I can't do that."

God is looking for people who recognize their complete inability, so He can show Himself mighty on their behalf—so that people who know you will say, "That's definitely not you; that's God." Paul writes:

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as being from ourselves, but our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant. (2 Corinthians 3:5–6)

Remember Peter. He only had that great catch of fish because Jesus enabled it—the great fishermen of the Bible never caught a fish without Jesus. Then Jesus said, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." He enables us to become what we cannot be on our own. The faster you recognize your insufficiency, the more quickly God can use you.

Returning to Acts: The Bible Is His Story

This truth is exactly why we're returning to the book of Acts. We started studying it five and a half years ago, in November of 2008. Some of you may say, "I didn't even know we were in Acts." That's because Acts is a history of the first thirty to forty years of the early church, and most of the New Testament letters were written during that timeline. So as we've gone through Acts, we've also gone chronologically through the epistles—James, Galatians, the two Thessalonian letters, the two Corinthian letters, and finally Romans, which Paul wrote at the end of his third missionary journey. That journey happens in Acts 19 and 20, which is where we return this morning.

The story zeroes in mostly on the apostle Paul, but he wasn't the only player. Imagine seeing what God did through Thomas, who went east to India, or through Bartholomew, Peter, John, and James. We only have one strand laid out for us, and look at the amazing things God did through this one man.

The Bible is history—it is His story. It's all about God's redemptive plan: creation, fall, redemption, restoration. We're in the middle of the redemptive chapter. My Bible labels this book "the acts of the apostles," but it really should be called the acts of God by His Holy Spirit in and through His people. It is a story of His glory and His power at work.

No Acts Without the Promise and Provision of Power

There would be no acts of the apostles without God's promise and provision of power. We are not sufficient in ourselves; we cannot accomplish the mission without His enabling power—the power He promised and then provided in Acts 2, when He poured out His Spirit at Pentecost. When Jesus said, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel," He knew that those 11 disciples—or even the 120—were completely insufficient. That's why He said, "Don't go yet. Wait until you are given power."

Some get hung up on the word apostle, just as we sometimes balk at the word saint. (One of the ladies called me "Saint Miles" this morning, and I laughed—but if you're saved by grace, you are a saint.) Boiled down, apostle means one who is sent with a message. We've all been commissioned and sent with a message; we're all ambassadors of Christ. And the empowering is for us. When the Spirit came in Acts 2, Peter said the promise was "for you and your children." All believers are baptized in the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:13) and empowered by His grace to accomplish what we never could on our own.

The Book of Acts Is Unfinished

Acts is the story of what God can accomplish through ordinary men and women who step out by faith, empowered by His Spirit. And it is unfinished. Look at how Acts 28 ends:

Then Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who came to him, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no one forbidding him. (Acts 28:30–31)

Does that sound concluded? No. The story simply leaves off with Paul preaching in Rome, the capital of the empire—and it continues through my life and yours. God is still writing the story of what He does through ordinary people empowered to do extraordinary things, and I guarantee it is being recorded in heaven. When we get there, I'm certain we'll see it played out. After ten thousand years, we'll have only begun to crack the first chapters of all God has done through His people over these two thousand years.

What We've Seen So Far in Acts

Since we began, we've watched the story move from the ascension of Christ to the birth of the church at Pentecost. We've seen God's power poured out equally on Jewish believers (Acts 2), Samaritan believers (Acts 8), and Gentile believers (Acts 10)—and most of us here are Gentiles. We've seen His power in preaching, taking fearful Peter and making him bold before the very leaders who condemned Jesus. We've seen healing of the lame, raising of the dead—Tabitha in Acts 9, Eutychus in Acts 20. We've seen apostles sprung from prison without the doors even opening (Acts 5). We've seen persecution come, and then God so powerfully save the persecutor, Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9). We've seen martyrs like Stephen and James, and missionaries like Saul, Barnabas, and Silas sent out (Acts 15).

We've seen churches planted in Lystra, Derbe, Antioch, Philippi, Berea, Thessalonica, Corinth, Colossae, Ephesus, and the cities of Revelation 2 and 3. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation, transforming people, people groups, and whole cities. In Acts 19, that power even brought down the idolatry industry in Ephesus, simply through the proclaiming of the truth—so much so that its leaders said, "We've got to get rid of this Paul." Awesome: the power of God resident in ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary things.

Paul's Journey Toward Jerusalem

This brings us to Paul's third missionary journey. After being barred earlier from Asia and Bithynia, then directed by a vision to Macedonia, Paul had preached and suffered much—stoned at Lystra, beaten and jailed at Philippi (where an earthquake led to the jailer's salvation), driven from Thessalonica, and planting churches at Berea and Corinth. On his third journey he went straight to Ephesus, teaching for more than two years at the school of Tyrannus, during which the seven churches of Asia—Smyrna, Philadelphia, Sardis, Thyatira, and others—were very likely planted, and the church at Rome established.

When the great riot over idolatry ended in Ephesus, Paul knew his time was done:

After the uproar had ceased, Paul called the disciples to himself, embraced them, and departed to go to Macedonia. (Acts 20:1)

He ministered to the Macedonian churches—Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea—then came to Greece (Corinth), where he stayed three months. During this period (very likely the winter of A.D. 57–58), he wrote the letter to the Romans and gathered a financial collection for the poverty-stricken saints in Jerusalem (2 Corinthians 8; Romans 15–16). He planned to sail for Syria and home to Antioch, then on to Jerusalem.

But when the Jews plotted against him as he was about to sail to Syria, he decided to return through Macedonia. (Acts 20:3)

We believe these plotters were Jewish assassins from Jerusalem, the sicarii—the "dagger men," who hid daggers under their cloaks and stabbed their victims in crowded marketplaces before slipping away. So Paul put his companions on a boat to Troas and went on foot to Philippi—a clandestine move.

Sopater of Berea accompanied him to Asia—also Aristarchus and Secundus of the Thessalonians, and Gaius of Derbe, and Timothy, and Tychicus and Trophimus of Asia. These men, going ahead, waited for us at Troas. (Acts 20:4–5)

Notice the word us. Why did Paul go back to Philippi? To pick up Luke, who by this time was the pastor of the church there.

But we sailed away from Philippi after the Days of Unleavened Bread, and in five days joined them at Troas, where we stayed seven days. (Acts 20:6)

Paul celebrated Passover at Philippi on March 13, A.D. 58—that's how specific the Scriptures are. Then came a five-day voyage to Troas, and a week's stay.

A Long Sermon and a Living Proof of Power

Now on the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul, ready to depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message until midnight. (Acts 20:7)

Note that the early church gathered on the first day of the week—Sunday—not the seventh. And if you think I'm long-winded, consider Paul, who preached until midnight.

There were many lamps in the upper room... And in a window sat a certain young man named Eutychus, who was sinking into a deep sleep. He was overcome by sleep; and as Paul continued speaking, he fell down from the third story and was taken up dead. (Acts 20:8–9)

There were people falling asleep during Paul's teaching—that gives me hope. But this man's sleep cost him his life. Paul went down, embraced him, and said, "Do not trouble yourselves, for his life is in him." Then he went back up, broke bread, and talked until daybreak. They brought the young man home alive, "and they were not a little comforted." No—they were greatly blessed, and so was Paul; otherwise he'd have spent years explaining how he preached a man to death.

Sailing Past Ephesus

Then we went ahead to the ship and sailed to Assos, there intending to take Paul on board; for so he had given orders, intending himself to go on foot. (Acts 20:13)

Paul walked a roughly 20-mile journey over treacherous ground while the others sailed. From Assos they came to Mitylene, past Chios, to Samos, and finally to Miletus.

For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus, so that he would not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hurrying to be at Jerusalem, if possible, on the Day of Pentecost. (Acts 20:16)

Pentecost—fifty days after Passover—was the birthday of the church, the day God poured out His Spirit on all flesh. Paul wanted to be there. So rather than linger at Ephesus, he called for its elders to meet him at Miletus, where he gave the address we'll study next week.

I take you through all of this because we need to recognize that these things actually happened. This is history—His story of what He has done through His people, empowered by His Spirit to accomplish extraordinary things for His glory. And He wants to use you and me to bring glory to Him and to continue the story. It is not complete. The book of Acts is unfinished.

Closing Prayer

Father, we thank You for Your grace—grace that enables us to be better people, to be Your representatives in a world that is dying and in need of light and life. God, work through us. Give us faith to step out of our comfort zone. As we step out of our homes tomorrow—going to a construction site, an office, or a school campus—Lord, enable us to be ambassadors. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.