June 7, 2026 Filled in Outline
Acts 1:4-8
Let’s read some scripture here from Acts chapter 1. This is Dr. Luke’s record of Jesus’ words right before he ascended up to heaven. I’m going to read verses 4 through 8, and then we’ll look into God’s word. So, what Dr. Luke wrote almost 2,000 years ago on one occasion while he was eating with him, he being Jesus, he gave him this command, do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my father promised, which you have heard me speak about.
For John baptized with water, but in a few days, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Then they gathered around him and asked him, Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel? And Jesus said to them, it’s not for you to know the times or dates, the father has set by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea, in Samaria, in the ends of the earth.
Well, if you’ve been with us for a few weeks, you know that we’re on a series really based on 2nd Peter 1, verse 4, where Peter writes about God has given us very great and precious promises. And so, we’re kind of camped on that phrase, great and precious promises and begin to ask the question, what are the promises that God has given us? There are literally hundreds in the Bible.
And when we gave our introductory message on the study of the promises of God, there’s two key things when you study scripture. To whom is this promise given? Because not every promise in the Bible is for us. Some are for Israel; some are for the church.
So, we need to understand the context and who the promise is given to. The other key thing in studying the promises of God is to ask the question, is this a conditional promise or unconditional? In other words, do I have to do something in order to receive the promise or is the promise just freely given? And so, with that in mind, we started to look at some of the promises of God and we looked at the one from Isaiah chapter 40, verse 31, really given to the nation of Israel when they were in Babylonian captivity. And they were down and they were discouraged and not sure what their future looked like.
They end up being in Babylonian captivity for 70 years. But here is the promise that God gave to them. But those who hope in the Lord, the word there really means those who put their full trust in God.
Here’s what God will do. God will renew your strength. You will soar on wings like eagles.
You will run and not grow weary and you will walk and not faint. And so, God gives us strength, promises strength for the weary. And to be honest, the Christian life is not a 100-meter dash.
It’s a marathon. There are times in our Christian lives where we get down, we get discouraged because of life circumstances. And the promise here is that God will give you strength and hope when we are weary.
The second promise that we looked at, and this was a couple of weeks ago when we had our outdoor service out here under the pavilion, was the promise of peace. The promise of peace. Jesus gave us that promise in John chapter 14 verse 27 in the upper room.
He’s talking to his disciples. Peace, I leave with you. My peace I give to you.
I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled. Don’t be afraid.
The promise of peace. We talked about living in 3D, that there are three dimensions of peace from the Bible. There’s peace with God.
That’s the most important one. To make that peace treaty with God. Therefore, being justified by faith, Paul writes in Romans 5:1. We have peace with God.
Before we make that commitment and put our faith in Jesus and Jesus alone for our salvation, we’re enemies at God. And now when we come to faith in Jesus, we’re at peace with him. So, it’s peace with God.
Then there’s the peace of God. That’s promised in Philippians 4:6, and 7. Do not be anxious about anything. Stop worrying.
What are we to do? But in everything with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. And here’s the promise. The peace of God that passes all understanding will guard our hearts, our emotions, our minds in Christ Jesus.
That is easier said than done. When life gets difficult. When life is heavy.
But God has promised peace even in the midst of a storm. It’s like being in the eye of the hurricane. Because we put our trust in a sovereign God who knows the end from the beginning.
A sovereign God who won’t let anything come into our lives that doesn’t first pass through his permission. A God that says, for those that put their trust in me, I will work all things together for good to those that love me. That doesn’t say that everything is good.
It says that God as the master planner will work even difficulty and evil for our spiritual good. Last week, we looked at the promise of provision. That God is our provider.
We looked at Genesis 22 where the name is given to God Jehovah Jireh that God will provide. And we looked at a list of things that God provides. He provides salvation.
He provides security. He provides satisfaction. And he supplies our needs.
We looked at God’s supply chain for needs. And in scripture, there’s three lines of defense. Work is the first one.
If we have a need, the Bible talks about family stepping in and helping provide for needs. And then the third line of defense is the church. And that’s what God uses to provide for our needs.
Well, the fourth promise we want to look at this morning is the promise of power. And we read about it in Acts chapter 1 verse 8, the promise of power. Today, our lives are extremely dependent on power, on power.
So much so that we all have some sort of backup. If the power goes out, we’ve got generators and things. Because once the power’s gone, our economy and life completely stops.
Just after 4:10 p.m. on August 14, 2003, a cascading failure in the power grid led to one of the greatest blackouts in American history. 55 million people were affected in parts of the Northeast, the Midwest, and Ontario, Canada. The power outage disrupted transportation, communication, water supply, and essential services.
The outage originated from a software bug in the alarm system at First Energy’s control room, which prevented operators from recognizing overloaded transmission lines. A transmission line in Ohio came into contact with a tree, triggering a local fault that cascaded across the grid. The failure spread rapidly due to high electricity demand on a hot summer day, unavailable generators, and insufficient real-time monitoring of the grid.
And all of a sudden, 55 million people in the United States were in the dark. And the last place I would want to be is stuck in an elevator. One of my fears.
You can ask Michelle Durheim about that experience. We’re dependent on power. So much so that if you kind of read news articles today, which I have been doing in preparation for this, one news article said the U.S. power grid is highly vulnerable due to aging infrastructure, cyber threats, extreme weather, and rising electricity demand, making its security a critical national concern.
The grid is an attractive target for cyber-attacks from nation states such as China and Russia, as well as criminal actors and insiders. Well, we’re not here this morning to talk about power grid failures. But we’re here to talk about spiritual power and the lack of spiritual power, maybe individually in our lives, maybe collectively as a church.
Main truth- God had promised us power for Chrisitan living
And so, our main truth this morning is that God has promised us power for victorious Christian living. That God doesn’t want us to live in depression and discouragement and defeat in our lives. God wants us to live victoriously.
And God has given us some resources to live the victorious Christian life. We sing about it in our hymn book, Oh, Victory in Jesus. We read about it in scripture, Romans 8:37 says, we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us so.
So why is it that so many Christians aren’t experiencing that victorious Christian life? Why is it that there are so many churches that don’t experience God’s power? Here’s a news article I came across this last week. 15,000 churches in the United States could close this year, vastly outnumbering new ones that will open. Thomas Rainer, former president and CEO of Lifeway Christian Resources, part of the Southern Baptist Convention, writes about 15,000 churches closed last year, and another 15,000 churches are expected to shift from full-time to part-time pastors.
According to Pew Research, only 62% of Americans now identify themselves as Christians. And don’t think that all those are genuine followers of Jesus. They’re not.
Compared to 78% in 2007. So, in 20 years, the number of people in the United States that identify as Christian has gone from 78% to 62%. Southern Baptist pastor J.D. Greer makes this observation.
Older folks are more interested in their tradition than reaching their grandchildren. I hope that’s not true. We want to hold on to our tradition, not that the gospel message changes, but the church’s methodology sometimes has to change of how we reach a new generation for Christ.
And so, the promise of power, God has promised us power for Christian living. And so, we want to think about some resources for power. But before we do, here’s our premise statement.
The first step to spiritual power is experiencing the life changing power of the gospel
The first step to spiritual power is experiencing the life-changing power of the gospel. There’s step number one, that if we want to live in victory in our lives and spiritual power, the first step to that is coming to faith in Jesus, realizing that he paid our sin debt, and putting our faith in him alone for our eternal salvation. I like to say everybody’s; sin has to be paid for.
Either you’re going to pay for it, or Jesus already paid for it. And so, Romans chapter 1 verse 16, Paul writes, For I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is what? The power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. That word there is, in the Greek, the word for power is Dunamis.
It’s the dynamite that Jesus has conquered sin, death, and the grave. And when we put our faith in Jesus, we are translated from spiritual death to life, from darkness to light. And now we’re connected back to God.
That’s the first step. Experiencing the life-changing power of the gospel. That’s our justification.
I like to call it the great exchange. 2nd Corinthians 5:21. He who knew no sin, Jesus, became sin for us, so that in him we might become what? The righteousness of God.
And we put our faith in Jesus. When God looks at us positionally, he looks at us through as being in Christ, just as if we’ve never sinned. How good do you have to be to get into heaven? The answer is perfect.
That’s our problem, because no one’s perfect. That’s why Jesus came, and his righteousness gets credited to our account. So that’s our justification.
3 resources for spiritual power
Now these other three resources, now that we’re going to talk about, talk about living the Christian life. Our sanctification. Three resources for spiritual power.
i. The power of a person
Let’s look at them quickly this morning. The first one is the power of a person. The power of a person.
And it references, we’re going to reference the scripture reading this morning. But here’s Jesus. He’s in the upper room, right before he’s going to go to the cross.
In John chapter 14, verses 16 and 17. It says, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another comforter, another advocate to help you. He will be with you forever.
And he’s talking about the spirit of truth. Verse 17, the world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you, and he will be in you.
So, Jesus said, I’m leaving. Someone else is coming. It’s the Holy Spirit.
And guess what? For believers, he’s actually going to be living inside of you, if you’re a follower of Jesus. See, in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit came on people to accomplish different tasks that they needed to be done, and then he would leave. Empowerment for the task, but not be there permanently.
Jesus said, when I leave, I’ll send the comforter, and he will be with you. He will actually be in you. And so, 1st Corinthians 6:19 says, what, don’t you know that your bodies are what? The temple of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit of God, once you receive Christ as your Savior, actually indwells within you. And so, the power of a person, it’s the Holy Spirit. And Jesus, right before he ascended, said, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.
10 days later, that happened. Acts chapter 2, Pentecost. And here’s the apostle Peter, who just six weeks earlier had denied three times that he even knew Jesus, and now Peter, a Galilean fisherman with no theological educational training other than he had been with Jesus for three years, stands up and preaches a message.
And thousands of people come to faith in Jesus because of the power of the Holy Spirit that came upon those disciples there in Acts chapter 2. And so, the first resource for spiritual power is the person of the Holy Spirit, who, if you know Jesus as your Savior, actually lives inside of you. Now, there’s a distinction between the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That’s a one-time event.
When we receive Christ as our Savior, the Scriptures tell us we are baptized into the body of Christ. Not talking about water baptism, it means we’re placed into the body of Christ. That’s a one-time event.
But there’s something else called the filling of the Holy Spirit or the control of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Paul writes about it to the church at Ephesus in Ephesians chapter 5. He writes, don’t get drunk on wine, instead be filled with the Spirit. Don’t get drunk on spirits, be filled with the Spirit, capital S-P-I-R-I-T, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and singing songs from the Spirit, giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So, the phrase there, it’s really a command, keep on being filled with the Spirit. What does that mean? It means let the Holy Spirit have control of your life. And that is a process that should be a daily process, a repeated process of submitting ourselves to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our life.
And there’s some evidences of having the Spirit of God in our life. Galatians chapter 5 verse 22 talks about nine-character traits that the Spirit of God wants to develop in each of our lives. That’s called the fruit of the Spirit.
Love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. That’s what the Spirit of God wants to develop in your life and my life. And so, you’ve got a helper to live the Christian life.
He’s the Holy Spirit that, if you know Jesus, that lives inside of you, that wants to guide you and produce godly character in your life. Well, there’s a second resource for living in spiritual power. It’s not just a person, the promise of a person and prayer, the Holy Spirit, but it’s the power of prayer, the power of prayer.
ii. The power of prayer
The second resource is the power of prayer. There’s an interesting passage in the Gospels in Mark chapter 9 verse 17. Jesus is in his ministry and the crowds are following him.
And as the crowds are following him, somebody comes to the disciples, the 12 disciples, and they’ve got a son who is influenced by demons. He is being controlled by the spiritual forces of evil. And here’s what happens in Mark chapter 9. A man in the crowd says, Teacher, addressing Jesus, I brought you my son who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech.
Whenever it controls him, seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out that spirit, but they couldn’t do it.
So, here’s this young person that’s controlled by an evil spirit and that’s controlling his life and doing all sorts of horrible things. And they bring him to the 12 disciples and ask for help, and they don’t know what to do or they can’t do it. And so, they bring him to Jesus and Jesus basically asks him, you know, do you have faith? Do you have belief? Verse 24, Mark 9, Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, I do believe, help me overcome my belief.
I’ve got some faith, but it’s wavering a little bit. When Jesus saw, the crowd was running to the scene, he rebuked the impure spirit. You deaf and mute spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.
The spirit shrieked, convulsed him violently and came out. The boy looks so much like a corpse that many said he’s dead. But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him to his feet.
And he stood up. After Jesus had gone indoors, his disciples asked him privately, why couldn’t we do it? How come you could do that? And we were powerless to do it. And Jesus’ answer is very instructive.
Jesus replied, this kind can only come out by prayer, by prayer. You’re missing a spiritual dynamic here. It’s the dynamic of prayer.
And so, James 5:16 says, the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. And we have this incredible resource that God has given us that oftentimes we forget about or don’t think it makes any difference. And it’s the power of prayer.
Imagine if somebody gave you a phone number and said, this phone number is a direct line to the Oval Office of the President of the United States. And anytime you need anything, or maybe anytime you’ve got some sort of difficulty in your life, you can call that number and immediately have access to the President of the United States. And you’re like, man, I’m keeping that in my wallet.
Well, we have something similar, only it’s much better. We have direct access to God the Father. And we don’t have to make an appointment.
And we never get a busy signal. We never get put on a hold. He’s there to listen.
He’s there to answer 24/7. Prayer, the power of prayer. Stormie Omartian in her book, The Power of a Praying Parent, asked the question, what is prayer and how does it work? Here’s what she says.
Prayer is acknowledging and experiencing the presence of God and inviting His presence into our lives and circumstances. It’s seeking the presence of God and releasing the power of God into our lives. Let me tell you that prayer is not about getting our will done in heaven, but prayer is about getting God’s will done on earth.
That’s what Jesus said on the disciples’ prayer, the Lord’s prayer. We’re to pray, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And sometimes we think that prayer is this like wish list and God’s the genie and He comes out and gives us whatever we ask.
And sometimes God does give us what we ask, but that’s not the primary purpose of prayer. It’s to align ourselves with God and His purposes and His will in our lives. Well, lastly, here’s a third resource for spiritual power.
It’s the Holy Spirit. It’s the power of prayer. Thirdly, it’s the power of the prophetic word.
I’m just using that as another phrase that describes the Bible. I went with the letter prophetic word just to have some alliteration. That’s from 2nd Peter 1, verse 21.
iii. The power of the prophetic word
And so, here’s the third resource for spiritual power. It is the word of God, the Bible. This book is like any other book in the world because it is God-breathed.
It is the very word of God and every word in it will be true. Here’s a description of the power of God’s word. It’s from Psalm 19.
The law of the Lord is perfect. It refreshes the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right. These are all different words for the Scriptures. Giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes. The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The decrees of the Lord are firm and all of them are righteous.
They are more precious than gold, than much pure gold. By them your servant is warned. By keeping them, there’s great reward.
So that’s some of the benefits of Scripture. What does the Bible do in our lives? Well, it refreshes our souls. It gives us wisdom.
It brings us joy. It warns us. There’s rewards for keeping God’s word, God’s blessing in our lives.
2nd Timothy 3, verses 15 and 16 gives us some benefits of God’s word. And this is what Paul writes to Pastor Timothy, who’s pastoring in Ephesus. All of Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting and training in righteousness.
So, someone has said the job of the pastor is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. You know, there are some passages in Scripture that should really just like deeply convict us. And so spiritual power comes from God’s word.
It’s interesting that there’s several analogies in Scripture, the words that are used to describe the power of God’s word. Let me just give you a few of them. Jeremiah 23:29.
The prophet Jeremiah writes, is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces. Jeremiah says God’s word is like fire and fire can destroy something, but fire can also purify. The word of God’s like a hammer that smashes a rock to pieces.
And again, that’s the convicting work of the Scriptures in our life. God’s Word is described also in James 1 as a mirror, a mirror. You’re probably familiar with this passage in James chapter 1. James says, do not merely listen to the Word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
Maybe that’s where Nike got that phrase, just do it. I don’t know, probably not. Don’t just listen to God’s Word.
Intellectually, James says, put it into practice. Apply it. Anyone who listens to the Word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
I can tell by looking at you this morning that you made some changes when you looked in the mirror this morning. I think nobody looks in the mirror just like, okay, I’m fine after sleeping. No, we make some changes.
James goes on to say, whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, they will be blessed in what they do. I love that description of God’s Word. The perfect law that gives freedom.
What’s that mean? When we follow God’s principles that he gives us in Scripture, we experience true freedom. True freedom is not doing whatever we want, whenever we want. That leads to bondage.
But true freedom comes from following God’s pathway. And it’s like the banks on a river that gives us direction and true freedom. Well, the Word of God is like a fire, like a hammer, like a mirror.
It’s like a lamp in Psalm 119:105. Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet, a light to my path. It gives us guidance.
It gives us direction in life. Hebrews chapter 4, familiar passage describing God’s Word. The author of Hebrews says, it’s like a sword.
Hebrews 4:12, for the Word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to the dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
Here’s kind of a humbling verse. Next, verse 13. Nothing in all of creation is hidden from God’s sight.
Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account. God’s Word is like a sword. And Paul talks about that in Ephesians 6 when he talks about the armor of God.
The last one is the sword of the spirit. So, God’s Word is powerful. It will not return void, Isaiah 55:11. It’ll accomplish what God wants it to accomplish.
And so, here’s the promise. It’s the promise of power. The first step is the life-changing power of the gospel.
And once we put our faith in Jesus for our Christian journey, it’s the power of the person, the Holy Spirit, that enables us to live the Christian life. The resource of prayer that gives us enablement and connects us to God. And it’s the power of the Word of God.
application questions
1. Have I experienced the transforming power of the gospel?
So, a couple application questions, then we’re going to watch a closing song here. Two application questions. Have I experienced the transforming power of the gospel? Not just intellectual knowledge of saying, yes, I know that Jesus historically existed as a person, but have you come to the point where you’ve put your faith and trust in Jesus and what he did on the cross as payment for your sin debt? And that’s the most important decision any person can ever make.
It determines your eternal destiny. Matthew 7:14 talks about two roads. There’s a narrow road and a broad road.
The broad road, there’s many people on it. The narrow road is there’s not many people. There’s a broad gate.
There’s a narrow gate. The broad road leads to destruction. The narrow gate leads to salvation and eternal life.
And Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. He’s the gate. He’s the door.
2. AM, I experiencing victorious Chrisitan living through God’s power?
I trust you’ve put your faith in Jesus as your savior. The second question then is just this. Am I experiencing victorious Christian living through God’s power? Do I have any mindset and recognition that my body belongs to God? 1st Corinthians 19:21, you’re not your own.
You’ve been bought with a price. The spirit of God lives within you and he will guide you and direct you through life. Not only the power of a person, but am I experiencing and using the avenue of prayer for spiritual power? And lastly, am I in God’s word and experiencing the convicting power of God’s word in my life on a regular basis? And when you do that, when you allow the spirit of God to fill you, to control you, to use you, when you’re praying, when you’re in God’s word, you’ll experience joy and you’ll experience victory in your daily walk with God.
And that’s my prayer for all of you.