His Power, Our Purpose, His Plan (Part 1 of 2)

0:00The first major theme of the Book of Acts is power, power. Without question, the person and the power of the Holy Spirit dominates acts. Like there's no question about that. The Holy Spirit is mentioned 50 times, 50 times throughout the Book of Acts. He is the reason again, the church sees what it sees. I want to be in the light as you are in the light. I want to shine with the stars in the head. For the Lord be my light and be my salvation. Because all I want is to be in the light. Yeah, all I want is to be in the light. Hello listeners and welcome to live in the light. We're so glad, as always, that you have tuned us in today wherever you may be, whether

1:04it's at home, at work, or maybe you're driving around. I'm the host of Living the Light, Craig Turnbull. And I wanted to introduce you to our speaker in Living the Light. He's our pastor, Robbie Simons. And Robbie, we are starting a brand new series today. And this is always fun when we get to dive into a new portion of God's Word. And it's in the Book of Acts. The first couple of chapters of Acts, in fact, we're looking at the church beginning lots of exciting stuff ahead. It is. And Craig, if we think about, I mean, what a year it has been. It seems like every year, right now you can say that about the current year, right? But I mean, it has been such a crazy year. And this is when God's Word will often speak the loudest and present itself as the clearest, most viable option for life. And that's why we're here. We have the message of Jesus Christ. And this is what the Book of Acts is doing. The Book of Acts was also positioned in a crazy, seasoned, crazy time, crazy year. And Jesus Christ builds this church in the midst of incredible opposition and like, in

2:07like unbelievable odds. And there they are. And the gospel goes forward and the church is advancing and the kingdom is being celebrated and proclaimed. It's just incredible. So I'm delighted for us and our listeners to be able to walk through these early chapters of Acts to remind ourselves of how it all began. Because when we remind ourselves of how it began, it fills us with faith and where we are for our future and just how awesome our God is. So yeah, we're going to chew on this. We pray slowly but meaningfully. And I pray that the Spirit of God has even learned about Him and how He can. The church had Pentecost and the verses that surround. I pray there will be such encouragement to you listening right now and fuel your faith and cause you to be fired up. This is the love of love and we need. We need the truth like never before. We need to get on the page of where God is at. We need to have our minds renewed. We need to have clarity and certainty and then allowing us to witness with such faith

3:09and boldness for us to come. So I said a lot right there but excited and thankful again for this opportunity to walk with you in these very, very important times. So Amen, right Craig Lord. Lead us, help us as we jump into Acts chapter one today. Amen, right. Acts chapter one we're going to look at the first 11 verses and the title of today's message is his power, my purpose, our plan. Just diving to God's word together here again is Pastor Rob. As you can imagine so much to say today and so little time but let's briefly introduce ourselves to the book of Acts. Okay. So one of my jobs right now is to introduce again with a message like this and a book like this before we get into the meat of our passage today. So what is Acts? The book of Acts is a continuation of the gospel of Luke. You should know that maybe you did not know that. We know that from Luke one and from Acts one where Paul or Luke indicates in his first

4:12book and then again that's affirmed in Acts chapter one where he reaffirms that as a wrote to you in the first book. We'll see that in just a few moments. So therefore Luke and Acts are written by Luke who was a physician or a doctor, a close friend again of the apostles. Acts is also a very unique book. It is unique in its history of the church. The book of Acts provides the first three decades of the early churches history that is found nowhere else in scripture in this way and therefore nowhere else in the world. There are major themes that are common kind of rise up from Acts where we get our tagline for our year. The first major theme of the book of Acts is power, power without question. The person and the power of the Holy Spirit dominates Acts. Like there's this, there's no question about that. The Holy Spirit is mentioned 50 times, 50 times throughout the book of Acts.

5:14He is the reason again that church sees what it sees. And there's perseverance. Perseverance is a major theme through the book of Acts of strengthening and encouraging and allowing the church to persevere. One of the patterns as we will document as we go, one of the patterns in Acts over and over again repeated is the gospel is preached. Lives are saved. The church adds to their number and immediately opposition comes against that growth. Then God intervenes and restuse and encourages his church to persevere and to not give up. And then the gospel is preached again and repeat cycle. That happens over and it's happening over and over again today as well. This is where we are as well within the church and we will be encouraged to persevere in the midst, especially in the midst of opposition. And then thirdly the theme of witness. So the reason the Holy Spirit has given, listen carefully. And the reason for perseverance is ultimately that we will be witnesses for Jesus Christ.

6:20I mean, that is the call again for us to go and make disciples. I mean, think about the Holy Spirit fills us now as a church and allows us to persevere. I mean, think about even this morning, every parking spot in the parking lot busy day, huh? Every parking spot in there is a form of being a witness for allowing people to know Christ. The pulpit, a witness for Christ. The cross, the large cross in the front of our building is thousands drive by every day. Is a witness for Christ. Every church we've planted is a massive form of being a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ to see new people saved and baptized and sent out from here and missions and missionaries and whatever all of that is resulting in being witnesses for Christ, which the Holy Spirit again wants more and more for this to happen within our lives. So these three themes, power, perseverance, witness, they will present themselves over and over again. And listen, these are the themes where we want to grow.

7:20So let's just stop even for a moment and take stock of where we are, right? Like, when you go to the gym and you set some goals and you're like, I'm this strong now, I want to be this strong in a year from now. I weigh this much now. I want to weigh this much a year from now. When you measure yourself, have I grow and have I gained strength? Have I improved from one year over the other? One of our kids was in athletics just recently and the coach came up and the coach said, see where they are today. But wait till the end of the season and see how much they've improved over that time as they seek to grow in their skills and development. How much more, how much more should followers of Jesus Christ? Where are you today? So again, stop and take stock right now. How are you doing with accessing being filled by the power of the Holy Spirit? How are we doing in perseverance and endurance and not giving up and clinging to Christ? How are we doing in our witness for Jesus?

8:25Are we afraid? Are we not witnessing at all? Are we seeking to press into the Lord and shine our light before others? See this takes stock of where you are September of this month and we go to about a year from now and God may you by your spirit cause us to look back and say, I remember where I was. But I remember why I am today by God's grace and by the power of the Holy Spirit. My call to endure the power of the Holy Spirit again, filling my life and then to be a witness and a light for the Lord Jesus Christ. Wow, has he taken this year? This is what we are seeking to do again as a church. So this is the opportunity in Acts. It's an amazing, it's an extensive book. Some of you like, so how exactly are we going to go through this large and extensive book? We're going to break this book up into six acts. Pretty clever, right? So what we're going to do is I want to show you right here is we're going to take the 28 chapters of Acts and we're going to break it into six separate series that constitute

9:26the whole. Okay? And every series will have its own theme, every series may have its own graphics, every series is going to have its own feel and application. And so I just want to give you a bit of a preview. This is what we're going to do. Lord willing, Lord willing, as we go through this. So today we're going to start our first sub series in Acts called the church begins and we're looking at Acts chapters one and two and Lord willing. This will take us six weeks to go through the first two chapters. And then you can see, I won't go through them all now, but you can see where we're headed as we go through and we hope that's helpful. So as we transition now to our first series, the next slide and our series graphics for this is here we go, act one, the church begins again, part of the greater series of acts again as a whole. And as we do that to a few disclaimers, okay? So this part of the introduction, thank you for your patience. This is important. Trying to teach us a little bit. Get us on the same page. A few disclaimers as we begin the book of Acts. So we will be going through the entire book, okay?

10:29But we won't be able to hit on every single word, okay, in all 28 chapters. So sometimes we will, we'll be going through again, verse by verse and taking apart every word. But other times we have a whole chapter and we might focus on a verse or two within that chapter and then build around it to provide the context and the emphasis, okay? We don't have, if you want to go through every word and act, this series became one year turned into about eight years, all right? So we're going to take one year, that's good. That's a good amount of time. Secondly, this is a year long effort. We'll have some small breaks along the way to allow us to take a big spiritual breath, jump into something like Christmas and Easter, whatever it may be. And then we'll jump back into Acts as well. It'll be a total teaching team effort as well as we do that here in the church. Also, as we enter into the book of Acts, some of you are like, man, I'm so excited about this chapter and this topic and this thing, whatever. And so as we go through Acts, we have to understand the theological approach and the hermeneutical approach, hermeneutics, the study of interpretation.

11:31How are we going to do this? Two words that describe Acts fundamentally or is Acts given to us as a description? Or is it a prescription? Is it describing for us what happened, not to happen again? Or is it prescribing for the church the way that we should live and how we should be? What we're going to learn through Acts is the answer is both are true within this book. So there are times when events are described for us as the church that are not meant to be repeated, like Pentecost, that happened once in that way. But there are other times in the book of Acts. It is a prescription for the church. This is how you're supposed to do it. So both will happen. Some people get so excited about certain elements of doctrine. They think it's 100% prescription and it should be exactly this way and it's a danger because it kind of goes on a tangent, I think too far outside of scripture, but you can make the same error on the other side. No, it's only described for us not to be us at all and we'll just kind of do our thing

12:31different from them. Okay. So it's both. Description and prescription lots to come on that. We have a whole year to go through it. All right. That's going to be it. Lastly, this. We will be holding spirit led. Holy spirit help us to be holy spirit led. What do we mean? Just like the book of Acts, we have a plan today, but whatever the Lord wants to do, whatever the Holy spirit, just like in Acts 16, the Macedonian call says the Holy Spirit forbid the disciples to go to Asia and turn them elsewhere and just and they did what we're going to do that to. So we have a plan. We've got a year kind of plan out this way, but if the Holy Spirit wants us to change, we will change and we will trust them in the process. I want to make sure you know that we hold these things loosely in terms of we know whose church it is, Jesus Christ and his spirit to lead us in that way. Okay. Huh. Okay. So without further ado, we're going to jump in to the book of Acts. If you haven't already, please open your Bibles to Acts chapter one and we will start by reading verses one to five together.

13:33Okay. So big year. Here we go. Just as you're turning. Just let me pray. I pray for a moment, a father, I pray so much that by your spirit, you will teach us and lead us now. You will protect us and guide us this whole year and you will absolutely transform us. We are so needy. You must do it. Holy spirit. We are desperate for you. And so help us to be as effective and as powerful witnesses as we've ever been for Jesus Christ in this very urgent and dark time. May the light of Jesus shine so bright, even now, even now at this time in this place. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Love you. Amen. Notice this in the first book. He's that's a reference to the gospel of Luke, right? In the first book, oh, theophilus. Now who's theophilus? Theophilus, the name means lover of God. Some commentators believe it's an actual person. It most likely is maybe a Roman official, possibly a Christian who looped no new kind of intimately. Other commentators say, well, theophilus is the name means lover of God, representing

14:35kind of the Christian in the pursuit of Christ. But again, most likely it was a Roman official of some importance. He calls them excellent theophilus in previous places. And so he's named only twice here. And we know nothing else about him. Okay. So oh, theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach. That's the gospel of Luke until the day when he was taken up after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. Jesus, he presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs appearing to them during the 40 days and speaking about the kingdom of God. And here's the promise. And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait, but to wait what for the promise? What's the promise of the Father? Here it is, which he said, you heard from me for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Not many days from now.

15:36Okay. So right from the start of this book, okay. The stage is being set for the number one game changer of all time, who is the Holy Spirit. Even as we go through Acts over and over and over again, this is what we realize, okay. It's the act of the Apostle. This is my Bible here. This is what I've done. Okay. But really, it's the acts of the Holy Spirit or it's these both. I mean, you can't have one without the other. So the Apostles are documented, particularly Peter and Paul, okay. Really travel with them, but the Holy Spirit undergirds all of this. So as you go through that, understand the church cannot exist apart from the Holy Spirit. So the person, the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit cannot be overstated. He is the difference maker. So we are hope Bible church, but we want to be Holy Spirit Bible church as well, all right. And when you have Bible, hope Bible church and Holy Spirit church again put together,

16:39then you have hope bill. I didn't come up with that, but I love it. And like that's sticking. We want to be a bill of hope. Like absolutely so many people so desperate for truth and life and hope. They are so discouraged and so lost and so miserable and so angry and so discouraged and so depressed. Jesus Christ is the answer. You're here today. Jesus Christ is the answer. And listen, but we can't do this apart from hoping Christ and the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit Bible church, hope Bible church again allows us to be a beacon of light and a messenger of hope that is so needed in our day. And as it's been said, I think Bill Eleph said this. He said, the Holy Spirit can do more in five minutes than we can do in 50 years. That's so true, isn't it? And the Holy Spirit decides to move. Man, people get changed like that. Parents always remember that with your kids and all of us in any situation. When the Holy Spirit moves, wow, it's more than we could do in half a century. So when the promise of verse five is fulfilled, verse five, you'll be baptized with the Holy

17:46Spirit. The world would never be the same. Again, I encourage you. I challenge you as we go through this series, find every place the Holy Spirit is mentioned in the book of Acts underline it. My Bible to redpanned or it's circled or put a box around every time the Holy Spirit is mentioned, circle or underline it and see just how integral again, the third person, the trinity is to our reality, even here right now. So let's move on now to verse six. Here's the bulk of our text today. So when they had come together, they asked them, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And Jesus said to them, it is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority, ready? But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. So our sermon title this week is a bit of a spoiler. You know how much you anticipate sermon outlines? I mean, maybe you don't. There's much for me as for anyone else.

18:47It helps us organize our thoughts. Okay, but I like our sermon title this week and it is really our outline, but here it is. Okay. So it's his power will be my purpose and then results in our plan. Okay. His power will be my purpose, these to my purpose and will be our plan collectively. So number one, his power is promised the Holy Spirit. Number six, the disciples are fixed on the restoration of the kingdom of Israel. I get that. They want to know when they think the military conquest of God, the Father of Jesus Christ is about to be a stout. So they want to know, hey, Jesus, when will all wrongs be made right? When will we see total rule and victory? And again, hey, to be honest, I can't blame them. Like I would want to know that too. In fact, I mean, you love to know that right now. Hey, hey, when when are you going to really get this thing totally put together?

19:47Like, when are you going to come back and conquer everything? I get that. We we cannot know. We will never know the timing of this. Only the Father knows the Bible says in many different places. They by the way, when people predict the second coming of Jesus Christ, I mean, they're just they haven't read the Bible. Okay. They're dumb. Don't listen to them. Okay. No one knows but the father. Okay. Blame us. Blame me. Blame it for wanting to know. That's why so many of the great songs in the last 2000 years have included a verse of eschatology, right? Stating the return of Christ and the victory of when we see him. In fact, today we will sing after this message, sing a song that says, when this passing rule is over, we will see him face to face. I read this morning in 1 Corinthians 13. It says again, when the partial passes away and the perfect comes, we see the first verse in a mirror now dimly, but then we shall see face to face Jesus Christ and perfect will be upon. Oh, yes, Lord.

20:48Our knowledge is so limited, but at that moment, we will see him in his glory. Again, the song says, when this passing word is over, we will see you face to face. And we will worship you forever. Yes, Jesus, you are all to us. But notice how Jesus responds to the disciples questions. He says to them, he says, listen, paraphrasing. I don't need you to get caught up in the timing. In fact, I'm about to put you on mission. Notice this too, the disciples, just before Jesus ascends, the disciples think this is kind of wrapping up, like everything's kind of wrapping up, like the story's over. And Jesus says, actually, I'm just getting started, right? The disciples think the conclusion is being written now. And Jesus like, wow, I'm going to use you. And we're just seeing the church begin. We're just about to see millions upon millions and millions of lives change, right? Again, so when you're a disciple and you begin to hear this plan that Jesus is about to tell them, you're going to be world changers. You're going to reach the ends of the earth, all right?

21:48So like just put yourself in the shoes, the sandals of one of those disciples and you're kind of like, huh? Right? Like, like you know, you're frail and limited have nothing. I mean, and like, I mean, how dumbfounded would they have been? We're going to do what? And you're going, where? You know what I mean? Like, this is what's happening. There are a bunch of reg tags. They are timid. They're scared. They are poor. They have no status. They don't have any education. They're unknown. They're made of fools again up into this point, yet soon to be absolutely unparalleled world changes. Like, well, how's this going to happen? Jesus like, well, here's what's going to happen. Okay, you're going to change the world. But first, I need to leave. And they're like, what? You know what I mean? Like, so like, if Jesus is like the captain of the team, he's not just the captain of the team. He like owns the team. He supplies all strength for the team. He's the wisdom of the team. I mean, he un-undergirds the entire team. He scores every goal, every point, every home run, every touch. I mean, he's done all of it, man. Well, the rest of them just say, go Jesus.

22:49Go Jesus, right? And then he's like, and I'm leaving. And they're like, we're dead, right? I mean, that's, that's what's happening right here. Like, they just have no comprehension of how this is actually going to work. You leave and we change the world. What? But that's why the first word of verse 8 is so important. This is one of the great butts of the Bible right here. Verse 8, look at verse 8, butt, butt, butt, ready? You will receive power. I'm leaving. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses. Okay, we're going to be spending a lot of time in the Holy Spirit this year, but I'm so excited about that. I love the Holy Spirit so much. Need him, need him, need him, need him. Let me just say this. Okay, there's no greater need upon the church today and the person, the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit. I want you to notice verse 2 in our text. Look at verse 2, okay? Verse 2 is recounting Jesus in his glorified, resurrected state, okay?

23:54And notice this, until the day when he was taken up after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. So what is indicating to us? The insight here is Jesus in his glorified, perfect, resurrected body yet was still reliant upon the Holy Spirit within his ministry. And you and I are not dependent upon the Holy Spirit and you think you can have a family apart from the pens of the Holy Spirit or the life for Christ or witness for him or serve and engage and manage apart from the Holy Spirit. You're kidding me? Jesus in post-resurrection. Still so reliant on the Holy Spirit of God. This is the example for us. Listen to this beautiful quote by JC Ryle, the wonderful Anglican minister, probably like 125 years ago or so. He says this, pray, pray daily for a great outpouring of the Spirit on the church and on the world. This is the grand need of the day. It is the thing that we need far more than money, machinery and men.

24:57The company of preachers and Christendom is far greater than what it was in the days of Paul, listen carefully, but the actual spiritual work done in the earth in proportion to the means used is undoubtedly far less. We need more of the presence of the Holy Spirit, more in the pulpit, more in the congregation, more in the pastoral visit and more in the school. There he is, there will be life and health and growth and fruitfulness where he is not all will be dead, tame, formal, sleepy and cold. Then let everyone who desires to see an increase of pure and undefiled religion, here's our response, pray daily for more of the presence of the Holy Spirit in every branch of the visible church of Jesus Christ. You say, my marriage is dead. Holy Spirit, fill that place. Fill that, you say, my heart, my heart feels so cold. Holy Spirit is the difference. He's the difference. You say, I don't have any real passion for the things of guys. The Holy Spirit is the one who turns all of them around.

25:59You can try all your own effort. But the Holy Spirit is the one that causes churches to become alive and fill a song and worship and serving and mission and power and influence and perseverance and faith. The Holy Spirit is the one who's the absolute game changer, the entire mission and power and plan of the church ultimately rests on one person. The Holy Spirit of God will be cannot ignore him. And you know what? The only way this church has got this far is by this truth. The only way we've gotten this far is by the person, the power, the presence of the Holy Spirit. Now I was thinking upon this this week and I was thinking about some realities of our history. And I remember in 2008, one very, very specific elder meaning was such a profound influence on my life. I journaled it in detail. I looked at the file this week to recall my memory and the detail that I wrote down. We were in a very, very important elder meaning to do, to decide whether or not we purchased

27:01this property. It was in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. There are so many reasons why this shouldn't happen. I mean, I was just, it was such a battle for faith. You had faith and doubt, faith and doubt all around. And there's so many human reasons this would never, ever happen. It came to this very important elder meaning in the time was to decide we had to make decision, we'll be going for it or not. And the elder meaning is start off kind of pretty good or whatever that actually turned a little bit of negativity and death, which I get. Again, I don't blame it for that. It's just a matter of you feel the responsibility. You feel the weight of what's happening. And at I specifically remember thinking to myself, okay, here we go. This isn't going to happen. So be it. And then all of a sudden, I'm like, I'm like in a way that I've really experienced. And that moment just as the tide began to turn kind of negative and doubt and it's probably not going to happen. It's too hard. There's too much risk. All of a sudden telling the Holy Spirit entered that room, your theology or entered entered hearts and lives in a way. Oh, oh, oh, oh, my. And I remember all the sun human lips were stopped. And the presence of God filled that room so strongly and so powerfully.

28:01I was so overcome with the presence of God. I remember just falling to my knees and weeping at the weight of his glory and not fully understanding why and everything turned in that moment. God would use that time as the elders began to be so still and understand God was speaking and asking him to. He gave the prophetic word from Joshua 1, 8 that he is calling us to be strong and courageous. It's so amazing to think about that meeting and to remember what exactly happened with no exaggeration. Man was seeking to operate in a certain way and lacking faith and the Holy Spirit says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, okay. Your time right now is going to be set aside. I'm intervening because I have a plan for this church at this time to purchase this property by faith because I'm going to say Sony more lives and build Sony more churches and plants and more things. I have a plan. I'm going to we had no idea. But at that moment the Holy Spirit says again, I'm stepping in because I'm the one who did this in the first place and I'm carrying it forward. And I think about that and I recall that story. I'm so encouraged by it because zero of me says, way to go church, everything in me says the Lord's done it.

29:02If you'd like to hear this message again or the rest of the messages from this series, you can find these resources and more on our website that liveinthelight.ca. I'm Craig Turnbull and on behalf of Robbie Simon's, we invite you to join us again next time on Live In The Light.