Acts Chapter 1:6-8

See, the Spirit convicts us as unbelievers to become believers, and the Spirit empowers us to go from being believers to being witnesses. And note the legal term witnesses doesn't say we're supposed to be the jury, doesn't say we're supposed to be the judge, we're supposed to be the witnesses.

Telling of what we've seen, telling of what we know. We need to change the world. That's what the Lord has told us to do. He didn't say, okay, once you're in, you're in, don't worry about anybody else. No, go change the world. Go tell. It's not the great suggestion.

We call it the Great Commission. I don't know about you, but I need all the help I can get, and I need the empowerment of the Lord to do that. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Today we're so blessed to have with us on the program one of David McGee's associate pastors, D.A.

Brown. Welcome, brother. Bob, this teaching is going to be a good one, sir. Do we have enough power to live for God? Let me change that. Do you have enough power to live for God? Those listening right now, do you have enough power to live for God? Today in the teaching, we're going to talk about just that.

Can we do it? Pastor David is going to dive deep into this in Acts chapter one. I hope you're buckled up. You're going to be blessed.

Sounds great, D.A. Now here's David McGee with part two of his teaching, Talk About the Lord. Acts chapter one, verse six. Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? The disciples. They just encourage us at every turn, don't they? I mean, here they are after three years of intensive training, they've seen the crucifixion, they've seen the resurrection, and they're still missing it. And they asked the question, are you going to restore Israel now? You're going to overthrow the Roman government?

Don't miss this. They had been with Jesus and spent all this time with Jesus, but even after these intensive training of three years, they still didn't know what Jesus was doing. That should encourage you. Because you know what? I'll be honest, I don't know what Jesus is doing sometimes. Now it may scare you, because you're like, I think you're a pastor, you're supposed to know what Jesus is doing all times of the day, 24-7. I'm sorry, I don't.

I don't. I mean, He reveals some things to me, and, you know, quickens my heart about stuff, and stirs my heart about stuff. And, you know, a lot of times I'll step out, and I'll stick my neck out, and, man, and God will bless it. So many times we think, well, God, I want you to use my life, but here's what I need. I need, Lord, a three-year, five-year, 10-year plan.

I need you to spell it out, A to Z. Tell me what you're going to do, tell me what you require of me, tell me all these things. Do you understand God doesn't operate like this? I remember early on in the church, and we're projecting out and planning and doing things accordingly. I remember we'd been in the ministry for like a year or two, the church had just started. We were just, man, trying to hold on for dear life, you know? And then some guy came in and he said, what's your five-year plan?

I probably shouldn't have laughed. I probably should have made some answer up, but I was like, brother, we're just watching God work. At some point, we need to begin planning, and we're in that phase now.

We're planning out and doing things and praying about things. But if you've ever found yourself in a place where you're not sure what Jesus is doing, it's okay. See, because nowhere in this book does it say that we're supposed to understand all things. The life lesson, we're not told to understand all things but to give thanks in all things.

We're not told to understand all things but to give thanks in all things. Now, I understand, you're probably like me in some ways. You want to know everything. You think you want to know everything.

You know what? I've come to the point, I don't want to know everything. I'm okay not knowing everything because there's things I don't need to know. There's things that you don't need to know. You are not wired and created to know everything. Do you understand that? Your brain can't hold everything, so be okay with it. See, because a lot of times, this can cause a lot of discontent in our lives.

Why? Because we don't know something. But there is this curiosity in us, right? I mean, somebody can go, just say, mention it in detail, and we're like, oh, what happened? Oh, what's he doing? Oh, what's she doing? I didn't hear about that.

All of a sudden, we're engaged. Do we need to know? Probably not. Be okay not knowing.

Why? Because there's so much stuff that we don't need to know. Now, they thought that Jesus was going to start a political revolution and Jesus was interested in so much more. I hope you're not of the persuasion that you think Jesus is trying to start a political revolution. I don't think that the answers are found there. They're found in Jesus.

And these guys are going, oh, you know, political answers? Jesus is like, man, you're thinking too small. I don't want to just change Israel. I want to change the whole world. I want to revolutionize the way people think. See, a lot of times we get really myopic and we think like in these terms and God's like, lose that.

Get a bigger picture. God wants to use us to change the world. Change the world.

It's amazing. I'd say that now and people are probably like, yeah, amen, you know? When I was saying that a few years ago, people were like, change the world. We can't even find a proper church building to meet in.

Yeah, but you know what? We're doing it now. We're doing it. I mean, through the website we have, I don't know how many different countries people go to the website and listen to the teachings. We're doing stuff with radio, with television. Why do we do that?

Because we want to tell the world. We want to change the world. Jesus told us to change the world.

You know what? We think that we can do it through Him. And if you think that there's things that God can't do, your God is too small. Your God is too small.

God is a big God and God wants to do incredible things. Now verse seven, and He said to them, Jesus is speaking to them, it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. I want you to know something. I want you to notice what Jesus does not say in replying to their question. They say, are you going to restore the kingdom of Israel at this time? And He says, you know what? It's not for you to know the timing.

That's kind of interesting. You know why? He doesn't say I'm never going to restore Israel. He never says I'm not going to set up an earthly kingdom. He says, you know what? It's not for you to know the timing.

Not for you to know. Notice He doesn't say, well now I'm finished with Israel. I'm done with Israel. All those promises, null and void, and now the church has replaced Israel. Some of you may have been taught that. That God now, His promises to Israel are now null and void and the church has replaced Israel. So every time that you see the word Israel in the New Testament, it applies to the church. That's bad teaching. It's poor teaching. It's ripping the Bible out of its context.

See, because you know what? Have you ever known the Christian church to have 12 tribes? I've not. But it talks about Israel and the 12 tribes talking about the 144,000.

It's amazing. These prophecy guys, they talk about I wonder who the 144,000 is. Read it.

It tells you. There's 12,000 from each tribe. Wonder what he means by that. I'm thinking he means 12,000 from each tribe. You know, I'd much rather be standing in front of God at the end of all this and go, you know, I thought you meant what you said. I'm sorry. Then being, well, I just knew that if you took 12,000 and divided by three and then you'd multiply by 17.

Yeah. The church has now replaced Israel. You can't show me that in this book.

And I can show you many places in here. The book of Romans, for instance, where it says, tells us as believers, we don't support the root. The root supports us. We've been grafted in.

I'm so grateful. And again, there's 66 books in here, 40 different authors. There's only one author that wasn't Jewish. The church has now replaced Israel. God's promises to Israel still stand in place. Why is that important to you if you're here this morning and you're not Jewish?

Follow me on this. If your mentality is God broke his promises to Israel because they didn't act right, that's your perception of God? That's the way you perceive your heavenly father to be? Man, are you in trouble. What happens to you the first time you mess up? All the promises, null and void. God's going to go out and he's going to find somebody to replace you.

No. It's not the God I serve. I'm so glad that, yeah, I have messed up and God didn't replace me. And his promises weren't null and void.

He kept his promises. So you have to understand, because there are teachers, there's teachers out there quite honestly, that I admire some of their teachings, but they believe in this replacement theology. And it's sad.

There's a lot of very good biblical teachers that do not believe in replacement theology. But look at verse seven. Jesus is saying, you don't need to know.

You don't need to know the time. And to me, that makes perfect sense because when you were a teenager, if your parents ever went out of town and left you there at the house, I mean, I'm not asking for a full confession or anything like that, but things probably went on that your parents didn't know about. And you knew that on Sunday night, and now many parents are sitting in here going, I've left my kids alone. Pray about it. But okay, I'm going to be home Sunday night at eight o'clock.

You realize what happened? Sunday night at like 7 p.m., the vacuum comes out. The cheese nips go up. They were all over the floor and all these different things. Because they know the parents are going to be there.

Got to get the house ready. And if they ever came home early, you know, that wasn't sometimes a good scenario. And many of you guys probably had parties when your parents left.

Not me, but many of you guys probably did that. See, so God doesn't tell us. Why?

Because we would do the exact same thing. Oh, he's coming at midnight. Oh, 11.59. Man, I'm going to repent. Call the church. Tell them I want to start serving. Get involved. Do I want to get my name on that?

I want to serve in children's ministry every time church is open. That's what we would do. And Jesus says, no, I'm not going to tell you. Why? Because you'd act like that. I know that I would act like that. And so Jesus says, you know what? It's not for you to know.

It's not for you to know. Now, when you see certain things going on, you can know that we're getting close. But he says to him, you know what?

You don't need to know. See, take those small steps. God says, okay, I want you to take this first step.

I want you to go from A to B, and we get to B, and then he shows us where C is, and we get to C, then he shows us where D is. That's the way the Lord works with us. And at times, I may have been frustrated by that, but you know, as I've grown in the Lord, I'm grateful for it. I'm grateful for it. And notice what he's saying too in this verse. He's saying, you know what?

Don't be focused completely on when I'm returning, but on the task at hand. We're presenting God's Word to them here on Cross the Bridge with Pastor David McGee. We can pray for them as well just by simply going to crossthebridge.com and click on the Pray for the Lost button. All you need to do is put in the first names of the people you love that need to know Jesus as Savior, click on submit, and immediately hundreds of people will begin praying for your lost loved ones. And what an awesome way to bring your loved ones to Jesus. Here's a word from associate pastor D.A.

Brown. Hey, we want to pray for a few cities in our listening audience right now, specifically Seneca Falls, Windsor, New York, and also Brown Summit, Burlington, Eden, and Elizabeth City, North Carolina. God, we thank you for the people tuning in right now in these cities. We pray that you would pour your Holy Spirit out on them. Lord, we pray for those who are not listening, but who live in those cities. God, I pray that they would trust in you, Lord, that they would hear your gospel, and that they would say yes to Jesus. Lord, we pray that people will get plugged in Bible teaching churches. And Lord, we pray for those in leadership positions in these cities, that you give them wisdom and discernment, and they also will look to your Bible for answers on how to lead. Lord, please bless these cities, and may there be revival. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. But verse eight, now again, this is a key verse for the whole, not just this chapter, but for the whole book of Acts. Verse eight reads, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. Man, what a verse. We could spend weeks on this one verse.

We're not, but we could. There's just so much stuff in here. Now, this word power is the Greek word dunamis. It's where we get our word for dynamite. It's a lot of power. And he's saying, wait, and you will receive this power.

Careful here. What is the power for? So that they could be witnesses. This is where a lot of folks get off track with the Holy Spirit. When we start talking about the Holy Spirit, I realize what a lot of people begin to think. They begin to think about the gifts. What do we believe about the gifts? What do we believe this? What do we believe that about? What do we believe about the gifts?

That's amazing to me. You know why? These gifts aren't even mentioned in this verse. Jesus says, you need the Holy Spirit so you can have power to live for me.

Now, is there any one of us in this room right now that would say they don't need any more power to live for God? No, I'm good. Check. I'm fine. I got enough power. I'm doing it.

Always get it right. Can any of us say that? No. If you can, man, pride comes before the fall. I need this power.

I need this dunamis power to live for Him. See, here's the thing. Now, Donald Gee uses this analogy, and I love it. Born and raised in North Carolina. So you know, growing up, went to Tweetsie.

I don't know how many of you have ever been to Tweetsie. It's a place up in the hills. It's really cool, and I guess it's less cool as you get older, but you know, they've got a steam engine there, and you know, it's loud. And if you're standing right beside it, and then the whistle blows.

That's poor whistle, I know, but sorry. You hear the whistle blow, and then this big impressive plume of steam rises from the whistle. Now, if you're sitting beside this train, you can think, oh, okay, steam's for the whistle. The steam is so that they can blow the whistle. Is that what the steam is for in a steam engine?

No. It's to drive the train. Not for the whistle. Whistle's like a side item.

Exactly. The Holy Spirit is to drive the train. It's the power to live for God. Don't get lost on thinking about the whistles and the bells and all these other things, but to realize that every one of us needs the power of the Holy Spirit to live for the Lord.

That's the life lesson here. The Holy Spirit gives us power to live for God. Gives us power to live for God. You know, and I understand many of you in here have seen excesses having to do with the Holy Spirit. People do some crazy things and they blame it on God. Holy Spirit had me do that.

He didn't have you do that. I had seen so much ridiculous stuff that had nothing to do with the Bible. So I'm going to ask you that you look again to the Bible. What we need is a solid biblical knowledge of the Holy Spirit and we need God's power in our life. And if you're trying to live the Christian life in your own steam, probably fairly frustrated right now. I want God's power in my life. I need God's power in my life. Well, don't we get the Holy Spirit the moment we ask the Lord to forgive us of our sins?

I don't think so. That's not what the Bible teaches. And then this is where we begin to get into some of the details that maybe some of us agree on, maybe some of us disagree on.

But see, there's an interesting thing. And I understand, I'm talking about the Holy Spirit and especially if you're new here, you're going, oh no, it's one of those churches. We believe the Bible. We teach the Bible.

No apologies. This is what we believe. If it's in here, we want to do it.

If it's not in here, we don't want to do it. And Jesus somehow knew that we would be fearful when it came to this. And he spoke to this in Luke chapter 11, verse 11. It says, you fathers, if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead?

Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not. If you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? Some of you for the first time were looking at that verse and going, I never saw that.

We're supposed to ask? These aren't my words. These are the words of Jesus. And Jesus says, yeah, if you ask the heavenly Father, He will give you the Holy Spirit. That tells us a couple of things. Number one, we got to ask. We got to ask. We're supposed to ask. And that if we ask, then He'll do it.

And that there's nothing to be afraid of. I've actually heard some people say, well, if you ask the Holy Spirit in your life, He'll do really weird things. He'll make you do weird things and demons will come in.

That is such nonsense. Do you think my heavenly Father, if I said, heavenly Father, will you give me the Holy Spirit? Will you fill me with the Holy Spirit? He's going to give me a demon.

What kind of God are you following? And I've heard people, I had a neighbor, every time I talked about the Holy Spirit around him, he's like, and finally I was like, dude, I just, the twitch, you know, why do you, every time I talk about the Holy Spirit, why are you twitching? What's up with that? And he said, well, there's a guy I'm working with. And he started talking to me about the Holy Spirit. And he said, he went to this meeting and he went up and he asked to be filled with the Spirit and he fell back over and he was paralyzed for like an hour and a half. Couldn't stand up, couldn't move. He felt like somebody had control over him and holding his arms down. And he said, when he told me that, it didn't sound like the Holy Spirit.

So you know what? It doesn't sound like the Holy Spirit to me either. And I see no biblical example for that. What a sad thing that here's a man, and man loved the Lord, but he rejected the minister of the Holy Spirit. Why?

Because of one person's unbiblical, excessive example. Please, don't find yourself in that place. Don't find yourself in that place. Now, a lot of times we think, we talk about Spirit-filled churches. This is an interesting thing, Spirit-filled church. You know, when we use that phrase, you know what a lot of people mean when they say Spirit-filled church. That means somebody at some point in the service is gonna get up and run around. That's Spirit-filled church.

Or somebody in the middle of the teaching is gonna stand up and start yelling. That's not a Spirit-filled church. There's four earmarks of a Spirit-filled church and these are probably gonna catch some of you totally off guard. Number one, it's an evangelizing church. When the Holy Spirit comes and empowers us to be witnesses, we begin to be witnesses. That's the number one earmark of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, of being a Spirit-filled church.

And let me tell you, none of these four are gonna be the gifts. We're gonna talk about the gifts later on, but the second thing is, it's a reproducing church. It's a reproducing church. What do I mean by that? It grows.

See, living things grow. So a church that grows is what God intended. It's not that in this latter day we've gotten all confused with mega churches.

No. 3,000 people are gonna get saved in a couple chapters. That's a bunch of people. The third thing is people are being changed. People are being changed.

And we see it here. Lives are being changed. Hearts are being changed. People are going from thinking it's all about them to knowing that it's all about Jesus. The fourth thing is changing the world.

Changing the world. See, the Spirit convicts us as unbelievers to become believers, and the Spirit empowers us to go from being believers to being witnesses. And note the legal term, witnesses. Doesn't say we're supposed to be the jury. Doesn't say we're supposed to be the judge. We're supposed to be the witnesses.

Telling of what we've seen, telling of what we know. We need to change the world. That's what the Lord has told us to do.

He didn't say, okay, once you're in, you're in. Don't worry about anybody else. No. Go change the world. Go tell. It's not the great suggestion.

We call it the great commission. I don't know about you, but I need all the help I can get. And I need the empowerment of the Lord to do that. Now again, it starts from a place of realizing that Jesus died for your sins and wants to forgive you of your sins. It starts from there. And if you've never done that in just a moment, I'm going to give you an opportunity to do that.

But that's not where it stops and ends. Are you engaged in the kingdom? Are you serving the kingdom? Are you serving the King?

That's the plan. To live for the King. And the Lord said, He didn't say you would go out and witness.

He said, you will be witnesses. It's something you are as you follow the Lord and you live for the King. Are you living for the King? And are you fully armed and empowered? Do you know Him? Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Now God wants you to pray this prayer so much that He died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask Him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P.O. Box 12-515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. You know, the Bible tells us that the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. But it does cost for us to come and bring that message to you and to others in your neighborhood, through radio, through the internet, and through the mobile technologies that God has gifted us to be able to use. So if you'd like to support this ministry, please go to crossthebridge.com, click on the donate button, and ask God how much he would have you give, either on a one-time basis or a continuing basis each month to help ensure that the teaching of God's Word continues to go out through Cross the Bridge. Thank you so much. Well, DA, before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. Those are terrific, and it's easy and it's free. So folks, sign up today at crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the book of Acts.