Class 4 Intro to Mission

hello students this is uh unit four of introduction to missions and we're going to look today at the role of the holy spirit in Mission work um Paul says something fascinating in First Corinthians 12:3 he says therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking in the spirit of God ever says Jesus is a cursed and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit um here's a way that he he gives kind of an explanatory note of what he is getting at there in 1 Corinthians 12 and another place in

1 Corinthians 2 and verse 14 he says the natural person does not accept the things of the spirit of God for they are folly or foolish to him and he's not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned they are discerned by the holy spirit so the fascinating thing to me in that is that he literally says you cannot say Jesus is Lord unless the holy spirit's at work in you and so I know the holy spirit is at work in these classes and in you your life if you're able to say Jesus is

Lord now I think what he means in addition to just the words Jesus is Lord in light of what he said in Romans 10:9 when he says if you confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead you will be saved if I was if this was a class and we were sitting down together and I hope to see you in a few weeks I would have you repeat the phrase in your heart you believe in your heart so because the word of God all fits together

I believe we can take that back to 1 Corinthians 12:3 and this is a heartfelt confession it's not necessarily just saying the words I think someone can say the words and not mean it but to mean it from your heart like it is your true belief your true motivation to have it as your true belief your true motivation and to say Jesus is Lord that can only happen by the holy spirit so why am I am I focusing on that because the only real Mission work that can happen anywhere on planet Earth is spirit-led missions

because no one can follow Jesus no one can come out of spiritual death which is separation from God into spiritual life connection with God unless the Holy Spirit raises them out of that death and into this life with Jesus and when he does then from your heart you can say Jesus is Lord or the people God calls you to if it's across the street or in another Nation because his Great Commission is to all the nations right Make Disciples of all the nations so anywhere you go if someone is going to give their heart to

Christ and from their heart confess that Jesus is lord it's going to be because the holy spirit is giving you the assignment and the holy spirit's at work in the unbeliever to bring them out of death and into life Romans 6:4 says we're buried with Christ through baptism into death raised to walk in New Life the one who raises us to that new life is the holy spirit so Jesus warned that they were there were um he warned that there are affirmations um or professions of faith that were fake okay I I do want to

uh in Matthew 158 he says the people honor me with their lips but their heart is far from me I think that connects back to Romans 10:9 uh so I can say that I believe for most who are viewing this lesson most who are enrolled in the Seminary the Holy Spirit as at is at work in your lives and maybe even if you're an unbeliever uh I think me saying maybe could be an expression of doubt I think even if you have not from your heart confessed Jesus as Lord you're here for a reason and

the holy spirit's at work in your life let's pray together father thank you for our time together in in this lesson this unit on the work of the Holy Spirit I pray that you would uh increase our understanding of the role and the work of the holy spirit in our lives and in missions but more than that I pray that we would truly be open to the work of the holy spirit in our lives and the assignment that the holy spirit is giving us individually daily to to take the the the message of Jesus to

be emissaries of the Gospel whether it's across the street or around the world open our eyes to that and Empower us holy spirit in Jesus good name I pray amen so here's the way the the Bible describes the work of the holy spirit in our lives or through our lives it it teaches that the holy spirit's work is simply a continuation of the work of Christ Jesus through our Liv lives to the world all of the work um all the work of Salvation Redemption rescue from sin forgiveness all of those things everything is from the

father through the son Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit from the father through the son by the power of the Holy Spirit and Jesus making reference to that in John chapter 16 I'm I'm going to begin in verse five and um don't get frustrated if I make comments as we go to make comments on a passage of scripture as you're reading through it that's called a homy and with the scriptures we look at I want to treat them this way and so we'll go verse by verse from John 165-15 and I'm going

to give comments about the verses as we go and so verse 5 John 16 Jesus says but now I'm going away to the one who sent me so Jesus is letting the disciples know it's at the end of his his life He's 33 he's about to be crucified and he's letting the disciples know he is about to go away from this Earth to the father to the one who sent me and not none of the disciples even though Jesus over and over and over again clearly said at least 15 times in the gospels I will

be crucified I will be buried and I will rise I'll conquer death I'll be resurrected none of them asked questions Jesus said no one is asking questions about where I am going it's like the disciples are just putting it out of their mind they're focused on the here and now and not on the Eternal aspect of what Jesus is doing verse 6 says instead you grieve because of what I've told you they're not asking questions they're just like this is not what we expected verse 7 but in fact it's best for you that I go

away because if I don't The Advocate won't come if I do go away then I will send him to you and so Jesus has said you're not asking enough questions about this in fact you're not asking any questions about this I tell you that over and over again that I will be crucified buried and rise from the dead and instead of being curious about that and what I'm accomplishing through that you grieve but it's actually better it's better that I go away because I'm going to send someone to you who is your Advocate and so

Jesus goes on we're going to see in the the next verses he's clearly talking about the Holy Spirit and Jesus makes this statement that is astounding he's he is saying it is better for the Holy Spirit to come and be inside you than it is for me to be on this world in the flesh beside you it's better for the Holy Spirit to be inside you than for me to be with you here beside you that's an amazing statement what would you rather have would you rather have Jesus sitting on a chair in front of

you answering your questions or would you want to know and be able to access the Holy Spirit within you Jesus taught us and the rest of the scripture obviously teaches us that the holy spirit is the owering presence of almighty God living on the inside of us he is the directing intelligence of almighty God living on the inside of us and so what Jesus is saying is if you understand who the holy spirit is and if you access what he has to offer you and what he wants to do through you in the world you're

going to be more effective more powerful and he makes this incredible statement he goes you're going to do Greater Works than even I do that's an amazing statement from the Lord and verse eight he says when he comes and so personal pronouns are used of the Holy Spirit Jesus never called the Holy Spirit it it's not a a a a nebulous power it's not an IT the holy spirit is a he he's a person he's the third person of the Holy Trinity Jesus says when he comes he will convict the world of its sin and

of God's righteousness and of the coming judgment verse 9 the world sin in that it refuses to believe in me in our last lesson we talked about we're the imod day we're the image of God two words worth and will we have great value but we have a will to obey or disobey a will to follow or to go our own way and Jesus is referring to the the will he says the world's sin is that it refus ches to believe in me verse 10 righteousness is available because I go to the father and you

will see me no more judgment will come because the ruler of this world has already been judged the ruler of the world is Satan and he's already been judged on the cross and through the Resurrection the enemy is defeated verse 12 there so much more I want to tell you Jesus says but you can't bear it right now but when the spirit of Truth this is a title Jesus gives the Holy Spirit the spirit of Truth when he comes he will guide you into all truth remember what Jesus said about truth John 8:31-32 abide in

my word and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free it'll set you free it's the holy spirit that enables us to understand the truth that sets us free he's the spirit of Truth he guides us into all truth here's a very interesting thing Jesus said he will not speak on his own let's pause there the holy spirit will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard and he will tell you about the future this is what Jesus says and so when Jesus came to the Earth

second person of the Holy Trinity God the son comes down to the Earth gives up access to Divine attributes gives up even his ability to speak when he's born as a baby and then when he grows and he's carrying out the will of the father in John chapter 5 he says that he doesn't even speak his own words he speaks the words the father gives him so Jesus when he came spoke only the words of the Father the Holy Spirit comes and when he comes inside of us when we believe and receive Christ the Holy

Spirit doesn't speak his own words he only speaks the words of Jesus Jesus says he will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard and he will tell you about the future oh that's interesting to me verse 14 Jesus says he will bring me Glory by telling you whatever he receives from me the Holy Spirit communicates to us only what Christ gives him for us and verse 15 all that belongs to the father is mine this is Jesus and he says that is why I said the spirit will tell you

whatever he receives from me some translations in verse 14 says the Holy Spirit magnifies Jesus others say he glorifies Jesus this is is why the Holy Spirit Works in our lives here on planet Earth it's why he sends us on missions whether locally or globally it's because the world needs Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit Works in us so that the character of Christ the love of Christ The Light of Christ can be formed in us and that Christ may be magnified through us now what does that mean I mean we don't make Christ bigger

than he already is what does it mean that we magnify Christ that that's what the Holy Spirit does well I have a coffee mug here and um right now I can look at this recording device I can see everything in this room I can see the lights I can see the technical director Trent I can see lots of things around me I can still see lots of things around me but when the mug gets closer and closer and closer to me right now all I see is the mug I don't see anything else in this

room that's the sense in which Jesus is magnified it's not that he becomes bigger out there somewhere he becomes bigger in our perspective we have more Christ in our perspective and so we see Christ or we see through Christ everything that it's happening around us instead of just seeing things from our perspective Christ is magnified in our view so that we see the world and we don't just see the world we see that person in line in front of us at the grocery store we see the person that is walking on the sidewalk we see

everything around us our neighbors our family stranger that we run into we see them through the eyes and through the through the character of Jesus Christ that's what it means for him to be magnified and that's the work of the Holy Spirit In Our Lives to magnify Christ so that we see the world through him and through his heart so in the book of Acts often in your Bible the book of Acts is titled the acts of the apostle but that that's not in the Original Scriptures there's nothing that says the Acts of the Apostles

that's just a title that was added later and I believe it is a little bit of a uh misguided title because the the person that shows up on every page of the book of Acts is the Holy Spirit and so it's much more accurate to call the book of Acts the acts of the Holy Spirit because right off the bat the first thing that's mentioned in the book of Acts is the role of the Holy Spirit and in the work of the holy spirit in the lives of Believers the Holy Spirit causing Pentecost to happen

the work of the Holy Spirit through the lives of the Apostles and the earliest Believers and the spread of the church and the multiplication of the church in the 28 chapters of acts as the Holy Spirit raises people out of death into life in Christ and causes people to gather together in local bodies of Believers and people are sent out to all these different places that are written to in the New Testament to Ephesus to thessalonica to galatia uh to Philippi through the through missionary Journeys the the book of Acts contains missionary journeys led by

the Holy Spirit and so if you want to know the role of the holy spirit in missions read carefully all 28 chapters of the book of Acts so let's start and look at acts chap 1 verse one and we're going to learn something uh amazing about the Holy Spirit right off the bat so acts 1:1 says in my first book again this is going to be a homy I'm going to make comments on these vers say it says in my first book who's saying that Luke Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke and he wrote the

book of Acts the Gospel of Luke is the longest gospel by far it has more details than any other gospel we go to Luke to find out what was happening in the around the birth of Christ that's the that's the passage we read at Christmas every year because it has details that the other three Gospels Matthew Mark and John don't have Luke is a very long it's the longest book in the New Testament in terms of word count and so it covers detail upon detail of the life and the ministry and teaching of Jesus Christ

so that if you read the Gospel of Luke you think I've read all that there is to read about the work of Jesus Christ but wait see what verse one says in my first book Luke is saying this he says oh theophus this may or may not be an actual person because these are two Greek words put together Theos which is God that's where Theo comes from and philos which is love like the the city of Philadelphia means the city of brotherly love philos is a word for love and to put it together theophus means

a lover of God and so Luke may be writing in general to everybody who loves God or there may be a chance that there was somebody named Theophilus um my personal opinion is he's probably writing to all of us who love God in my first book I told you God lover Theophilus about everything Jesus began to do and teach Luke tells us here that his gospel which is the longest book in the New Testament that has the birth life teachings Miracles death burial resurrection and Ascension of Jesus Christ on planet he says that's just what

Jesus be began to do it's not everything that Jesus does it's what Jesus began to do and so what he is saying is the holy spirit is the work of Christ Jesus continued through you and me so when Jesus was here for 33 and A2 years on planet Earth he just started the work he started the work and then the spirit of Christ the Holy Spirit comes inside every believer and he's been continuing the work and so you and I are Jesus continued there's a great book by that name by Dr JD Greer just called

Jesus continued and it's about the work of the Holy Spirit through the life of Believers great book verse two Acts chapter 1 it says and him telling you everything Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up to heaven after giving his chosen Apostles further instructions through the Holy Spirit during the 40 days after he suffered and died he appeared to the apostles from time to time and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive and he talked to them about the kingdom of God once when he

was eating with with them he commanded themo not leave Jerusalem until the father sends the gift where you're sitting right now I want you to out loud say the gift the gift the holy spirit is referred to as the gift stay there don't do anything until the father gives the gift if he promised as I told you before verse 5 John baptized with water but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit you will be immersed that's what the word baptized baptizo in the biblical language means to be fully immersed

and he's saying in a few days you're going to be fully immersed in the holy spirit so when the apostles were with Jesus they kept asking him Lord has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom they're still thinking physical Israel is under the um the rule and and oppression of Rome and so they thought Jesus was just there to deliver um from Roman oppression and set Israel free physically and what Jesus came to do was to set Us free spiritually to give us peace and a relationship with God verse 7

Jesus replied the father alone has the authority to set those dates and times there there's going to come a time when Jesus returns from Heaven a second coming the second Advent of Christ and then he will rule and human governments will go away but that's not why he came he came came the first time to set up his Rule and his government in our hearts he said the kingdom of God is within you and so the kingdom is the rule the Reign the government and verse 8 he says you will receive power when the Holy

Spirit comes upon you and you will be my Witnesses telling people about me everywhere in Jerusalem throughout Jud Juda in Samaria and to the ends of the Earth this is missions the Holy Spirit comes upon people in Galatians 5 we're taught that the holy spirit will come upon you in the sense that he will give you Direction he will give you assignments he will fill you with some beautiful internal experiences when you yield to the Holy Spirit and when that happens and he fills you you will be empowered to be Witnesses of Jesus and his

work emissaries people who go out people who are sent out with the message of Christ to others that's what it means to be a witness and he says you will tell people about me everywhere and he makes these distinctions these four different distinctions they were in Jerusalem when this happened and he said so you will tell people in Jerusalem about me so wherever you live if it's Orlando Florida that's your Jerusalem if it is cedral woly Washington where our little farm farm and ranches that's my Jerusalem Jerusalem is where you live and Jesus says I'll

make you Witnesses where you live that's your Jerusalem and then through throughout Judea Judea is regional Jerusalem was a part of Judea and so um the way our country the United States is uh is organized into 50 separate states uh maybe an entire state would be a Judea maybe the I'm in the Pacific Northwest maybe the Pacific Northwest that is Washington Oregon and Idaho maybe that's Judea but it's regional beyond the place where you live that's Judea so he's saying I will make you Witnesses in your Jerusalem where you live in the region where you

live and then he says in Samaria so that would be equivalent maybe to the country so America Brazil Canada the country would be Samaria and then to the ends of the Earth that's the Nations that he mentions in the Great Commission Make Disciples of all the nations and so what is he saying he's saying that if you are yielded to the Holy Spirit God in some way will use you as his witness where you live in your Jerusalem your Judea your region your Samaria your country and to the ends of the Earth to the Nations

and I know people that love the Lord Jesus Christ and I I grew up in the hills of Western North Carolina the Appalachian Mountains and I know followers of Jesus Christ who had Little Farms up in the Appalachian Mountains who never came down from the mountains except they come down and maybe there's a little church up there and they live there they seldom ever come down into town but they love Jesus and the people who live in that that little uh that little area that little Valley in the mountains they are witnesses to those people

in that Valley our farm in the in the South our family farm was on in a little Valley called cany Fork my grandmother and my grandfather Alvin and Essie Moore loved Jesus they would come down once a week off of the mountain to a little White Chapel called balam Grove Baptist Church my grandfather was a deacon there and they would come down and they would worship with a small group of people there and they would go back to the farm do you know what I observed growing up they were Witnesses in our little Valley but

not just to our little Valley because God brought missionaries there was a missionary that had a a uh small cabin very close to he built a small cabin very close to my grandfather and grandmother became friends with them and they began helping fund missions in another Nation through that missionary they gave their tithes and their offerings through balam Grove Baptist Church who connected with a mission organization that dispersed funds globally to start churches and so my grandmother and grandfather living on a farm in the mountains of Appalachia were the they were Witnesses of Jesus even

though they they never left that Valley almost never left the valley God still allowed them to be Witnesses in Jerusalem Judea Samaran to the uttermost parts of the earth so God's going to use people even if they don't go physically to another Nation when they're yielded to the Holy Spirit the holy spirit's going to use people all people to make a Jerusalem Judea Samaria and ends of the Earth impact because that is the purpose and the mission of the holy spirit in the book The Acts of the holy spirit so doing this and we'll do

a pause what's the what's our time right now um 25 25 minutes so no sorry 25 35 45 so we're probably at like 30ish minutes okay 31 I just need to know before I go on and I don't want to go on for an hour if I can use the next piece for the next class okay so where's all this going so everything about the the Holy Spirit his work in our lives it's moving toward something and I want you to understand the role of the Holy Spirit to magnify Jesus his uh empowering us to

be Witnesses and Carry Out missions locally to globally and I want you to know it's going somewhere um and and we're going to expand on this in the next unit but there are there are three stay with me there are three greats in terms of uh carrying out the mission of God first there's the great commandment second there's the Great Commission and third there's the great collaboration and so I want to explain those three things in terms of where the mission is going ultimately uh the great commandment is found in Matthew chap 22 uh around

verse 38 and following um they asking Jesus you know what are the greatest Commandments and Jesus said the greatest Commandments are love um love the Lord your God with all your heart soul and mind and love your neighbor the second commandment is love your neighbor as yourself and um Jesus is not talking about the person that lives next door not only talking about the person who lives next door to you when he uses the word neighbor he just means anyone that you uh happen to come in contact with or in the vicinity of that is

how he uses the word neighbor and so there's this great commandment love God love people and so that is the motivation for the mission the motivation for the mission is that God wants our hearts to be filled with his love the Bible says the holy SP spirit in the Book of Romans the holy spirit is the one who sheds the love of God abroad in our heart so when we're yielded to the Holy Spirit he fills our hearts up with love we love God we love people that means we're concerned about people not just here

physically but eternally and their relationship with God forever and so that's the first great the first great is the great Commandments the love God love people the Second Great we've looked at the Great Commission where Jesus makes it clear that we are to go because he has all authority and we're to make disciples of all the nations and baptize them and teach them all the things that Jesus commanded which is everything that Jesus taught because we we alluded to in the the previous unit that everything that Jesus said is in the imperative in the original

language was mean it's a command it's not a suggestion he's the Lord he's the king of kings and he when he says something he means for us to do it because he's the Lord that's the Great Commission go and make disciples the great collaboration is is alluded to in Matthew 24:14 where Jesus teaches that there's going to come a time when everyone is given the opportunity to know him to follow him and then he says and after this the end will come and so we're going forward toward a time when everyone on planet Earth will

have the opportunity to follow Jesus never in history have we um oh by the way that's the great collaboration so so Believers every are going to be working together to give people everywhere the opportunity to follow Jesus um we can see how that is happening in ways that were not achievable at any other time in history I recently was at my kitchen table on our farm that's 15 miles away from the nearest town and I was training a group I believe it was 42 church planting missionaries in Hyderabad India from my kitchen table with a

cell phone with my smartphone on the table these church planting missionaries in Southern India were taking notes being trained and because we were using Zoom it was all recorded on their end and they were able to use it not just for those 42 those 42 were trainers and they were able to take the training that I did for them at my kitchen table to others and multiply that exponentially never in human history has that been a capability in my life in my lifetime and I'm a little past middle AG uh I'm 53 years old but

when I went to Seminary no one had a almost no one had a personal computer I got my first personal computer if you want to uh go back and study ancient history it was called an 888 uh there were no windows it was dos if you don't know what dos is Google it and so it was a very primitive computer there was no internet there were no cell phones this is in my lifetime we carried books we didn't have iPads or personal computers they just didn't exist um for the for uh for people in general

now everybody carries around a computer computer with them and their smartphone that's an incredibly Advanced Computer and through that we can communicate Real Time with all the nations of the earth and so I am regularly training people through our mission organization impact multiplied to start discipl making institutes globally and I can do it from anywhere and so now we can see that that technology is only going to uh become more and more advanced the connectivity of the the world is only become going to become more and more advanced we see how Matthew 24:14 can happen

there are gospel movements globally and we're going to talk about those in the next unit that we call them dmms and cpms discipl making movements church plan movements the holy spirit is expanding the church and more people are having access to the Gospel of Jesus and the opportunity to follow Jesus by far than any other time in history and the Bible alludes to that in the book of Acts the acts of the holy spirit in verses 17- 21 and it's quoting an Old Testament passage in Joel Joel 228-3283 Acts chapter 2 in these last days

God says I will pour out my spirit upon all people your sons and daughters will prophesy your young men will see Visions your old men will dream dreams in those days I will pour out my spirit even on my servants men and women alike and they will prophesy and I will cause wonders in the heavens above signs in the earth below blood and fire and clouds of smoke the sun will become dark the moon will turn blood red before the great and glorious day of the Lord arrives but everyone who calls on the name of

the Lord will be saved and so the prophet Joel repeated by Luke and in the book of Acts paints a picture of these two great streams and they're flowing parallel to the great day of the Lord which is the way the Bible describes the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ the streams that are flowing to the return of Jesus are the streams of light and darkness apostasy and Awakening man-made Devastation and spirit empowered manifestation culminating all flowing into the Return of the King of alling Kings and the Lord of all Lords to do something

he's going to do something when he returns and and it's the Fulfillment of what he said in the Book of Revelation when he said behold I make All Things New in Romans chapter 8 it says he restores all things theologians call the Earth um post return of Jesus when Jesus returns to the earth when his feet touch down outside of Jerusalem the Old Testament prophets said that the desert will Bloom like the springtime all of the earth becomes like Eden that's why theologians call it the edenic Earth after Jesus returns so a great collaboration is

coming man-made divisions of the church are going to yield to Divine mandates God's mandate and Mission turf Wars within the church WIll terminate and cease and Believers will bond in the mission of God and Jesus Christ will be manifested to the nations in a greater way than ever experienced in history how do we know this is going to happen The Words of Christ he said the good news about the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world so that all nations will hear it and then the end will come Matthew Matthew 24:14 Dr John Piper

said in the midst of all the the unbelief so that there's going to be a lot of apostasy falling away from God and I believe according to Joel and acts and other uh prophetic scriptures in the in in the Bible there's going to be just as much Awakening so there's going to be incredible Revival and spiritual awakening and an incredible apostasy happening simultaneously and Dr John Piper referring to that says in the midst of all the unbelief and boldness and treachery Jesus says that the gospel will be preached through the whole world as a testimony

to the Nations and in the face of persecution and in the midst of that deadness the True Church of God is going to have extraordinary power extraordinary Zeal and extraordinary passion and love for the Lord Jesus Christ as it is LED and empowered by the Holy Spirit let's pray together thank you Father for the gift of the Holy Spirit you have given us the gift and you've said in your word that his power is within us in Ephesians 1 you said his power is within us the same power that raised Christ from the dead and

seated him at your right hand in the Heavenly places is at work in our lives is accessible to us and so father help us to understand and to grasp and use the power that's available to us in the person of the Holy Spirit within us who is called the spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ within us and help us Empower us holy spirit to continue the work of Jesus in the world to be the light and the love of Jesus so that people will ask about the hope that is in us and that we will

be able to respond with the truth that Christ suffered for our sins the just for the unjust in order to bring us safely home to God he was put to Death In the Flesh and Made Alive by the spirit in Jesus name amen