November 24, 2024 SERMON

The Holy Spirit Equips us with all we Need

 Acts 16:

We're continuing through the Book of Acts, under the theme, "That Old-Time Religion," and this morning we’ll be looking at chapter sixteen. We'll be talking about the Holy Spirit equips us with all we need for evangelism and discipleship.

In Matthew 28:19-20, when Jesus was about to ascend to heaven, He gave a twofold task to the disciples and by extension, the church today, the task of evangelism and discipleship.

In this world, we have two main categories of people. Believers in Christ Jesus; these are people who have received Jesus into their lives as Lord and are now born again. 

Then we have unbelievers; those who have yet to acknowledge that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, repented of their sins and accepted Jesus into their lives as their personal Lord and Savior.

1 Peter 2:11 tells us that we are all sojourners and pilgrims in this world. This world isn’t our final home. We are all travelers on a journey. 

Believers are traveling on the narrow road that leads to life, while unbelievers are on the broad road that leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13).

The work Jesus entrusted into our hands is to help and encourage those who are on the broad road to get off that road and join the narrow road, so their souls aren’t destroyed in Hell. This is evangelism. 

Discipleship is helping and encouraging those who are already on the narrow road to keep on traveling regardless of what comes their way, until they see Christ Jesus in glory.

One thing we notice when you are on the road is that every now and then, you come across roadblocks. The police can put a roadblock to check those that are passing through. 

Road construction workers may put a roadblock to enable them to safely work. When a roadblock is put in place, it can cause a lot of traffic and difficulty. 

In Romans 14:13 Paul tells us to determine in our heart not to be a stumbling block or a roadblock. We shouldn’t be by the things we do and say; by the way we live our lives be an obstacle, a hindrance to those who want to move from the broad road to the narrow road. 

Nor should we make it extremely difficult or discouraging for those who are on the narrow road to keep walking on that road. We talked a little about that last week.

God tells us in Isaiah 57:14 to take the stumbling block out of the way of My people.  

I pray today that whatever it is in our lives that constitute a stumbling block to evangelism and discipleship, God should remove from us in Jesus’ mighty name. 

Instead of being stumbling blocks, we are to be directional signs that point people to Jesus. May we be that GO sign on the journey of life that as people interact with us, they are encouraged to keep pressing on, to keep moving, keep believing, to keep following the Lord on the narrow road. 

May we be the road diversion sign on the journey of life that turns people aside from the broad road that leads to destruction; to the narrow route that leads to Life. 

May we be the U-TURN sign that encourages people to make a complete change, a U-turn from sin to righteousness, from darkness to light, from the board road to the narrow road.

When Jesus told His disciples to go into the whole world to make disciples of all nations, teach them about Christ, teach them the Word of God, He didn’t say you have been with me for three years, have seen me evangelize and disciple people so hit the streets and start doing the same thing. 

NO! Jesus instructed them to tarry in the city of Jerusalem until they are endued with power from on high (Luke 24:29). We can’t do the work of evangelism and discipleship by our own power, might and wisdom. 

We need the help, gifts, ability, strength, direction and strategy which the Holy Spirit is ready to equip us with. Acts 1:8 tells us that when the Holy Spirit comes, we will receive power to witness for Christ. 

The Holy Spirit will supply all we need for the work of evangelism and discipleship.

There are four major things that the Holy Spirit helps us to do as regards to evangelism and discipleship which can be seen in our scripture today,

First, the Holy Spirit Creates and Arranges Opportunities for Evangelism and Discipleship. 

In Acts 16:6-10, Paul planned to go and preach the Word of God in Asia, but the Holy Spirit didn’t allow Paul to do this. Paul tried to enter Bithynia for the purpose of preaching the word of God, but the Holy Spirit blocked him from doing this. 

Instead, Paul had a vision of a man in Macedonia pleading for him to come and help him. By this vision, Paul knew that an opening, an opportunity, a door had been opened for him in Macedonia to preach there.

For each of us, the Holy Spirit will create different opportunities for us to do the work of evangelism and discipleship. Not everyone will receive a vision from God to go to some town or city. 

Your opportunity may come like the slave girl, whose master Naaman had a serious health problem that needed divine intervention (2 Kings 5:1-3). 

Your boss who hasn’t surrendered to Jesus, may be going through a health, marital or financial issue. This presents a perfect opportunity for you to share about your God, to encourage him or her that God can intervene and turn the situation around. 

The problem in your boss’ life is an opportunity to invite your boss to a Church service or program for God to touch him/her and address what he or she is presently going through.

For others, your opportunity may come like it did for Philip in Acts 8:26-39 where, by divine arrangement, Philip was put on the same road with an Ethiopian eunuch who needed to hear about God. 

The Holy Spirit will arrange for you to be on the same road, same bus, same class, same aircraft, same hotel, same shop with someone who needs to hear about God.

Another person’s opportunity may come like that of the Samaritan man. On your way to church, right at the beginning of the street will be someone who has been attacked by armed robbers or knocked down by a car.

What do we do when these opportunities come our way? Acts 16:10 tells us that as soon as Paul saw this vision of a man in Macedonia, he left immediately without any delay to Macedonia. He seized the opportunity. 

Ephesians 5:15-17 tells us that when opportunities come knocking, we must make the best use of these opportunities. Especially now more than ever, when the devil knows his time is short and he is doing everything possible to keep people away from God and from living for God. 

Opportunities realized lead to the opening of a great and effective door to impact lives for God. 

The more we make use of these opportunities for evangelism and discipleship that the Holy Spirit creates for us, the more we realize the great and effective door God has opened for us to impact lives for the kingdom, the more we understand the place and people God has destined us to reach out to and how He wants us to go about it. 

Paul got to understand that a great and effective door to preach to the gentiles and impact their lives had been opened for him. 

A great and effective door may be opened for you through music, through drama, through writing, through intercessory prayers, through teaching, preaching or through giving. 

Your own ‘Macedonia’ may be in prison, in the hospital, in government, in schools, on the streets where drug addicts reside, or on social media. 

Your own ‘man of Macedonia’ pleading you to come over to Macedonia to help them may be children, young adults, singles, widows, businessmen and women, prostitutes, homeless and destitute people, or the elderly.

A great Kingdom assignment has been entrusted into our hands, and opportunities abound each day for us to fulfill this assignment. 

By tapping into these opportunities, we bring pleasure to God who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

Second, the Holy Spirit Teaches Us the Value of One Soul to God. 

What is the value of one soul to you? How much are you willing to spend just for one soul to know Christ Jesus? How much of your life are you ready to pour out to see that just one soul gets saved?

If we look at Acts 16:11-15, one would have expected based on the vision God gave Paul of a man in Macedonia crying out to him for help that when Paul got to Macedonia, there would be a man waiting to receive him at the city gate. 

Or he was going to preach a message and like it happened on the day of Pentecost, thousands of souls would hear him and be saved that instant. 

But what happened when Paul got to Macedonia? It was just some women at the riverside who gave him audience to preach to them. 

Even when he preached to the women, it was just one woman, Lydia, a seller of purple, that accepted Jesus into her heart as Lord. 

Lydia and her household got baptized. Later when Paul and Silas were locked up in prison, the jailer and his household got saved.

The Holy Spirit through this experience taught Paul the value of one soul for God. The journey of over a day, the stress and strain of traveling by ship, the expenses spent on this journey, were all for God to see that Lydia and the jailer got saved. 

In Luke 15:4-7, God teaches that even if He has 99 sheep with Him and just one sheep is missing, He will do everything to ensure that the one sheep that has gone astray comes back to Him. 

God will go to any extent to see that one soul is saved, to the extent of shedding the blood of His only Son for the salvation of that one soul.

Luke tells us how the angels in heaven rejoice when just one soul is saved. They rejoice because the blood of Jesus has not been in vain in that life. They rejoice because the pain, agony and sacrifice of the cross was not wasted on that soul.

Thirdly, the Holy Spirit is the One who helps us to do evangelism and discipleship in a way that it touches on and affects what people are going through in their personal lives.

In Acts 16:16-19, as Paul and his companions were going around preaching, a young girl joined them. This girl followed them for days as they were preaching to people. 

She was shouting out loud for everyone to hear that these are servants of the Most High God who proclaim to us the way of salvation. 

Anyone seeing this would admire this young girl who was giving her time to do evangelism with Paul. You would have thought she was a young girl with so much passion and zeal for God. 

But who was she underneath all this? A young girl that her masters were using for fortune telling through the spirit of divination. 

This young girl was being used by her masters to make money. She was their breadwinner. 

Through the gift of discernment, Paul recognized the spirit that was at work in her and delivered her from the demonic bondage she was under. 

Paul didn’t just preach the Word; he addressed the personal issues this girl was going through.

You can’t just preach to such people and think it’s enough to just tell them that ‘For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son’, without providing a practical solution to what they are facing in their personal lives. 

We must take our evangelism and discipleship efforts a step further. We must get personal and practical, and this can only be done through the help of the Holy Spirit.

Who this girl was, what she was going through, wasn’t written on her forehead; just like most people we talk to don’t have their problems written on their foreheads. 

The girl didn’t open up to Paul about who she was, but Paul’s gift of discernment recognized and addressed what this young girl was going through in her personal life. 

The woman at the well didn’t open up to Jesus about her past, but Jesus’ gift of discernment recognized and addressed the problem with the woman at the well (John 4:7-18). 

Dorcas’ gift of giving addressed the material need for clothing, that the widows she ministered to were going through (Acts 9:39).

Every believer has been endowed with a gift that is a solution to someone’s problem. Your gift of giving is a solution to someone who is going through a financial difficulty. 

Your gift of healing is a solution to someone who is battling with a health challenge. 

Your gift of exhortation is a solution to someone who is feeling down, about to give up or commit suicide and needs encouragement. 

Your gift of mercy is a solution to someone who is going through so much pain and suffering.

When Acts 1:8 tells us that the Holy Spirit will come upon us and we will receive power to witness, it means the Holy Spirit will come upon us and fill us with everything we need to effectively communicate the gospel to people and this includes communicating God’s love to people through the use of our spiritual gifts.

Fourthly, the Holy Spirit strengthens and encourages us to keep doing the Master’s work even when challenges come our way. 

Acts 16:25-26 Prayed and sang Praises and foundations were shaken: Let me say that there are people around you, and people in here that need to be listening to your praises and your life. They need to stop and intently recognize, wow this is different.

We are used to hearing complaining, moaning because of the pain we have, crying because of the hopelessness that is there, but there’s someone who is in a midnight situation and they are singing and praising God in the middle of it!

Act 16:26 And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed.

Notice the word suddenly, that means un-expectantly. I wasn’t expecting this to happen, but something began to shake. 

You know what an earthquake is…it is the shifting of the plates that are underground. When you begin to give God Midnight praises there is going to be a shift take place.

The shift that took place dealt with the foundations. When you begin to give God a Midnight praise, He is going to deal with the foundational things that have locked you up. 

You are bound up in life and shackled up because there are some root things that have not yet been brought to your attention and properly dealt with. 

But when you learn how and begin to praise God in the middle of being shackled, imprisoned by things, not in the best place, God is going to allow there to be a shift, and the foundations are going to be shaken.

What has imprisoned you is going to be shaken, that is to be agitated, toppled, destroyed; God is about to do it.

There was so much that happened in Macedonia that would make one doubt if it was really God that sent Paul there. He didn’t meet thousands of souls waiting and begging him to preach so they would be saved. 

Then for doing God’s work; delivering the young girl from the work of darkness and demon possession, Paul was beaten with rods and thrown into prison with his feet fastened in the stocks.

Even when we go where God sends us, do what God tells us to do, trials will come. Anytime we evangelize to a soul, disciple a person so the person becomes rooted in Christ, we anger the devil and the kingdom of darkness as they don’t want people to come to the knowledge of the truth. 

There will be a backlash of spiritual attack, persecution, trials and afflictions. But we are more than conquerors over all this if we remain committed to God who called us and sent us to do this work.

There is one question asked in verse 30 that I can’t skip over; what must I do to be saved? One of the most important questions in life: "What must I do to be saved?" This question is foundational to our faith. 

Acts 16:30-31 (NLT): "Then he brought them out and asked, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' They replied, 'Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, along with everyone in your household.'"

Paul and Silas, imprisoned for preaching the Gospel, experienced a miraculous earthquake that freed them. The jailer, fearing punishment for escaped prisoners, asked how he could be saved. Their response was simple yet profound: "Believe in the Lord Jesus."

The Greek word for believe, (pisteuó), means to trust in, rely on, and have faith in. This belief is not mere intellectual assent but a deep, personal trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Believing in Jesus means trusting in His finished work on the cross, acknowledging Him as the Son of God, and surrendering to His Lordship. This belief is the foundation of our salvation.

Point 2: Repent and Turn to God

Acts 3:19 (NLT): "Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away."

The Greek word for repent, (metanoeó), means to change one’s mind and turn around. It involves a heartfelt recognition of sin and a turning away from it.

Repentance is a crucial step in salvation. It’s more than feeling sorry; it’s a decisive turning away from sin and turning to God for forgiveness and new life.

Think of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32). His journey back to his father represents true repentance—a change of heart and direction. God welcomes us with open arms when we repent and turn to Him.

Point 3: Confess and Be Baptized

Romans 10:9-10 (NLT): "If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved."

Paul emphasizes the importance of confession. The Greek word for confess, (homologeó), means to agree or say the same thing Jesus said. Publicly declaring Jesus as Lord is an outward expression of an inward faith.

Acts 2:38 (NLT): "Peter replied, 'Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'"

Confessing Jesus as Lord and being baptized are public affirmations of our faith. Baptism symbolizes our identification with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection, marking the beginning of our new life in Him.

Salvation is a gift of God’s grace, received through faith in Jesus Christ. It involves believing in Jesus, repenting of our sins, and publicly confessing Him as Lord through baptism.

This week, examine your own faith journey. Have you truly believed in Jesus, repented of your sins, and made a public confession of your faith? If not, today is the day of salvation. If you have, share this message with someone who needs to hear it.

Acts 16:40 is such a beautiful verse that speaks volumes about lifestyle evangelism. After being beaten, thrown in prison, enduring so much hardship just for preaching and doing the work of God, we see that Paul still kept at it. 

He didn’t say why me? Why is God allowing this happen to me? Why didn’t God stop these people from beating me and keeping me in prison? I can’t continue suffering in this way for nothing, I can’t continue with this assignment. 

Instead, Paul still found a reason to praise and serve God. At midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang to God with all of their hearts and the prison doors were thrown open. 

When they were released from prison, Paul went to look for Lydia to follow up on her, to encourage her, to disciple her and other brethren. 

The same men that had just been through so much hardship for preaching still saw a reason to keep preaching. The strength and encouragement they received to keep at this work came from no other place and person but from the Holy Spirit. 

The Holy Spirit strengthens us in our inner being with might and with a fire that makes us unstoppable even in the face of adversity.

Paul may not have preached in Macedonia a ‘Pentecost Message’ that got 3000 souls saved. But the faith, commitment, devotion and dedication he displayed in Macedonia, had such great impact, made such a strong impression on the people that in later scriptures (2 Corinthians 8:1-3, 2 Corinthians 11:9, 1 Thessalonians 1:8-10), we see Paul talking in glowing and highly commendable terms about the church that was planted in Macedonia. 

A church that when they were faced with severe trials, still gave so much to support the believers and the work of God. 

They could do this because they had seen Paul demonstrate through his life what it means to give God your all; to keep holding on to God and serving God even when you are hard pressed, persecuted and struck down.

We can’t do anything for God; we can’t live right for God without the help of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit in us empowers us to communicate a wonderful message of God’s love through our words and through our lives. 

The Holy Spirit equips us with all we need to encourage those on the broad road of destruction to get off that road and join the narrow road. 

The Holy Spirit helps us to encourage those on the narrow road of life, to keep walking on that road till they are welcomed into God’s eternal home.

Now folks this should be the “normal Christian” activity in life.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen!