Essential Fuel for Fulfilling the Mission, Part 1

At Insight for Living Ministries, you'll hear Chuck Swindoll and the entire team speak openly about the Great Commission of Jesus. Not only is it a pivotal moment in Church history, but as the divine mandate that defines our purpose every day. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll will show us how our mission, launched by Jesus, is propelled by an unparalleled force.

In fact, he's not only a force, but a divine companion as well. In a worship service just before Easter, Chuck presented his message called Essential Fuel for Fulfilling the Mission. The morning has been spent turning our attention to our Savior's triumphal entry, which came before the agony of his suffering and death. And of course, before the resurrection on that first Easter morning. I'm moving ahead because we have spent our time in Matthew's Gospel, and we've been wanting to give you a glimpse of what occurred in the lives of the disciples after they became aware that, in fact, the Savior had been raised. But they were in that in-between time where they were unsure how they would operate once he left them. As they called it, once he abandoned them. They felt like orphans. But the secret was the fuel that God would give them when he sent the Holy Spirit to ignite their lives and free them from their fears and open their mouths to speak freely of their Savior, which ultimately, in their generation, turned the world upside down.

Amazing. I'll be reading from Acts chapter 2, a chapter that has been terribly confused by so much false teaching. My desire today is to take it simply and to read it clearly and to understand it accurately so that we can apply it correctly.

For this is the beginning of a whole new transition of life. As they moved, the disciples moved from the visible presence of the Lord Jesus to the invisible power of the Holy Spirit. Acts 2, 1 through 12. On the day of Pentecost, all the believers were meeting together in one place. Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them, and everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.

At this time, there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem. When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers. They were completely amazed. How can this be? They exclaimed, these people are all from Galilee, and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages.

Here we are, Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontius, the province of Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Christians and Arabs, and we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done. They stood there amazed and perplexed. What can this mean? They asked each other.

But others in the crowd ridiculed him, saying, they're just drunk. That's all. And so the confusion continued, which we hope to clarify today. You're listening to Insight for Living.

To search the Scriptures with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scriptures studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. Chuck titled his message Essential Fuel for Fulfilling the Mission. Rather than death, silencing a person often makes that person's words all the more significant. I thought of that when we lost the giant Billy Graham back in February, February 21, 2018. I thought that doesn't end his message.

It simply advances it. Interesting, the news of his death spread around the world rather quickly. I found it certainly more than curious that his words spread as well. Recordings from his messages, statements he had made, found their way into print as well as across the media all around the world. His words took on new meaning now that the live sound of his inimitable southern drawls now taken from us.

Think about it. The words of your own parents did not mean as much to you while they were alive. But once they were gone, you find yourself able to quote them, to remember them. Things occur and it will remind you of something your father taught you or your mother had said.

Same for a longtime friend. Death doesn't silence a person's message. It underscores it and brings it back to us in a very significant way. I think it was this that caused Clarence Edward McCartney to write his book Bible Epitaphs. In it, I found this wonderful paragraph.

I have no dread of a cemetery. Sometimes it's better to be there and have fellowship with the dead who are buried than to walk down the street of our cities and meet the unburied dead. That is, those in whom faith and hope, love and purity have long been dead, leaving only the animal alive.

Sometimes, McCartney adds, sometimes we can learn more from the silence of the dead than from the speech of the living. That was certainly true of the disciples. For three, three and a half years, often in very intimate settings, Jesus poured himself into those twelve. He spent time teaching, instructing, warning, promising, predicting. He healed in their presence.

He performed miracles of one kind and another, all the while they were preoccupied or worried about something else or concerned about themselves or what people might think or say or do. But when he died, how often they must have said we can remember the words of our master and they would quote him verbatim. On another occasion, this is what he promised when he was still with us and out would come another statement. His death underscored and made significant the words he had said while he was alive. The transition came when he was to leave them. And you who know your Bibles know that he pulled his disciples aside. Judas finally left the room and went out into the darkness to carry out his awful deed.

And the eleven faithful remained as he taught them almost without an interruption. John Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, all of this comprising what is called the upper room discourse. He unveiled the truth regarding the one who would become his advocate.

The Holy Spirit. Now, all of this is old news to Christians today, but to those disciples, it's brand new information. They know nothing of this. They're concerned that he's going to leave them. They're worried about what they're going to do once he's gone. It was all they could believe to think that he would not set up his kingdom and overthrow Rome and and take charge and put them in rulership with him. But that wasn't his plan.

His plan initially was to go to the cross and pay for the sins of the world. They never got it until after the fact. He even told him he'd be raised from the dead. And when the tomb was found empty, the disciples had no clue what had happened. Even when the women said to them, he's been raised from the dead, we read, they doubted. They questioned those words.

But once it all landed with full force, it began to make sense. And especially the teaching regarding the Holy Spirit. Let me give you a word that you'll seldom hear connected to him, but I think of that word often when I think of the mission of the disciples. The Holy Spirit became the fuel.

The fuel that would ignite the engine of evangelism. The Holy Spirit became the fuel that would charge them with the courage they needed and the willingness to go to the stake for martyrdom would be their future ultimately. But when the Holy Spirit took charge, they didn't care how they died or if they died. They were no longer operating in fear because the fuel of the Holy Spirit changed, the better word is transformed their lives.

But before I go there, I want you to turn to Acts chapter one. Let's look again at that familiar eighth verse where Jesus is at the Mount of Olives. This is after he has been crucified, after he has been raised from the dead. This is now 40 days after all of that and he's about to ascend into the clouds. He says in verse eight, 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 Judea, in Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

They're standing there. Jesus is standing before them. And the very next thing that occurs is the ascension.

Jesus departs from the earth in the ascension, vanishing into the clouds. Look at it in verse nine. After saying this, he was taken up into a cloud while they were watching and they could no longer see him. Look, they're still longing for him. Look at the words in the next verse, verse 10. They strained to see him rising into heaven. They knew they would never see him on this earth again. So they're straining to catch the last glimpse of him.

Suddenly, two angels appear described here as two white robed men who stood among them and look at the words of these men, men of Galilee. Why are you standing here staring into heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into heaven. But someday he will return from heaven in the same way you saw him go.

You know what I really believe? I believe their grief is so great. They hardly heard those words. Their grief is so great. It's like those words flew by them.

Until. They later realized in the presence of the Holy Spirit what Jesus had in mind. I love the way Philip Yancey writes of this in his book, The Jesus I Never Knew.

Listen to Yancey's words. Jesus left few traces of himself on earth. He wrote no books or even pamphlets.

A wanderer. He left no home or even belongings that could be enshrined in a museum. He did not marry, settle down and begin a dynasty.

We would, in fact, know nothing about him. Except for the traces he left in human beings. That was his design. The law and the prophets had focused like a beam of light on the one who was to come.

And now that light, as if hitting a prism, as if hitting a prism would fracture and shoot out in a human spectrum of waves and colors. Magnificent statement. Now they were going to get a picture of all of this in their own lives. Yancey goes on to quote Augustine, who said this. You ascended from before our eyes. And we turned back grieving. Only to find you in our hearts.

Those are marvelous words. We turned back grieving. Feeling as though you had abandoned us only to realize in a matter of days. You were right here. Right here in our hearts.

I love that line. Lost in our grief, we turned away. Rejecting the whole thought of losing you and realized within a matter of hours we have you in our hearts, in our lives.

How? The Holy Spirit. So let me say to you what Jesus meant to those disciples during his earthly life. The Holy Spirit means to us in our earthly life that Jesus, of course, continues to be our Lord. But the Spirit of God has been brought alongside to bring to our remembrance the things Jesus taught and to give us the kind of strength, vision, courage, insight, cooperation, willingness to serve that Jesus gave his disciples. So we read that the apostles, verse 12, returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, a distance of about a half a mile. When they arrived, they went up to the upstairs room of the house where they were staying. Now, fast forward to the beginning of chapter two.

So we're in the upper room. Here are the disciples, 11 of them. They are named for us, by the way, right here at verse 13. You'll see them named one by one. And there were others that met with them.

There were 120 believers all together in this room, large room. Now, notice very carefully. Do not let your minds wander. This is where confusion has taken over and all kinds of things have been drawn from this second chapter that were never a part of the original scene because of misinterpretation of what it actually is teaching. Let's just let the passage speak for itself. Now, when was it, verse one, on the day of Pentecost? Pentecost is a transliterated Greek word, pentecostos, which means the 50th. This came 50 days from the first Sunday after Passover. So here we are 50 days later after Passover had occurred. And they are gathered in this room. Jesus has been gone from them. We just read about it.

And because it is Passover time, the city of Jerusalem is running over with people from all walks of life, from all over the world, at least that world. And then suddenly something took place in that upper room. I say suddenly because verse two begins with the word. There's no warning.

There's no announcement before dawn. Suddenly something occurs. They are in the room and there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm. Suddenly there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty wind. So it sounded like a windstorm, but there was no wind. Phenomenal.

Supernatural. This sound, this Holy Spirit, was the companion Jesus spoke about. And there's much more we need to learn from this passage in the book of Acts. You're listening to Insight for Living and a message from Chuck Swindoll called Essential Fuel for Fulfilling the Mission. And to learn more about the ministry of Insight for Living, please visit us online at insightworld.org. And then I'll remind you that Insight for Living produces a number of resources designed for all ages and stages of your family. In fact, if you receive the recent mailing from us, you'll discover the vast array of creative tools, including a children's audio series called Paws and Tales. Through creative and memorable stories and fun music with playful lyrics, your kids and grandkids will learn timeless theological truth through Paws and Tales. And for the curious student of the Bible, you'll see Insight for Living offers Chuck's entire New Testament commentary series called Swindoll's Living Insights.

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Now, why is that so? My theory, I think, explains it best. Christmas scratches the itch of grace deep within all of us. It provides an opportunity to do something tangible for someone else with no agenda for ever getting paid back.

It gives us a chance to counteract that selfish streak we all hate in ourselves. In the simplest of terms, Christmas prompts us to demonstrate grace. Our Lord knew exactly what He was talking about when He taught that it is more blessed to give than to receive. As another year comes to a close, I'm inviting you to scratch the grace itch by joining Cynthia and me in giving financially to Insight for Living Ministries. In this hostile, me-first world, people are craving just one gentle whiff of God's goodness and grace. And when we respond today, our simple act of generosity will be transformed into that irresistible sweet aroma of grace for someone we may never meet this side of eternity. Of this, we can be sure we will never regret responding to the need. Please jot down our contact information and follow the Lord's prompting.

When you do that, you'll become an elegant bouquet, a sweet fragrance of God's grace here at home and all around the world. Let's do this together, OK? Thanks so much. And here's how to respond to Chuck Swindoll. Give us a call right now if you're listening in the U.S. Dial 1-800-772-8888. Again, 1-800-772-8888. Or if you prefer, it may be quicker and more efficient to give online at Insight.org slash donate. Once again, just go online to Insight.org slash donate. Join us tomorrow when Chuck Swindoll continues his message about the essential fuel for fulfilling the mission right here on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Essential Fuel for Fulfilling the Mission, was copyrighted in 2018 and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2018 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.