Intro / Review:
Witnessing for Christ: 3 Things You Should Never Assume:
- Don't assume Religious people are saved. (Acts 19:1-7)
- 1 Cor 3:16
- 1 Cor 6:19
- Rom 8:9
Review:
5 Clear Evidences for Biblical Transformation:
- You have a new love for God's Word. (1 Pet 2:2)
- You have a new awareness of right and wrong. (Heb 5:13-14)
- You have a new desire to be like Jesus Christ. (Rom 8:29)
- You have a new desire to proclaim Christ to others. (Col 1:28-29 | Acts 1:8)
- You have a new love for other Christians. (1 John 3:14)
- Don't assume you can win Everybody. (Acts 19:8-9)
- Don't assume you can see All God is doing through you. (Acts 19:10)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:58-01:37
Being a pastor one of the things that I have the privilege of doing is having wedding ceremonies and this should go without saying but usually part of the wedding ceremony is going to the wedding reception I remember several years ago and Aaron you know what I'm going to say several years ago we performed this wedding at our old church and you know I had my wedding suit on and Aaron was dressed to the nines and it was going to be our big all-day date out. Okay, we're gonna have to go to the wedding, we're gonna go to the reception, it was gonna be fantastic. And so we, the reception was in a different location than the wedding.
01:38-02:28
So we get in the car and we drive down and Aaron and I walk in the reception hall and there was this little table set up and they had all these little cards that have the couple's name and what table they are to be seated, you know. So Okay, and we're looking and we're looking and we're looking and we're looking And we realized We weren't invited to the reception That was awkward not gonna lie That was awkward Standing in the lobby and other people are walking in like oh, where are you sitting pastor Jeff, and I'm like apparently in my car Did you get the steak or the chicken?
02:28-02:30
Apparently we got Arby's.
02:32-02:37
I don't know. I mean, I've been in pastoral ministry now for over 20 years, and I've done, how many weddings have we done?
02:38-02:40
Like dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens.
02:41-03:25
After a while, you just sort of assume some things, but I learned something that day, a very valuable lesson, something I should have remembered, My mama told me one time you should never assume anything And mom actually had a little saying that went with that. No, not the one you're thinking of shame on you But you should never assume Anything and today we're going to be talking about witnessing And I think a lot of Christians get a little Sort of put off maybe a little intimidated maybe a little frustrated honestly, about witnessing for Christ, because I think a lot of Christians have some assumptions about witnessing.
03:27-03:33
And last year at our church, we spent the entire year, if you recall, on one verse, do you remember?
03:33-03:36
Acts 1.8, who remembers that verse?
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Jesus said, "And you will receive," what?
03:39-03:46
"Power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses." Oh, fantastic, yes.
03:46-03:50
So we saw the whole, that's really the whole theme of the book of Acts, right?
03:51-04:01
The Holy Spirit, God's Holy Spirit comes upon God's people to give God's people power so that God's people would be witnesses for God in a lost and dying world.
04:01-04:02
That's what the book of Acts is about.
04:03-04:05
That's what the church is still about today.
04:07-04:13
And today we're going to revisit that theme as we get to Acts chapter 19.
04:15-04:22
We're going to shatter some assumptions that hinder people from witnessing.
04:24-04:26
The good news is God wants to reach the lost.
04:29-04:30
And He wants to reach the lost through you.
04:31-04:33
And He wants to empower you to do so.
04:35-04:37
So Acts chapter 19, turn there with me.
04:37-04:41
As you turn there, I'd just like to give you a review, get us all caught up to speed where we are.
04:41-04:46
where we saw in Acts, last couple of chapters, we've been following Paul on his missionary journeys.
04:46-04:51
And remember we saw that Paul survived burnout in Corinth.
04:52-05:00
We saw the apostle Paul making a vow to the Lord which sent him to Jerusalem to fulfill and then back to Antioch, the sending-based church.
05:02-05:04
Then Paul started his third missionary journey.
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And today we're going to end up back in Ephesus.
05:10-05:13
As we go through the text together, I want you to jot some things down.
05:15-05:24
The title of today's message is "Unstoppable Witness." Witnessing for Christ. Three things. Three things you should never assume.
05:26-05:27
Three things you should never assume.
05:27-05:31
If you carry certain assumptions, you're going to be shy about witnessing.
05:31-05:35
You're going to be intimidated. You're going to be fearful. You're going to be frustrated.
05:35-05:41
So today we're going to just look at the text very simply, and we're going to shatter some assumptions about witnessing.
05:41-05:42
Here's the first one.
05:43-05:48
Number one, don't assume religious people are saved.
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Look at verses one through seven.
05:51-05:53
Don't assume that religious people are saved.
05:53-05:54
Look at verses one through seven.
05:55-06:02
And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus.
06:03-06:05
There he found some disciples.
06:06-06:39
And he said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" And they said, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit." And he said, "Into what then were you baptized?" They said, "Into John's baptism." And Paul said, "John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is Jesus." and hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
06:40-06:48
And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking in tongues and prophesying.
06:48-06:55
There were about twelve men in all." So here's the question, what was going on with these guys spiritually?
06:57-07:05
Because there's a lot of controversy and a lot of very weird doctrines that get circled around this passage.
07:05-07:53
For example, the Bible college where I attended had this doctrine that they believed in entire sanctification, and they taught that in the Christian life, or in your life, when you reach this crisis point, and you receive God's grace, and you are saved, you are justified, but then during your Christian life you reach another crisis point where the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you are entirely sanctified, Meaning this, salvation, which justifies you, takes away the penalty of sin, but they taught that sanctification, this subsequent work of grace, not only removes the penalty of sin, but it removes the temptation to sin.
07:54-08:00
And I've talked to guys that claim they haven't been tempted to sin in decades.
08:01-08:04
Is that anybody else's experience?
08:06-08:09
I'm going to be honest with you. I wish it was true. I wish it was.
08:09-08:12
I wish I could say, "I'm never tempted to sin.
08:12-08:24
The Holy Spirit has completely removed the influence of my flesh to such a degree that I never have a sinful thought, attitude, word, action, nothing.
08:24-08:29
Not even tempted." But that's what some people teach and believe.
08:29-08:33
And they get it from texts like this to say, "Well, look, see?
08:34-08:40
They were saved people, and then the Holy Spirit came upon them with this subsequent work of grace.
08:40-08:45
And that is not at all what is happening in this passage.
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Keep in mind, the book of Acts is transition, remember?
08:49-08:53
We're transitioning from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant.
08:53-09:03
And this was the day before CNN and the Internet that it took word a little while to travel about what Jesus Christ accomplished, right?
09:05-09:18
So here Paul had found some men in Ephesus who were familiar with the Old Testament and even familiar up to the point of John the Baptist, but they were sort of like Apollos who we studied last week.
09:18-09:24
They just hadn't heard what Jesus Christ had accomplished when he rose from the dead.
09:24-09:29
So these were a group of guys that were sort of in the same camp as Apollos.
09:29-09:33
But I want you to notice from the text that the Apostle Paul didn't just assume that they were believers.
09:34-09:37
He asked them what? What did he ask them? Do you see it in your text?
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He said, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" He asked them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit?" And the implication clearly, as the Bible clearly teaches, is the Holy Spirit comes upon all of God's people upon belief.
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Okay? That is crystal clear in the New Testament.
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For example, 1 Corinthians 3.16, 6.19, both places, the Bible says that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.
10:14-10:17
See, in the Old Testament, God dwelt in a building, the tabernacle, the temple.
10:18-10:22
New Testament times, God's unique presence dwelt in the person of Jesus Christ.
10:22-10:29
And when Jesus ascended into heaven and sent the promised Holy Spirit, you could say, "Well, where's God's house now?" God's house is you.
10:30-10:34
Your body is the temple of God's Holy Spirit.
10:35-10:41
And if you're a believer in Jesus Christ, if you're a born-again believer in Jesus Christ, that means God's Holy Spirit lives in you.
10:42-10:55
See, God's Holy Spirit is not just for the Billy Grahams and the John Pipers and the real spiritual people of the world, God's Holy Spirit indwells all of his people who come to saving faith in Jesus Christ.
10:56-11:00
Paul says the same thing, but negatively, in Romans 8:9.
11:00-11:10
He says, "Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him." So understand, there's no such thing as a Christian who doesn't have the Holy Spirit.
11:12-11:17
So we see these men that Paul had encountered here in Ephesus said no, they didn't even...
11:18-11:20
never even heard of the Holy Spirit.
11:20-11:32
The Apostle Paul didn't go all like televangelist on them, like, "I'm gonna give you the gift of the Holy Ghost today!" and do some weird thing like smack them with a handkerchief or a suit jacket or whatever.
11:33-11:33
What did he do?
11:35-11:36
He told them about Jesus.
11:37-11:44
He said, "You need to know the rest of the story." The Holy Spirit doesn't come through some weird preacher guy doing some weird act.
11:44-11:51
The Holy Spirit comes upon a person who sincerely received Jesus Christ by faith.
11:51-11:52
So that's what Paul did.
11:52-11:58
He says, "I'm going to share with you the rest of the story about Jesus." And the Bible says he laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
11:58-11:59
That's all through acts, right?
11:59-12:04
We see the apostles being there when the Holy Spirit was coming upon God's people.
12:07-12:07
So what's the point?
12:09-12:20
First of all, before we talk about the witnessing thing, I want to talk to the people that are sitting here, and I want to talk to the people that are going to be listening to this online.
12:23-12:28
Just because you're religious doesn't mean that you're saved.
12:29-12:31
Those are two entirely different things.
12:34-12:40
I was thinking about this this week, you know, I think one of the reasons we like religion...
12:40-13:07
What do I mean by religion? By religion I mean we sort of keep a checklist of here's things that I do, here's things that I don't do, I keep these rules, and when I keep the rules, God's happy with me, and when I don't keep the rules, God's upset with me, and we sort of chalk up things like church attendance or taking communion, or, you know, in the offering or whatever, we sort of look at these religious acts as things that earn us brownie points with God.
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And I think the reason we as people sort of like the idea of religion is that I think we sort of weigh it as evidence for ourselves.
13:17-13:28
Like, "Do I belong to God? Well, sure I do, because look at all the stuff that I do for God." But I want you to see in the text here, these people were very religious.
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These people were even baptized.
13:32-13:35
But they were still missing the most important thing.
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See Paul didn't look at these guys and say, "Oh, religious enough, I'll move on to the real pagans." He said, "You're missing something.
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Because salvation, the evidence of salvation, comes from the Holy Spirit." What does that look like?
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Well, the evidence of salvation is transformation.
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That's the evidence.
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The evidence of salvation is transformation that comes from the Holy Spirit.
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When I say transformation, I don't mean...
14:10-14:11
You know what, you're right.
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From now on, I'm going to really try to behave, and it's an inward transformation of your mind and your heart and your attitudes that reflects in an outward transformation of your actions.
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It's an inside-out thing.
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It's not just going through the motions.
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You can teach a monkey or a dog to go through the motions.
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The evidence of salvation is when it's an inside-out motivation, because the Holy Spirit has transformed your heart.
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Like, "Well, you know, Pastor Jeff, I've thought about that, and I'm not 100% sure that that happened to me.
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How would I know?" Well, there's very clear evidences of salvation.
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I want you to jot some down.
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There's many of them. I'm going to share five with you today.
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These are five evidences of transformation.
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These aren't things I came up with.
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These are things that God says in His Word.
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God says, "Look." He wrote these down. I'll give you the references.
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He says, "Here's evidence that you've been transformed." So you're wondering, "Do I really believe? Do I really have the Holy Spirit?
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Am I really saved?" Well, look at the evidence.
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Biblical signs, clear transformation has happened.
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Number one, you have a new love for God's Word.
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1 Peter 2:2 says that the believer loves the Word of God like a baby loves milk.
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And that's something our church is very familiar with, is babies, amen?
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We've got a lot of babies. I love it.
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Listen, if you are here with your baby, and your baby coos or cries or whatever, how much do you think that bothers me?
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Not at all.
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That doesn't bother me. That's a sign of life.
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like that's awesome you hear that we got a we got a new little guy here a new little girl here that we can disciple into knowing the glory of Jesus Christ so that doesn't bother me at all okay just for the record where was I going with that oh yeah the point is babies naturally love milk they naturally love milk you don't have to convince them talk him into it you don't have to give him a slick sales speech you don't have to get one of those infomercial guys to get on there, you know, with his electric blue polo shirt and try to sell your baby on milk. Babies are just like, I love it. I love it. It's delicious. I suck it down.
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It helps me grow and I want more. And that's how the Christian looks at the Word of God.
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I love it. You don't have to talk me into it. God's Word is awesome. And yeah, it takes some studying and some understanding and I'm still learning every day, but I love God's words. 1 Peter 2 says that's an evidence. That's an evidence. Number two, clear biblical signs of transformation is a new awareness of right and wrong. And that comes from Hebrews 5, 13 and 14. Hebrews 5, 13 and 14. The Bible says that we grow in what is called discernment.
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You see, before I knew Christ, I didn't care what was right or wrong. All I cared about What was going to make me happy?
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But when you come to Christ, now you have this awareness as the Holy Spirit is working in your heart.
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No, no, no. This is wrong. This doesn't honor God.
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I should do this. I should stop doing this.
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I want to honor God above all things.
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And I need to make choices that reflect that.
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And the Holy Spirit gives you that ability to discern.
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Signs of Transformation #3 I want to grow to be more like Jesus Christ.
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Loving like Christ, merciful like Christ, praying like Christ, treating others the way Christ would have me treat them.
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That's the desire of every true transformed born-again Christian.
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born-again spirit-filled believer.
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You want to be like Christ, and you're growing in that direction.
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Number four, biblical sign of transformation is a new desire to proclaim Christ to others.
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You have a desire to proclaim Christ to others.
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I want to. I want to.
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And maybe I'm still learning, like, how to do that.
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Maybe I don't always do it perfectly, and I still struggle sometimes with what to say.
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But I want to.
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I'm not asking do you have the perfect speech to share the gospel.
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I'm asking do you have the desire that your friends and family, the people around you that you know are lost, do you have the desire to have Christ be made known to them?
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That is true of every Christian.
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Colossians 1, verses 28 and 29, write that down.
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And we also saw that in chapter 1, verse 8, I see power and the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses." That's something true of all of God's people.
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Spirit-filled, you want to tell others about Jesus Christ.
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One more, number five.
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New love for other Christians.
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That's an evidence.
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New love for other Christians.
19:24-20:03
1 John 3:14 says, "And we know that we have passed out of death into life." euphemism for salvation and that we love the brothers John says this is an evidence you know you're saying how do you know you're saved he says you know you're saved when you have a love for other Christians I was gonna be honest with you feel like yeah I don't really yeah I kind of kind of like going to church but I really don't like the people there that's a that's a big red flag because one of the key evidences of salvation is that you You love. You love the brothers.
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Okay?
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So, being religious doesn't mean you're saved.
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And as it pertains to your witnessing, I'd like to remind you again, point number one, don't assume religious people are saved.
20:20-20:30
In fact, my experience has been religious people are often the hardest to share the Gospel with, because they're already convinced that they're okay.
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"Let me tell you about Jesus." "Oh, I don't need to hear about Jesus because I go to church every week." Religious people are often the hardest to save.
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They're the hardest to convince that they need salvation.
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Like, "Well, how would I know where they're at?" I would just encourage you to take a page out of the Apostle Paul's book.
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He just asked these people questions, right?
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He didn't have some magic apostle glasses.
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I'm like, "Well, I can see you don't have the Holy Spirit." He asked them questions.
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Ask questions about their walk.
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All right, number two, number two.
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We're shattering some assumptions.
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Number two, don't assume you can win everybody.
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Don't assume you can win everybody.
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Look at verse eight.
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It says, "And he entered the synagogue, "and for three months," look at this.
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This is Paul, by the way.
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Wrote like half of the New Testament.
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you know, like a couple thousand years later, we're still studying every word that this man wrote under inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
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Same guy.
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For three months, spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.
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Reasoning means dialogue, okay? It just means he had conversations with them.
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Like, "Tell me about your walk with the Lord. Do you understand who Jesus is?" And it was back and forth conversation.
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That's what reasoning is.
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Persuading.
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That word means to convince by argument, right?
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If Paul was loaded for bear, he would have had the Old Testament practically memorized.
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So you have a guy like Paul for three months evangelizing.
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We stop right here, you're like, "Man, I bet you that place was on fire for Christ!" have somebody like Paul there for three months preaching could you imagine could you imagine like the altar calls they probably had to buy new carpet because people were just wearing a hole in the floor coming down and repentance and sackcloth and ashes and let's see what happens here verse 9 but when some Some became stubborn and continued in unbelief, speaking evil of the way." The way is what they called Christianity back in Paul's day.
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Before the congregation, "He," Paul, "withdrew from them and took the disciples with him, daily in the Hall of Tyrannus." Like, what?
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You mean Paul was there for three months, unloading on these people with everything he knew about the Scriptures and the fulfillment that Jesus Christ made, and the result was you had people that were stubborn?
23:28-23:29
That literally is hard-hearted.
23:31-25:27
unbelief and even to the point of speaking evil Here's the point You can't win everybody you can't win everybody I'll be honest with you. This is a lesson that I had to learn personally because very early on in my ministry I Studied apologetics like my life depended on it. I studied all the creation science and all the archaeological and historical All that stuff is great. I encourage you to study it and I'm telling you my early years of ministry. I devoured that stuff every tape kids there we used to before CDs well you Some of you guys probably know what CDs are anymore, but I remember my car had a tape player I just I get these apologetics tapes and I would listen to them in the car and I'd be reading and I'd be looking stuff Up and I'd be studying because I had this idea that if I was prepared Knowing the Bible and knowing the apologetics I could sort of back anybody into a corner just through arguing and they'd have no choice They're like you're right Jeff. You're absolutely right I'm going to have to receive Jesus because I don't have anything to say against what you're telling me. So, all right let's get the baptizing I was sure of it I'm like I they're not gonna be able to argue with me is that true you can't argue somebody into the kingdom you can't like I said apologetics all this stuff is important you should be studying this stuff and you should be depauled in for three months I'm just saying you can't take it as a personal fail when somebody that that you clearly share the gospel and the reasonableness of the gospel with them, and they still reject Christ, you can't take it personally.
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You know the Bible, how the Bible refers to the unsaved?
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You know the kind of terms the Bible uses to refer to the unsaved?
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The Bible says the unsaved are lost.
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They don't even know they're lost.
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Just meandering out, they don't even know they're lost.
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The Bible also says they're blind.
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Did you know that?
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They're blind.
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The Bible also says they're dead.
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I want you to think about that.
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You couldn't take a physically blind person and put a book in front of them and say, "Read this for me." And they're like, "I can't." "What are you talking about? I can read it.
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Why can't you read it? It's easy.
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You just look down at the page and you read it." It's cruel. But you see the point.
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A blind person cannot, they are completely unable to read that.
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In the same way, a spiritually blind person is spiritually unable to see their need for Jesus Christ.
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That's not your fault. The spiritual blinders are on.
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The Bible says lost people are dead.
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Go to a funeral home and go up to the casket.
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I don't encourage you to actually do this.
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But go up to the person laying in the casket and say, "Hey, come on, we're going to the movies this afternoon. My treat." Like, why aren't they getting up?
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"My treat, I said." Because they're dead.
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Dead people can't respond to anything, right?
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The Bible says that the lost people are spiritually dead.
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So what changes that?
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Only the Holy Spirit can convict someone of their sin.
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And somehow, in a way that I don't understand, God's Spirit works through God's people sharing God's Word.
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Like I said, I don't understand how that all works I don't But you see God doesn't tell me to understand it. He just tells me to do it God doesn't say you know thou shalt sit down and figure out how all this stuff works and then go out and try it God says you tell people about Jesus like What if some get saved?
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Fantastic. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. Well, what if some like speak evil about you know us like it happened to Paul's day That's that's not on us The results aren't up to us.
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The Holy Spirit's work.
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Take every opportunity, yes, take every opportunity to share the gospel, but there comes a time that you need to take another page out of the Apostle Paul's book here and withdraw from people who are reacting harshly.
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There comes a time that you have to do that.
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I encourage you to seek the Lord on that.
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There's no magic formula, but I can tell you there comes a time that you need to stop putting your pearls before the swine.
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That's what Paul did.
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He goes, "All right, there's..." Not only are they rejecting, hardening their heart, not only do they refuse to believe, now they're speaking evil.
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Paul's like, "All right, pack your bags.
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We're going to the Hall of Tyrant.
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We don't really know much about him.
28:58-29:06
His name means'my tyrant.'" And some people think that was a nickname, like he was a teacher in this hall, and that was the nickname that his students gave him.
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So, I don't know. But, you do have to see that Paul sort of packed things up and moved on.
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But for the rejecters, it's not your fault that they're rejecting God.
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Don't put the weight on yourself. Okay? Don't put the weight on yourself.
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I have people come to me with the heart and compassion of Christ, and they're like, "Pastor Jeff, I have tried sharing with this person, and they're getting worse.
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And just when I thought that they were ready to come to church with me, or come to a small group, or come to a Bible study, now they're getting worse, and I feel so bad.
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Should I have said something different?" You cannot put that weight on yourself.
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Your job is to share the love of Christ with them, Share the word of Christ with them and pray that the Holy Spirit does the inside out work that only he can do.
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You can't make a spiritually blind person see. You can't make a spiritually dead person live.
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Only the Holy Spirit can do that.
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Paul didn't win everybody. Billy Graham didn't win everybody.
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Charles Spurgeon didn't win everybody. John Piper didn't win everybody.
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And did you know Jesus Christ didn't win everybody?
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Jesus Christ had people walk away from Him while He was preaching, saying, "This is a hard saying. Who can accept it?" So let's shatter that myth. Don't assume you can win everybody.
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It's up to the Holy Spirit, finally, for today.
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Don't assume you can see all God is doing through you.
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Don't assume that you are able to see everything that God is doing through you.
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Look at verse 10.
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In the Hall of Tyrannus.
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It says, "This continued for two years." So all the residents of Asia—by the way, that's Asia Minor.
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In biblical times it was called Asia.
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Like, where is that today?
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I think Asia I think like China and Thailand this was in Turkey modern-day Turkey. Okay, where they're out here Let's continue for two years that all the residents of Asia Heard the word of the Lord both Jews and Greeks so for two years Paul had this little group and he taught them and it would It'd be easy to look at these two years as a waste right again, I spent - this is Paul's life You know the greatest missionary of all time and he spent two years and somebody could look at this and say well I Wasn't very effective You know he goes and he preaches his heart out and he ends up having to leave because people are speaking evil But then you get to verse 10 Where the Holy Spirit tells us?
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What a testimony all the residents of Asia heard the word Think of the churches that were planted as a result the Church of Colossae the church at Hierapolis and Revelation chapters 2 & 3 those seven churches including Ephesus were all part of Asia Minor and Some scholars think that maybe it was during this time here in Acts that many of those churches were planted So Paul preached a word Paul made disciples and then these disciples went out and spread the gospel.
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Church, we have such a limited scope of what God is doing through us.
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I don't know how much of this Paul actually understood at the time.
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I don't know if he understood how far his influence was going, and I think today the same thing can certainly be said for us.
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The scope of what's happening in this church goes so far beyond what you see in this room.
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Because of the marvels of modern technology and the diligence of people like Ben Murphy putting the sermons up on the website, do you know we get emails and cards in the mail from people that we've never met that are like, "Hey, I listen to you every week. I know you don't know me, but I listen to you every week." And they're like, "And I appreciated this sermon on..." and they're quoting certain things, and it really meant a lot to me, and I ever think about doing a sermon on this, and so it's not just like spam, right?
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These are real people that are being affected by the ministry that's happening in our little church.
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It's incredible.
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You know, we sent a group to Romania a couple years ago to build a training center, and we're seeing pictures of pastors and church planters that are being trained sent out to plant churches all over Eastern Europe. Think of the impact that's going to be made for generations. Because a small group of people from a small church like this went out and were willing to invest in a ministry over in Europe. A lot of you might not know this, but do you know that our church is like famous in Ghana? I don't mean Harvest Bible Chapel James McDonald, I mean Pittsburgh North I get regular calls and emails and letters from some pastor in Ghana in West Africa who found us online somehow and he says I'm distributing your materials all through northern Ghana and he sends me testimonies here's what you know pastor Alfred says and you know and then he says me pictures of people sitting in classes and using our materials and again give another shout out to Ben Murphy but he's put our materials on CDs so we can send them over so that they're able to reproduce them and distribute them. Isn't that crazy? Just when you think oh you know what are we doing here there's just you know just a just a few of us shinzers sitting in a sitting in a cafeteria.
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this is affecting northern Ghana what and the one email that I got from a pastor Abraham in Ghana he said these materials are awakening a spirit of evangelism and revival in Ghana I was like what isn't that crazy and my point certainly is not yay us everybody reach around and pat each other on the back I'm not saying that at all what I'm saying is this we don't ever really see the scope of what we're doing of the way that God is using us we don't we don't see it but it's happening oh we're getting little glimpses I mean the emails and cards I get are only the people that took the time to actually respond you know who knows how many other people are using our materials and resources out there. In October we're going to Thailand to train the evangelists and the ministers over there to equip them in ministering to all of the northern jungle hill tribe people. Think of the influence that's going to have for generations. Not Not just out there, think about what's happening inside the walls of our church.
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Think of Arrow.
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I look at the work that Dan and Alicia are doing with these young people, to think, what's that going to look like in five years, in ten years, as these young people go out?
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And now they are influencers for Christ in whatever community.
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That's the whole meaning behind Arrow, by the way, right?
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Psalm 127, they're launched out. What kind of impact are the leaders of the Arrow ministry making across the world when these young men and women are being sent out? I think of Harvest Kids and the work that Mandy and her staff does, teaching them. Think of these kids that are growing and are going to be in Arrow soon. The deposits of God's Word that are being made in their lives right now.
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Think about that and how these kids are going to affect the next generation which by the way as a culture are we drawing Closer to God or further away from God as a culture which which is it?
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Further away right to think about think about these kids what the influence for Christ that they're going to have an increasingly dark culture Think of the babies for church What an opportunity from day one?
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We have the ability to love them and to assist the parents in teaching them about the Lord Here's the point I heard a preacher say this one time it always stuck with me. He said you need to bloom Where you're planted bloom where you're planted?
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And if this church is where God has you serve him faithfully and Watch how he takes what is happening?
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right here So when you witness to others, there's something that you can assume.
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There's something you can.
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That's Isaiah 55.11, where God says, "When His Word is sent out, it never returns to Him empty, but it always accomplishes the purposes for which He sends it out." You can assume that every time you share the Word of Christ with someone, God is working.
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You can assume that.
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But don't assume that the religious people that you meet are already saved.
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Don't assume that you can win everyone.
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And don't assume that you can see everything that God is doing through you.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, It's a staggering thought that you would save us.
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And it's almost equally as staggering that you would then use us to tell other people about your plan of salvation, how you've delivered us from sin, from death, from hell, through the sacrifice of your own Son.
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Father, I pray, even though witnessing was sort of our ministry theme last year, we certainly can't ever get away from that.
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That's one of the pillars of our church, Father, is sharing the good news of Jesus with boldness.
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And I pray, Father, You would continue to raise up people who will share the love and the Word of Christ with everyone they come in contact with and leave the results up to you.
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Father, sometimes we get discouraged because we have expectations on things that you've never given us. We try to claim promises that you've never made. So I thank you for this little portion of Acts that we read here today where we can sort of have a reality check, Father.
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Shatter our assumptions. Find us faithful witnesses for Jesus Christ.
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It's in his name that we pray, Amen.
Small Group Questions (Whole Group):
Read Acts 19:1-10
What questions did Paul ask in Acts 19:2-3? What do you think prompted him to ask those questions?
Do you think these disciples (Acts 19:1-7) were saved before Paul ministered to them? Why or why not?
How do you know if you received the Holy Spirit? How can you tell if another person has received the Holy Spirit?
What are the evidences that someone is hardening their heart (Acts 19:9)? How did Paul respond? How should WE respond?
Breakout Questions:
Discuss: Have you held any of the assumptions discussed in the message (religious
people are saved, you can convince anyone into the kingdom, you know all that
God is doing through you)?
Pray: To become a Spirit-powered, God-glorifying witness.