Acts 18:24-19:7 [NLTse]
18:24 Meanwhile, a Jew named Apollos, an eloquent speaker who knew the Scriptures well, had arrived in Ephesus from Alexandria in Egypt. 25 He had been taught the way of the Lord, and he taught others about Jesus with an enthusiastic spirit and with accuracy. However, he knew only about John’s baptism. 26 When Priscilla and Aquila heard him preaching boldly in the synagogue, they took him aside and explained the way of God even more accurately.
27 Apollos had been thinking about going to Achaia, and the brothers and sisters in Ephesus encouraged him to go. They wrote to the believers in Achaia, asking them to welcome him. When he arrived there, he proved to be of great benefit to those who, by God’s grace, had believed. 28 He refuted the Jews with powerful arguments in public debate. Using the Scriptures, he explained to them that Jesus was the Messiah.
19:1 While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul traveled through the interior regions until he reached Ephesus, on the coast, where he found several believers. 2 “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” he asked them.
“No,” they replied, “we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.”
3 “Then what baptism did you experience?” he asked.
And they replied, “The baptism of John.”
4 Paul said, “John’s baptism called for repentance from sin. But John himself told the people to believe in the One Who would come later, meaning Jesus.”
5 As soon as they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 Then when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in other tongues and prophesied. 7 There were about twelve men in all.
Sermon
Apollos is a great example from the Scripture of powerful, inspiring preachers, but who just don’t know the fullness of the good news that is ours in Jesus Christ. I don’t say this against any particular person or to put anyone down. But the truth is, we human beings tend to glorify people more than we should. And yet, the very best of us humans fall short. No matter our gifts and abilities – great or small – we are all sinners. Jesus Christ alone should be our standard for godliness and the fullness of the gospel.
And Jesus has given us a commission to “go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” And to “teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you.”
And of all the commands the Lord Jesus has given us, what was the greatest? [Let the congregation say it.] Yup: “You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind,” and, “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Has anyone else here ever felt overwhelmed by such a commission or by such commandments? Jesus has told us to make disciples everywhere we go. Not just for pastors to make disciples, but for you to make disciples – for each of us, for all of us – to make disciples everywhere we go. And to baptize them (in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit), and to teach these disciples we’ve made to obey all of the Lord Jesus’ commands, which the Lord Himself summarizes by ordering us to love God with everything we are and everything we have, and to love everyone around us, too.
And I don’t know about all of you, but it makes my head spin just thinking about that, and as my head spins I get all locked up and don’t know where to begin… And sometimes, feeling so overwhelmed and not knowing where to begin, it can lead me to just do nothing at all. Because how can human beings accomplish such things? It’s impossible! So then, is the Lord just setting us up to fail? No.
Paul makes clear that the Lord Jesus did not come just to baptize us for repentance, that is, He didn’t come just so that our sins might be forgiven. No. He did baptize us for that, so that we could be forgiven, and washed clean, and so be brought close to the Father once again. But that’s not all He came to do. Paul makes clear that the Lord Jesus also came to baptize us with the Holy Spirit – so that we might be empowered to accomplish His commission and enabled to carry out His commandments. For the things of God cannot be accomplished by human force or human strength. They are accomplished by His Spirit, says the Lord. (See Zechariah 4:6.)
But many Christians don’t know such things. They’ve never been taught such things. And so they don’t expect such things: They don’t know that they can look to God for such capability, for such empowerment. But we can.
You see, we live in the overlap of the times: On the one hand we live in this fallen world filled with wickedness, sin, and death; but on the other hand, the Kingdom of God has come with eternal life, righteousness, and peace. King Jesus has established God’s Kingdom. The End has begun. But it has only begun. We continue awaiting the fulfillment – the completeness – when the Lord Jesus comes again, and when all those who follow Christ will experience the resurrection and get new, everlasting bodies, where all things will be made new, and where righteousness will not only be the law of the land but will be all that anybody knows or desires to do…
But that fulfillment is not here yet. We live in the overlap of the times. And to survive and to thrive in the overlap, we need the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes the Father and the Son real on earth, and brings to each and every believer all that Jesus won for us on the cross. The Holy Spirit enables people to enter into the Kingdom of God through the new birth that comes by faith in Christ, and to have God’s life within them as is talked about as the fruit of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit gives Christians spiritual capabilities and manifestations of the Kingdom of Heaven so that we can show and tell those around us about our King Jesus and about His Kingdom so that all whom the Father is calling will come to Him.
There are three ways the Holy Spirit empowers us to accomplish all that the Lord Jesus calls us to so that we might draw people’s attention to God the Father. One way is that the Holy Spirit takes our natural abilities and “supercharges” them, if you will, so that what before we became Christians we were merely good at, now draws people to God through faith in Jesus Christ. These are listed in Romans 12:6-8, and are often spoken of as the “functional” gifts of the Holy Spirit because they serve as the framework so that the Church can effectively function here in the world.
Another way the Holy Spirit empowers us to carry out the Lord Jesus’ “great commission” is by giving us supernatural capabilities that we did not have before becoming Christians. These are the most spontaneous, dramatic, visible, and spectacular gifts. The ones most often misused and misunderstood. The Apostle Paul lists them in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10, and writes extensively about how to use them appropriately in 1 Corinthians chapters 12 through 14, dedicating all of chapter 13 on the importance of using them in love. They are often spoken of as the “manifestational” gifts of the Holy Spirit because they manifest – they reveal and show people, as we’ve already said, in often dramatic and spectacular ways – the Holy Spirit’s power and the realities of the Kingdom of God.
The last way the Holy Spirit seems to empower followers of Jesus Christ to obey all that He has commanded is by giving His Church leaders who are to equip them to serve the Lord. These “gifts” are persons, who have been called by the Lord, or Whom the Lord has placed in various offices in the Church, in order to train up Christians who will strengthen and grow the Body of Christ, and Christians who will to take the good news of Christ Jesus and His Kingdom to all peoples across and around the world. These are often spoken of as the “vocational” gifts of the Holy Spirit and are listed in Ephesians 4:11-13.
We are not on our own. Nor has our Father in Heaven set Himself up as some far away divinity Whom we must kiss up to and beg in order to get His help! He knows we are weak. He made us that way. We were never intended to go it on our own, apart from Him, apart from His Spirit. We can boldly and confidently fulfill His commission upon us and the commandments He’s called us to by looking to Him, depending upon Him, by surrendering to and cooperating with His Holy Spirit. He has gifted us with His “functional” gifts. He will gift us – when we need them – with His “manifestational” gifts. And, by His grace, He has given you [pointing to myself] this pastor/teacher “vocational” gift to help equip and prepare you more and more for living His life in this overlapping time.
(We’ll talk more about the “functional” gifts of the Holy Spirit when we read Romans together next month. We’ll look at the “manifestational” gifts when we read 1 Corinthians after that. And the “vocational” gifts when we read Ephesians. Let’s keep reading together using the Closer Walk reading plan, which is also printed in our weekly Bulletins and is on the homepage of our website.)