Spirit-Empowered Witness | Acts 1:8 | May 10, 2026

Teacher: Jay O'Brien

Scarlet City Church - Columbus, OH

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Transcript

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I want to invite you to open your Bible to Acts chapter 1. Acts 1. And happy Mother's Day. So thankful for the moms in our life, the spiritual mothers, the mothers who've raised us. And kind of the idea that comes to my mind when I think of moms, maybe it's maybe maybe you can relate. Maybe this is the first thing that comes to mind for you, probably not. But uh when I think of moms, I think of power. Kind of like a superhuman power. But moms have the power to birth us. Anytime you get to witness that experience, it will change your life. Moms birth us, moms raise us, and moms shape us. Moms and also, you know, to the dads too, to dads, they play for many of us the most formative roles in relationships in our life. They shape us for good or sometimes in challenging ways. They shape us with their presence and they also can shape us in their absence. Moms and dads and families are a powerful and formative force, the ripple effect of which is felt for our entire life. In fact, if you want to really get to know someone, meet their parents. Sometimes the way they walk, the way they talk, the way they think, the way they express, when you see their mother or father, you're like, ah. And if you want to give your spouse a compliment, say you're just like your mom or you're just like your dad. You know, two weeks ago, we began this journey as a church through Acts. And Acts is a book in the Bible, and it is the origin story of God's Spirit empowering God's church to begin. It is the origin story of the Spirit of God empowering God's church to launch into the world, empowering God's leaders, God's apostles to launch God's church. And Acts is not a story of individuals and just their personal experiences with Jesus. Acts is the story of a new community, of what the Bible often describes, a new family being launched in the world. In fact, many of the dominant metaphors and descriptions of the church center around a family. God's word teaches us that we're adopted as sons and daughters into the family of God. We are born through the Spirit into a new spiritual home, a new family. People are often described as being nursed and nurtured to maturity, being nursed and nurtured, beginning as children, but growing to become ourselves spiritual mothers and spiritual fathers. The church is often also described of as thought of as a mother, as the community that births us into the family of God and nurtures us to grow and maturity. And the church, like our immediate family, plays an absolutely formative and powerful role in our life. It shapes us for good, or it might shape us in challenging ways. We are shaped in its presence and we are shaped in its absence. And to understand who we are as followers of Jesus and what it means to be the church today, we want to go back and look at our family history. And Acts affords us that opportunity. And because this is God's family, and because as God's family, as the church, as God's church, we are called to reflect God's heart in the world, we've been exploring that He gives us His very presence, His Spirit to work in our lives and in our community to bring about God's purposes in the world. And so, beginning this week and for the next 10 weeks, we are going to look at the specific ways God's Spirit empowers his church. And this morning we picked this up, and looking at verse 8, we read, You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses. The first expression of the Spirit's power at work in the church and in our lives is that we will be witnesses of Jesus. Now, upon reading this, many of us might be familiar with the passage, but if we read it with fresh eyes and perspective, there's a part of us that might feel like that's it, you know, to be witnesses. This is the first great power of God's spirit at work in our life. I mean, I would have expected maybe something a bit more supernatural or some big reveal. It's kind of like on Mother's Day. If you're a mom and in your home, your kids or your spouse says to you, hey, today is going to be amazing. You've been waiting for this Mother's Day for a long time, and it is going to be powerful. Here's what we're going to do we're going to go to church. There's that. And then you're going to go home, and then we're going to go to the kids' soccer game. And then we're going to have a meal, and it's the same meal we had last Sunday. You're thinking, like, that just sounds like a normal Sunday. I mean, we go to the kids' soccer game every week, and they they couldn't have given us a break. It feels so just ordinary. There's no big reveal. And after Jesus saying, You're going to wait, you would think it would be something a bit spectacular. And especially when we see what Jesus, what they're going to receive after what the apostles asked for. In verse 6, right before, so when they had gathered together, we see this gathering, the community of God gathered together. They asked him, Lord, is this the time when you are restoring the kingdom to Israel? What a great and very expected question that they would ask. We've been journeying through the Gospel of Luke as Jesus is teaching about the kingdom and even bringing the kingdom of God into the world in part. And now Jesus has died on the cross and risen from the grave, and they gather together, and they're thinking, now is the time. Jesus isn't going to just teach about the kingdom or bring it in part. He's going to bring the full kingdom and reign and presence of God for eternity now. It's an expected question. But Jesus says no. He told them, You are not permitted to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. Again, Father, this idea of familial relationships. It's understandable that they would ask it, but Jesus' response is curious because he doesn't just say, like, no, that now's not the time. He says, you're not to know the time. And as I think of what it would mean to be a witness, to be sent by God into the world, it would be good to have this kind of information, to go into the world. And many of us want to, to go to the world and say, listen, I've got the timeline, y'all. I know when the Father's plan is going to be fully completed. But Jesus says you're not going to have access to that power, that information. You're called, you're going to be empowered to be my witnesses. It feels a bit ordinary. I mean, they had already been witnesses, already had been sent in many respects. And for many of us, and maybe, maybe you can't relate to this, but for many of us, to be a witness of Jesus might not be the first thing we want to do. We might feel a degree of conviction with this sermon and conversation. I mean, to be another term as evangelist, to be sent by God to share testimony about the risen Jesus and the gospel of Jesus Christ might be something we struggle with. It can feel like, oh, that's something kind of the special forces Christians do. Like the real committed. I'm just an ordinary, you know, person. But the people are real, you know, like Jay, you do that kind of thing. You're a pastor, you're really serious about this. You know, we can think it's like for the really committed. Or for many of us, we might have seasons in our life when we're really encouraged to do this, and we might look back with a degree of questions. Whether we served in young life or crew or in a way, and we're sent to a beach to tell people about Jesus, so it might conjure up just a mixture of emotions. And we might wonder, like, you know, should I do this? What does it look like to do this today? Many of my neighbors, I don't know about you, but for me, many of my neighbors, if I showed up at their house knocking on the door and said, Hey, I want to tell you about Jesus, I want to share a testimony, I don't know if they would be super excited to hear it. Services, these questions and emotions, and we and we're tempted to ask, like, well, then this is important. I mean, not only is this mentioned first among the actions that the Spirit awakens and empowers us to do and to be, but it's repeated 14 times throughout the book of Acts. It is one of the key themes of the book of Acts that the church is to bear witness to Jesus. And not only is it important in the book of Acts, but it is a theme throughout all of Scripture, as God's people were to witness God and his work in the world and communicate it and testify it to others. And so there's an importance here, and we might think, well, maybe if we just, if people really know, hey, God wants you to do this. But I think for many of us, that kind of still might feel like hard news. Like, okay, yeah, I remember youth pastors used to tell me I need to invite my friends. You know, there's all there can even be this mixture of like shame of, oh yes, we should do it if we're serious about God. Uh, one pastor we were even talking about, and he said, you know, like for a church to do this, this is one of the things that people don't want to do. So you need to really challenge them to do it. But I don't know. Another response is, well, for us to do this, maybe we need training. We need good evangelism training. We need to have a class. And in the class, you learn like, here's the gospel and how to have spiritual conversations with your friends and how to turn it to Jesus. And we have this sometimes formulaic way of thinking about it. Maybe if we just got more training, that would allow us to be witnesses. And training's good, and us understanding the gravity and importance of this is certainly important. But in my experience and in knowing others, I think most of us have no problem talking to people about experiences and issues that we really care about and have really shaped our life. I mean, when you go to a restaurant and you have a meal that's so good, the restaurant doesn't need to tell you, Fox in the Stove doesn't need to say, hey, listen, this egg sandwich, here's how you need to talk about it with your friends. The souffle egg and the sauce that's not too saucy but very good, and the arugula that they put on there that's just the right amount, and the bacon, uh the bacon. Like here I am talking about it. No one had to train me or ask me to do it. When you see a movie that just really grips you, you don't need to tell your friends or a show, like, hey, look, you need to watch Hamnet. All right, it's gonna change your life. You will certainly cry, and you will be brought through the ringer, and maybe don't do it on Mother's Day, but another day. No one needs to motivate us or teach us or train us to share about the experiences and issues that we've encountered that have shaped our life, and so I think this reveals the disconnect. And there's a maybe new form of conviction here that we might feel. You see, I think there's a misunderstanding of what it means to be a witness when we think of being a witness as anything other than sharing a testimony of something we experience ourselves personally. Jesus doesn't send them out to be salesmen and women. He doesn't send them out, he says, All right, guys, I taught you the formula, I'm gonna train you. Here's your words and your script. He sends them out to just tell others about what they personally saw and encountered. Being a witness requires a personal encounter with God. I mean, as I mentioned 14 times in Acts, it talks about this. Here's a few of the examples, they'll all be on the screen together. The apostles will be preaching. This is in a sermon, and Peter says, This Jesus God raised up, and we are all witnesses of it. Witnesses to the resurrection. Later he'll say, You killed the originator of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this fact we are witnesses. Acts 5.32, and we are witnesses of these events. What is he saying? He's saying we are simply sharing the testimony of Jesus' resurrection, of these facts that we experienced, that we saw. And again, this isn't just in the book of Acts, but in the Old Testament, in the Hebrew scriptures, we see this repeated over and over and over again in Exodus 14. Moses said to the people, Do not fear, stand firm and witness the salvation of the Lord that he will provide for you today. They are to see and experience God's very salvation and God's deliverance. All over the Psalms we see things like, Yes, in the sanctuary I have seen you and witnessed your power and splendor. Psalm 66, come and witness what God has done, his awesome deeds for mankind. Over and over in the Psalms, over and over in the prophets. I mean, I could keep going. God's people and even the nations in the prophet Isaiah and Jeremiah are to be witnesses of God and his work in the world. A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of serving on a jury in a criminal case in Franklin County. What great timing. Lord knew I was going to give a sermon on being a witness. And there's so much that was fascinating about it. But one of the things in the trial was, of course, they bring witnesses who experience the crime. And one of the things as jurors that we're trying to figure out and that the attorneys bring to the surface is did they really see it or did they hear about it or someone told them about the events? And so they would channel their questions toward that. Like, did you, were you outside, did you see this situation? Witnesses share personal testimony of something they have personally seen and experienced. And when we think of testimony, you know, in our trial that I was a part of, we had video. And so I could even see with my own eyes a recording. In the ancient world, they didn't have phones, they didn't have ring cameras. A testimony, a personal eyewitness testimony, was very, very significant. And needed to have witnesses who were credible and they needed to share from their personal experience. Someone's word was so important in the ancient world. We see we need to encounter God personally. We're not called to bear witness to something we have not experienced. And this teaches us too something about God Himself. Again, looking at our passage in verse 8, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the farthest parts of the earth. How does Jesus qualify witnesses? You are to be my witnesses. There's a personal nature to this. Jesus isn't just saying you're supposed to be, you're called, you're sent to be a witness to things. He says you're called to be my witness. And this teaches us something about God, about Jesus and the way God wants to reveal his truth in the world. That God wants us to encounter and to experience him in tangible ways. That God has a message for the world. And that message is not to just be spoken about, but is to be embodied and experienced and encountered. God works and wants us to experience Him. In fact, the Bible itself is a witness. The Bible is not primarily a collection of people who go off away from everyone and sit around and think, what do we think about God? No, it's people recording what they have witnessed, what they have seen, the ways God has worked. And think of all that God has done to get his message out. Back to the Exodus story with Moses and the people of God who are in slavery and God's work to bring salvation and deliverance, that they can see it and in seeing it be shaped by it and bear witness to it. And we think of God sending his very son into the world to take on human flesh, that he could be seen and touched, and the way he lives and the way he heals and how he teaches to be to experience God like this. That God is a sacramental God, his truth is to be embodied, to be tasted, to be experienced. When we think back to how Luke closes out the gospel of Luke, that the resurrection of Jesus could continue to be encountered because Luke talks about it. How does he speak about it? Through God's word to be experienced, the promises of God to know through the sacrament of communion and the and the church that God longs for his truth to not just be heard, but to be encountered, to be experienced. And God sends his spirit and gives this first command, all centered around this. God has a message, and God's message is for who? Not just them here in Jerusalem, but for the nations. Take what you have seen and experienced and share that with others. And so if we are tasked and empowered by the Spirit today to be a witness to Jesus, it seems to me, in order for this to happen, we need to experience God. We need to encounter Him and His goodness. His message needs to move just from our mind and intellect and brain into our heart and very body. And we would expect, if this was what God would want for us, that this would be how God would work. And it's what we see. The Bible is a testimony, is a witness a witness of those who encounter God and how they share that with others. And so let's just walk through a number of these examples. How God's people experienced God. And as we walk through, and uh any of these could be long, and we we won't be, because we have Mother's Day lunches and things to get to. But each of these is just so profound, and in experiencing them, how it can truly shape our life. And I don't know about you, but for me, I want to I want to witness, I want to be a faithful witness to Jesus, and I want to experience God. Like to truly experience Him, not to just study, not to just think about, not to just have sermons, but to truly encounter the risen Jesus. And to know that that's what God wants. He's not trying to hide. He wants us to experience his love. Let's listen with some maybe curiosity. Like, how might God want to meet us in these ways? Let's look. Tangible experiences of God. Experiencing the goodness of God and his salvation and deliverance. I read from Exodus 14, and again, that says, Do not fear, stand firm and witness the salvation of the Lord. See the salvation of the Lord that will that he will provide for you today. What are the ways that we can encounter and experience God's deliverance in life? To not just read about it, but to experience it. And one of the ways in the book of Acts, a curious way that Acts talks about the very salvation of God is it's also often talked about through healing. What does it look like to experience the goodness of God's healing and deliverance? I mean, we saw in Jesus' life, he's routinely going and healing people as a tangible expression of the power of the kingdom of God and as just an experience and testimony in and of itself. Most of his followers and apostles and disciples experienced his healing. They see it and they're thinking, wow, that's incredible. And they begin to follow him. And this fact of God healing and transforming lives, and that being the power that motivates ministry happens all over the world today. I remember several years ago when we went to India and we're encountering many of the leaders there and was a part of a leadership conference. And there were 500 people from northern India into Nepal who traveled and came to this conference. And every one of them had a testimony of, yeah, we were living in our village doing this, and then all of a sudden someone came and there was healing and it changed our lives. We saw people's lives healed and changed, and we thought, well, I want to be part of the living God and his work. And so here I am. It's not abnormal. It's actually pretty normal in many parts of the world that God works and ministers through healing. And what might that look like for you and for me? How can we encounter God's goodness and love in healing for our lives and people that we care about? Experiencing God's goodness through God's promises that are fulfilled. Soon as we continue looking at the Spirit and the Spirit's work, we will see healing. We will see sermons. And often the first sermons, they they have a genre is not the right word, but they have a type. Peter routinely talks about the promises of God and how they are now fulfilled. What are God's promises? The things he says he will do, and then when we see him do them. I mean, Jesus Himself is a fulfillment of God's promise to send a Messiah to bring deliverance. But even in our passage that we read that the Spirit will empower God's people to be witnesses to Jerusalem, to uh Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Imagine if we read this when it was first written. We think that's pretty bold, Luke. I mean, maybe. And we see in the story of Acts, in fact, it falls, in fact, it follows this outline. It begins in Jerusalem, begins to expand, and then reaches all the way to Rome when it ends. And here we are today. The very promises of God fulfilled, the Spirit empowering men and women to be witnesses, to tell someone, who tells someone. And look at us right here: a testimony to the faithfulness of God and the Spirit of God to empower people to bear witness to the gospel. Experiencing the goodness of God through God's promises fulfilled. Experiencing the goodness of God through God's judgment and sometimes through God's rebuke. This is one that for us we might think, hold on, wait a minute. Did you just say experiencing the goodness of God through his judgment and rebuke? Because that doesn't feel like it connects. And I think for many in the West, this is judgment does not feel good to us. Feels the opposite of good. And even in this conversation about evangelism or being a witness, it might, this might be conjuring up like the person on the street yelling about sin and judgment and experiencing it from God as a means of hoping to people would come to salvation. And we walked right by them on the way to Ohio State game, and we almost want to apologize to people, like, you know what, they're not speaking for me. And yet we see God's judgment as a witness. Ezekiel 39, 21, I will display my majesty among the nations. All the nations will witness the judgment I have executed and the power I have exhibited among them. In other parts of the world, God's judgment is actually experienced as good. One academic from Yale, Miroslav Wolf, captures it in his book, Exclusion and Embrace, this way. And the quote won't be on the screen, so you'll just need to follow along. He says, My thesis is that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance. My thesis will be unpopular with man in the West. But imagine speaking to people as I have, whose cities and villages have been first plundered, then burned and leveled to the ground, whose daughters and sisters have been raped, whose fathers and brothers have had their throats slit. Your point to them, we should not retaliate? Why not? I say the only means of prohibiting violence by us is to insist that violence is only legitimate when it comes from God. Violence thrives today, secretly nourished by the belief that God refuses to take the sword. It takes the quiet of a suburb for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence is the result of God who refuses to judge. In a scorched land soaked in the blood of the innocent, the idea will invariably die, like other pleasant captivities of the liberal mind. If God were not angry at injustice and deception and did not make a final end of the violence, that God would not be worthy of our worship. It was maybe that time when someone lovingly, graciously, and mercifully said, you know, there's another way to live. There's another way. And if God isn't a God of judgment, then in what way is he ever a God of justice? In what way is he ever taking seriously his desire to make the world right again? I think the question is not is God about judgment, but who's a judge we can trust? Who's a judge we can trust? And God is the God we need to bring correction in our life. And this is for our good. If God doesn't challenge us or call us or seek to shape us from the inside out, maybe he's not so much a God as much of a figment of our imagination. Experiencing the goodness of God's judgment and his rebuke, also experiencing the goodness of God's wisdom. Scripture, again, is a testimony and a witness to the character of God. And it is a book on how to live well. Again, we've been looking at uh both Brian and Jenny the last two weeks talked about waiting and what waiting teaches us that we need the power of the Spirit. And last week, Jenny talked about how waiting shapes us. And in our waiting, what does it look like to take that next step of trust and dependence on God? So much of the Bible is this way. How do we live in the in-between, the chaos of our world and the goodness that God is prominent promising and inviting us into? How do we live in the already and not yet? So much of Scripture is wisdom. And in my experience, when I see the testimony of God and the way of life that Jesus invites us into, it just seems to line up with how to flourish and live well. I mean, to just center everything around me doesn't turn out for my own good. But when I center my life around God and about and around loving others, it seems to work. When I relate to money and it's just, how do I get more of it? How can I pass the money? How can I make more money, get more money? But when I relate to money in such a way that I want to steward it for the flourishing of others, it seems to work out better. God's word and his testimony and experiencing him that way as he brings wisdom into our life. And we can share a testimony bearing witness that it's for our good. Experiencing the goodness of God's love in community. I mean, the story is going to continue in a few weeks. We'll find ourselves in Acts chapter 2, which reads, they were devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Reverential awe came over everyone. Many wonders and miraculous signs came about by the apostles. All who believed were together, held everything in common, and they began selling their property and possessions and distributing the proceeds to everyone as anyone had need. We look at this and we think that's amazing. A witness to experience God's love in community. God is committed to his message of love, not just being talked about, but to be embodied and to be embodied in his church. You see, what we want for you is we want you to encounter the love of God here. And not just in the sermon, but in tangible ways, through friendships, through someone asking a question, following up, through carrying burdens together, through asking, as someone did this morning to me, hey Jay, how are you doing? I know Mother's Day is full of different emotions as your mom passed several years ago. How are you doing? And that's just a way of experiencing God's good love because he sends people into our life who know our name and know our circumstances and care. To experience the goodness of God and his love, his grace and community, and lastly, to experience the goodness of God by seeing God love others through us. Again, one of the real privileges is to grow to become spiritual mothers and fathers, to play a role in someone's life. What an honor to play any small part in God's work to love someone else through me. And when I think about it this way, now being a witness is completely different. And evangelism is totally different. I'm not trying to win a soul or convince somebody of something. I'm just hoping to play a role that God would love them through me. Through my words, through my presence, through fumbling around talking about, you know, God's love is like bread that we can come and eat, and it's so much better than the bread you can get from what was the place down the street? Fox in the snow. Fox in the snow bread's amazing. We all should go there next. If we all see each other there, it'd be great. It's so good, but it does it pales in comparison. Because Jesus' body is the bread that can satisfy the true longing, eternal spiritual hunger, the soul hunger in our life. Fox in the snow can never do that. And I want people to taste that. And I want people to experience that. And I want to taste and experience it. And the moments where I have, they just break through in a cold and cloudy world with light and illumination and goodness and to think that God is like this. He doesn't just lecture us about his love, but he makes it concrete. And he did it then and he does it now. And we have the joyful privilege to be part of this family, this legacy, this gospel to share with others what we have seen and what we have encountered.