SPEAKER_00: All right, good evening.
SPEAKER_00: Happy Wednesday to you.
SPEAKER_00: A few quick things before we get started.
SPEAKER_00: One, just a public update of the uh the lady in our congregation.
SPEAKER_00: If you were here on Sunday that had the medical incident, uh she is she is well, she is good.
SPEAKER_00: It was a low blood pressure issue.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for all of your prayers and for your attentiveness uh in that.
SPEAKER_00: So praise God for that.
SPEAKER_00: Um, a reminder at the conclusion of this, I am available for those that wish and desire prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Immediately afterwards, I'll be here as long as it takes.
SPEAKER_00: Uh three, just a reminder, we are in the middle of 21 days of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: We're praying for the lost people in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We're praying that God would move in revival.
SPEAKER_00: And uh this Sunday we have a uh we have a special guest, evangelist, and so an excellent service for you to invite uh a friend, a neighbor, uh a coworker that needs to hear the good news of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: All right, picture up there.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I don't expect any of you guys to know who this is, um, but this gentleman, his name is Matt Sutter.
SPEAKER_00: I show him to you for two reasons.
SPEAKER_00: One, uh I I picked out a U T-shirt so you know how kind and gracious I always am.
SPEAKER_00: Uh number two, uh, Matt, if you've ever heard me give my testimony, Matt is the soccer friend.
SPEAKER_00: I was 15 years old.
SPEAKER_00: I showed up to soccer practice, and Matt said to me, What are you doing tonight?
SPEAKER_00: I said, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I'll tell you what you're doing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm picking you up at 5:30.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to First Baptist, and you're gonna hear this.
SPEAKER_00: It was the power team.
SPEAKER_00: And that was the night that I got saved.
SPEAKER_00: And Matt also, he was a year older than me, he could drive, and he specifically poured into me to pick me up, to take me to Bible study for the duration of my high school years.
SPEAKER_00: I I didn't have anyone to disciple me.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, my own home wasn't particularly religious.
SPEAKER_00: My own father did not disciple me as a young man.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the closest thing to that was was Matt.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, Matt was himself a pretty new believer.
SPEAKER_00: And so, anyways, I hadn't spoken to him for uh since 1999, 26 years.
SPEAKER_00: And I got to connect with him this week.
SPEAKER_00: And can I just tell you how special that was for my heart to be where I am now, to be able to tell him thank you for uh, you know, and he plays it like, uh, you know, I'm glad God used me, but I really didn't do that much.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, you don't understand.
SPEAKER_00: God used you in such a profound way in my life, and I and I have been longing to reconnect with you and and to say thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I share that with you tonight.
SPEAKER_00: We've been talking on Wednesday nights about the Holy Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: You as a believer, you have the indwelling Holy Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I know you don't always feel or sense the Spirit of God inside of you, but we've been walking through, we've been talking about that unfolding it, we've covered a lot, but this last half of the semester, we've been talking about meeting points where the Bible teaches that the Spirit of God will meet you in these locations in special, unique ways.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, when the church gathers, when you pray, the Spirit of God intercedes for you.
SPEAKER_00: Tonight I want us to talk about evangelism.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, the Spirit of God promises to meet you in your proclamation, in your giving as you step out in mission for God's kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of God promises to meet you.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to Acts chapter 1, verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: But you will receive power.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, Jesus is talking to the disciples, says, Don't leave Jerusalem, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Don't go anywhere, wait, because the Spirit of God is going to fall on Pentecost.
SPEAKER_00: And this is Jesus speaking.
SPEAKER_00: You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.
SPEAKER_00: And you shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria, even to the remotest part of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I want you to see from this passage.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to see the tie of the Spirit's role with power to what?
SPEAKER_00: To be in a witness.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit has a lot of functions in our life.
SPEAKER_00: We've covered those, right?
SPEAKER_00: To convict you of sin, to guide you in life.
SPEAKER_00: Here, the emphasis is that the Spirit of God will come upon you in power as you witness, as you carry out the call that God has placed upon every one of us to be witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: Wherever you go, in Jerusalem, Judea, even to the ends of the earth, okay, the Spirit of God empowers you to be a witness.
SPEAKER_00: Now I want to expand that in your mind.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to think, I don't want you to just think when you try and proclaim the gospel to someone.
SPEAKER_00: I also want you to think in the encounters that you have.
SPEAKER_00: So as you meet people and you begin to engage them, as you pray for people, okay, as you pray for conversations leading to gospel presentation, leading along the way, in all of those areas, the Spirit of God actually promises power in your life.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't my promise, this is his promise.
SPEAKER_00: As you step out in being a witness, okay, and you shine the light of Christ in so many aspects of your life in so many areas while you're at work, while you're in your neighborhood, but as you step out with an intentionality, the Spirit of God promises power in your life to witness of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I can hear, it is so loud what you are saying in your own mind and heart right now.
SPEAKER_00: It is echoing in this place.
SPEAKER_00: You are saying things like, but I'm not gifted in that way.
SPEAKER_00: That scares the bejeebis out of me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like stepping out of my comfort zone.
SPEAKER_00: You are like Moses, you are arguing with the Spirit of God, and you are saying, I am not eloquent in speech.
SPEAKER_00: What if they ask me questions I don't know the answer to?
SPEAKER_00: I cannot do this.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: I want to show for you 1 Corinthians chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: I was ready for your objection, and I am ready to respond to your objection with Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Check this out.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is writing to the church in Corinth, and he is talking about how he first came and planted the church among them.
SPEAKER_00: So he says, When I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom.
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: Now, check this out.
SPEAKER_00: In Paul's day and time, you know they didn't have uh they didn't have TV, they didn't have radio, they didn't have movie stars, those sorts of things.
SPEAKER_00: Their overwhelming form of entertainment, and therefore it was embedded in the culture, was uh orators who were very skilled in rhetoric to go from town to town and to talk politics, religion, but to do so with a flair to it and a certain level of sophistication and rhetoric and high talk, elevated speech to overwhelm the audience, that you were clever, okay, that you were really smart and studied, and even if people couldn't particularly follow everything you were saying, they knew you were someone to be dealt with, you had to be listened to.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We can pick up on that in our culture pretty easily.
SPEAKER_00: We know this sort of characterization that's being presented here.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, when I showed up in Corinth, I didn't do any of that.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, theologians wrestle with the fact there are letters that say, you know, Paul sure is weighty when he writes letters, but when he shows up, he ain't all that.
SPEAKER_00: You're like, this is this is Paul.
SPEAKER_00: He he writes so powerfully, and he speaks with an agently voice.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Well, listen to what he says.
SPEAKER_00: When I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom proclaim when I was proclaiming to you the testimony of God, but instead I determined, oh, back back, I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, Paul made the determination that he was going to speak the gospel plainly.
SPEAKER_00: Don't keep reading, listen to me.
SPEAKER_00: That he was going to speak the gospel plainly.
SPEAKER_00: Okay now, verse three.
SPEAKER_00: I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.
SPEAKER_00: This is debated on what this means.
SPEAKER_00: What I think we can safely say, okay, is that Paul overwhelmingly, in contrast to being verbose, in contrast to being puffed up with pride, in thinking in any way that he could argue anyone into the kingdom, he says, I was filled with humility and I trembled at my own flesh.
SPEAKER_00: My message or my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the spirit and power in the Greek are linked together so that that really means the spirit's power.
SPEAKER_00: These were not acts of Paul raising someone from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: We know other of those accounts.
SPEAKER_00: That's not what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: He's not talking about miracles here.
SPEAKER_00: What he's talking about is the Spirit's ability to open the eyes of the heart to the glory of the gospel, to the beauty of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So listen to what he says, because I want to put every one of your fears to rest.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, it's not about how eloquent you are.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about winning an argument.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot argue anyone into the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: But listen to me, brethren.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of God will meet you in those appointments, in those conversations.
SPEAKER_00: Just be simple and clear with the gospel, because your only hope is that the Spirit of God moves in their lives and saves them.
SPEAKER_00: You can't save them, that's not even your job.
SPEAKER_00: Acts 1.8, you will have power, power of the Spirit to do what only the Spirit can do as you're my witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you step out in obedience, and the Spirit of God promises to do the work and to meet you, you say, but what if they ask me a question I don't know the answer to?
SPEAKER_00: Write this down.
SPEAKER_00: Say I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: But say, but I'll go find the answer and I'll come back.
SPEAKER_00: You can do that, can't you?
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of God promises, this is God's word, to meet you as you carry forward the name of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Wherever you work, wherever you play, in your neighborhood, in your relationship connections, the Spirit of God wants to use you.
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe God's word?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, then trust his word and step out in faith and say, All right, God, this makes me uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: But your word has said you will meet me in this location as I'm obedient.
SPEAKER_00: Will you pray with me?
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the promise for the truth that it is only by your spirit that we are saved.
SPEAKER_00: Only you can change hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Only you can convict of sin.
SPEAKER_00: Only you, King Jesus, can peel back the veil on our eyes, our blindness to the truth that you, Jesus, have accomplished all.
SPEAKER_00: That it is by the mercy and the grace and the beauty of Jesus that we are saved.
SPEAKER_00: All of Jesus, none of us.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, only you can accomplish that in anybody's life.
SPEAKER_00: You accomplished it in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We meet you in the gospel, and now we know from your word that you promise to meet us with your power as we witness in our encounters.
SPEAKER_00: Father, help us to be faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to trust your word.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to see this week that we have divine appointments, relationships that are in our life on purpose so that we can shine your light.
SPEAKER_00: And we will pray, we will beg that you will save because you are worthy.
SPEAKER_00: You are worthy of everyone's praise, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It's in your name we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.