The Habit of Witness
The Power of Spiritual Habits

Transcript

Well, good morning, church. It's good to be with you this morning. We are concluding our series today entitled the Power of Spiritual Habits. And it's been a great series and I'm thankful to be with you today and especially on a day like today when we get to celebrate three people following Jesus through the obedience of baptism. So it's been a great day already today and we want to conclude this series well, and what better topic to finish on than the spiritual habit of witnessing what we'll be talking about today.

Our theme verse is found in Ephesians 4:23-24 (NLT) 23 “Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. 24 Put on your new nature, created to be like God—truly righteous and holy.” And so it's the Holy Spirit in us when we become believers. It's the Holy Spirit in us that begins to change us and to sanctify us, which means making us like Jesus. It's his work.

But we are called to yield to that work, to ask the Holy Spirit and to yield and repent of our sins, continually wanting to be shaped by Him. And it's spiritual habits or spiritual practices or as the first century believers in the early church used to call it, Christian disciplines. These are not ends, but these are means to an end. They are not the end goal, but they are means to allowing the Holy Spirit so that these are spiritual habits. And we've talked about several over the past seven weeks.

We've talked about quiet time, a daily quiet time, getting alone with the Lord. We've talked about fellowship, which was partly what we're doing right now. Right. We've come together corporately for fellowship and worship. These things God can use, the Spirit can use to open up our hearts more and more to him.

The habit of service, of serving the Lord. And by the way, we had a great time yesterday morning serving alongside several churches in Wilson County. We met over at Farmington Heights Church for an opening prayer. And then we went to our different assignments and Eastgate Church. Our assignment was Vincent Bynum Elementary School.

We did a landscape project over there and we put in some flowers and different things to make the school look nice. And we also hung basketball nets on the four outdoor goals that were pretty tattered and torn up. And so we were happy to do all that. And plus I had a lot of fun holding the ladder for Jeff Webb as he hung those up there. That was a lot of fun.

But that's the spiritual habit of service, of serving people that yields to the Spirit in us. We talked about the spiritual habit of rest of Bible study and of generosity. And now today, the spiritual habit of witness. Now, what is witnessing? Well, Dr. Bill Bright gives us a great definition.

He says, “Witnessing is simply taking the initiative to share Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God.”
Talking about Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results up to God. Let me put it even simpler for you than that. It's telling others what Jesus has done for you. That's what witnessing is. Being a witness means you've experienced something, you've seen something, and now you're telling others what you've seen and heard.

And by the way, you're the worldwide expert on one topic. You know more about you than any other human right. And so when you tell others what Jesus has done for you, you're an expert on that. And so that's what being a witness is.

It's telling others what Jesus has done for you in the power of the Holy Spirit, leaving the results up to God. Now, why should we witness? Why witness? Let me give you four quick reasons. Here's the first reason.

It's because Christ commanded it. If you're a believer today, he's commanded you to be a witness. It says in Mark 16:15 (ESV) And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.”
And so Jesus has commanded us as believers to be witnesses of Him. Here's the second reason.

It's because people are lost without Jesus. Do you believe that? That people without Jesus are lost and they need a Savior? This is what the apostle Peter said in his sermon to the Sanhedrin. He's preaching to those that would judge him.

He says in Acts 4:12 (NLT) “There is salvation in no one else! There is no other name in all of heaven for people to call on to save them." In the name of Jesus alone are people saved. People are lost without knowing that. Here's a third reason.

Christ's love compels us. It's a love of Christ in us, his love for the sinner within us that causes us to be compelled. It says in
2 Corinthians 5:14 (NIV) “For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.” We've died to self, and we live for him.

And his love within us compels us to tell others about Jesus. But now here's the fourth reason, and I'll move on from here because this is the reason that I have interest in this series. Because we're talking about spiritual habits. And it's this fourth reason why we witness. It's necessary for our spiritual growth.

Did you know that the habit of talking to people about Jesus, cultivating that is necessary for your own spiritual growth? Here's what we read in Philemon 1:6 (ESV) “I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective for the full knowledge of every good thing that is in us for the sake of Christ.” The apostle Paul is writing to Philemon, and he connects spiritual growth, knowing more about Jesus, growing in the knowledge of Jesus, to sharing your faith. How about that?

Sharing your faith is connected to your spiritual growth, he says. The truth is, I don't know if you remember how excited you were when you were a little kid for Christmas. Like when Christmas time would come, you couldn't even sleep the night before. You were so excited. You remember that.

You remember that feeling. Then as you grow older, maybe it's your teenage years, maybe, maybe it's before that or after that. But at some point it's just, it gets to be old news. You're like, yeah, it's Christmas. You know, it's Christmas.

It loses its, you know, its special nature to you. But if you get married and have kids, then that first kid that finally, you know, maybe they're one years old, maybe they're one and a half, two years old, and they're looking at the Christmas tree and the presents and all of a sudden just telling them about it makes Christmas come alive in you all over again. Can you relate to that? It's something about telling someone new about it that's never known about it. And that's what I think sharing Jesus with others does to us.

It reminds us of how much he loves us, how much he loves them, and it opens us up to further spiritual growth. Well, that's our focus today. It's this habit of witnessing and how it's important to our spiritual growth. Barna says that only three out of four believers, people who say they're born again, believe that we're supposed to witness. So 73%, just under three out of four, say that.

And if you ask this, three out of four, according to the survey, only 50% say that in the last year they've told anyone about the gospel. So three out of four believe. You're supposed to only out of that, only one out of two have actually talked to anyone in an entire year about Jesus. God forgive us. God forgive us for that.

Maybe you're thinking in your own heart right now. I hope you are. Holy Spirit, examine our hearts. When's the last time you told anyone what Jesus has done for you. That's what I want us to think about today.

When's the last time that you told anyone what Jesus has done for you?

Why is this happening? What are some reasons that people give for having not shared their faith? Here's one. Lack of knowledge. They're afraid someone's going to ask them a question they don't know the answer to.

Lack of knowledge. Rejection. I'm afraid they won't like me. I fear rejection, disapproval. I'm afraid they'll think I'm too religious, that I'm uncool, just not cool in school to talk about Jesus.

It's impolite. It's not politically correct to talk about Jesus. And here's a reason, and this one is the one that I think is so on target for many of us. No desire. I just don't really want to.

I'm an introvert. I don't like talking to people anyway.

I don't want to talk about it. You know what this really lends itself to? It really is spiritual apathy. It's really spiritual lethargy that we've lost our passion. Here's what I know.

We always talk about that which we love. I love football, by the way. It's football season. I don't know how the Panthers are going to do today. I try to pull for them.

That's the team in our state, right? It's been hard to be a Panthers fan lately. They did win 30 to nothing last week though. Go, go Panthers. Last week.

But we'll see what happens this week. Who knows, right? You know it's hard, but it's easy for me to talk about football because I love football. Some of us love to talk about our favorite new restaurant. In fact, some of us love it so much we do

this very unusual thing that I never noticed in human history until the invention of social media and smartphones is that we like to take a photo of our plate of food.

Whoever looked through their grandparents photo album and they look, well, there's aunt Susie, well there's Uncle George and wow, look at that great plate of food. Never saw that ever until lately. But boy, we love talking about restaurants and food. We'll talk to a total stranger in the Walmart checkout about the new restaurant. And how about that, that new bride to be, she just got that ring on her finger and she just can't help talking to people about that because she's in love.

Oh, what's that on your finger? Oh, I can't believe you noticed.

No one has to make us. No one has to command us, no one has to teach us to talk about what we have a passion for. Passion always leads to proclamation. But we've lost our passion for Jesus. Is that the heart of it?

Is that the real reason why? Well, in the Book of Acts, Luke recorded that first century believers had a passion for Jesus. They were committed to bearing witness of what Jesus had done and was doing for them. And the church in the first century exploded on the scene and it grew exponentially because the people had a habit of witnessing. And I believe we can have a spiritual habit of witnessing today.

As we look at the text, I think we'll see three essentials for cultivating this spiritual habit of witness. Let's dig in. Acts 4:29-31 (ESV)

29 “And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, 30 while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” 31 And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.” This is God's word.

Amen. We're looking for three essentials for cultivating this spiritual habit of witnessing. Here's the first:

1. Prayer. Ask God to grant you witnessing opportunities.

Pray and ask God to grant you witnessing opportunities. Look at the text notice in verse 31 it says, “And when they had prayed,” this is the end of a longer prayer we picked up at the point of request. We didn't read the opening praise. And where they were, where they were praying back to the Lord, their reading of his Word. I think God loves it by the way, when we pray his word back to him.

And so they did that. They quoted from psalms, and we didn't cover all of that, but we picked up where the request section began. And how did they request, what did they pray for? Well, they began by praying for 29 “And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness,”

That's their big ask. That's the key to what they're asking right here. Grant to us. And what I'm saying is that the spiritual habit of witnessing begins there. It begins with prayer.

It begins asking the Father to grant you the opportunity to talk to someone that needs to hear the name of Jesus today. It begins there. And so prayer is not a footnote to evangelism. It's a priority for evangelism because can your witness save someone? Does your witness save people? Does you telling someone about Jesus, does that save them?

No, what saves them is the Lord. You can't save anybody. But God partners with you. He's chosen to use the means of your witness in order to save them through the power of the Holy Spirit upon them. And so he's chosen our obedience to that as the means of salvation.

And so it takes the pressure off, but it begins with prayer. Here's a way of looking at prayer. It's the plow that prepares the soil of the heart for the seed of the gospel. You got to think like a farmer here. The word of God's often compared to a seed, and the heart is often compared to soil.

And a lot of people. Maybe it's someone you love. Maybe it's a father or father in law, maybe it's a mother in law, maybe it's a sister or brother or a next door neighbor. And you know of someone right now who has a hard heart towards God. They have a hard heart towards the gospel.

It's prayer that will plow. It will break up the hard soil of the heart. You can pray like that. Lord, grant us opportunities with this person. And you name them like that.

And so pray like that. Ask for witnessing opportunities. Now, let's do a little background here, because that's not how he starts, though. That's not how people start their prayer. And now, Lord, we've talked to you.

It starts back there in which declares, Acts 4:24, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of your servant David your father said by the Holy Spirit..."
And they quote Psalms and they quote the part where you prophesied, Lord, that we would get under, you know, threat and persecution. And didn't it happen with Herod and Pilate? And they threatened and killed your son Jesus, but he rose from the grave.

They're just like praying that out loud. They're not even asking for anything. They're just saying, you're sovereign, Lord, and we're not afraid because we know nothing can touch us unless it passes through your fingers first. So they're just reminding themselves in prayer of what's true. Nothing catches you off guard.

God, you're sovereign, you're on your throne. That's how they started the prayer. That's a pretty good prayer. And now, Lord, we've got a couple things we want to ask you. It's really short.

First of all, you look at their threats. They want to kill us. They've threatened us and they've told us, stop saying Jesus. Stop teaching and preaching in the name of Jesus. Now here's the background.

Chapter three. Peter and John. They're just going up to the temple to pray. Three times a day the Jews prayed at the temple. Morning, midday and evening prayers.

They're going up and they happen to be going up to the gate called Beautiful. They're walking up the steps. There's a man that's been there. His family takes him there every day. He can't walk.

Was born a cripple, he can't walk. His legs and his feet are twisted from birth. He's 40 years old. That's been what he's done every day. Everybody knows, man, you can't get past that cripple dude at the gate called Beautiful.

He's going to ask you for money. Well, here goes Peter and John, they're walking up the steps to the gate called Beautiful. And they did the thing, you know, every one of us in the room knows when you see that guy at the red light or the stop sign, holding that sign, you do not make eye contact with that guy. Everybody knows that.

Peter and John apparently didn't know that. They looked, it says they looked right at the guy. And the guy's not looking back. And so Peter, to make sure, says, look at us. And he looks up at him, he says in Acts 3:6, "Silver and gold I have none but what I have I give you:

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk!" And the man leapt to his feet. Now look, that's a miracle. He'd never taken a step in his whole life. His legs got straightened out, his feet uncurled, his ankles formed up.

But this man, you got to understand, he was born that way. He had never walked.

That's pretty amazing. My oldest son walked at nine months. That's pretty early, isn't it? It took him nine months to crawl around before he could walk. Not only did he heal his legs, he taught him how to walk in one word in the name of Jesus.

The man got new legs and knew how to walk. And not only that, if you read chapter three, he's doing calisthenics in the temple. I mean, he's leaping, he's jumping, and he's grabbing onto Peter and John and he's giving glory to God. Hallelujah. And a crowd gathered because they've been seeing that guy for 40 years.

People avoided the gate called Beautiful because you had to get past this guy. That was his full time job. And then Peter starts going, do you know how this happened? Right? It's because the one you killed, now, you did it out of ignorance.

You didn't know any better. And even the leaders, they didn't know any better. But the one that was prophesied by Moses saying, another is coming, the man named Jesus, it's in his name that this man was healed and he began to preach the gospel. Well, then the Sanhedrin heard about it, had him arrested, and kept Peter and John overnight. The next morning, they met with them and said, how'd this happen?

And he says, I'll tell you how it happened. It was in the name of Jesus who you crucified. And they went, man, this guy's bold. And they said to each other, step out of the room for a minute.

And they turned to each other and they said, these are unschooled ordinary men. But aren't they the ones that were with Jesus for three years? They took notice of that. They called them back in because they realized, we got the cripple guy here that's no longer crippled, and the people are rejoicing, we can't kill them. So they threatened them.

They said, you got to stop in the name of Jesus, this preaching in the name of Jesus, teaching in the name of Jesus, you can't do it anymore. And then Peter said, well, you have to decide should we obey man or God. Now, that gets you up to speed. Then they come up and there's a prayer meeting going on, praying for them to get out of jail. And here we are.

And they show up and they go, well, Sovereign God, and now here's how they're going to pray. Now, how would you pray, verse 29, “And now, Lord, look upon their threats…” I'd have been more there a little bit. I'd have hung out there a little longer.

I'd been like, lord, them people over there, could you kill them, Lord? Could you get us out of Jerusalem? Get us away? I would have spent a little bit more time in the prayer request arena about the people over there that threatened me, not these guys. I'm humbled by their prayers.

They said, lord, you're sovereign. If somebody's supposed to threaten us, if this trouble's supposed to be in my life, if I'm supposed to be going through this thing in my marriage right now, if I'm supposed to be going and facing this physical trial right now, if I'm supposed to be suffering for you right now, you're, you're sovereign. You're God, and I'm not. You handle that. Would you take a look at that Lord, and your will, whatever it is, I'm fine with that.

But, Lord, in the midst of this, in the midst of this, 29 “...grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness,” Grant unto us your servants to keep on continuing to talk about Jesus.

That's how they prayed.

That's how Paul talks to the church at Colossae when he writes Colossians to them. He asked for prayer. He says, Colossians 4:3-4 (ESV) 3 “At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison— 4 that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.”

He seems to be asking for a different open door than I would have prayed for. If I'm in prison. If I'm in a Roman prison and I'm praying for an open door, I'd be praying for the jail cell door to be opened. Like, lord, could you open the jail cell? That's not how he prayed.

He didn't pray to get out. He didn't pray to get out of jail free.

He said, lord, open the hearts doors of the people that I'm here to preach to. Because if I'm here, it must be because you put me here. Anything that's happened to me has to first pass through the fingers of the sovereign God. I just trust you, God. So if I'm in prison, there must be someone here I'm supposed to preach to.

And just kind of remind yourselves of the Philippian jailer and his whole family who came to Jesus because Silas and Paul were in there praying and singing at midnight. That's how Paul thinks, man. He's not praying for an open door to the prison. He's praying for an open door of people's hearts because that's why he's there. So he's praying for God's power, but he's also praying for clarity.

Verse 4, “that I may make it clear.” Here he is, one of the greatest evangelists, maybe the greatest evangelist who's ever lived for the Christian church. Today, here he is. That I can speak clearly, Lord, you know, before I come up here, before I step into this pulpit every Sunday, and especially today, perhaps I was really feeling it today, Lord, what a privilege it is that a sinner like me unworthy a sinner saved by grace, that you would allow me to preach your holy word. What a privilege that you would let me do that, Lord.

But it doesn't matter what I say. If you don't move, if you don't show up, nothing happens. God, if you don't show up, nothing happens. I can preach, it won't matter. But if you show up, oh, my and Lord,

here's the other thing I'm worried about. That I won't speak clearly, that I'll mispronounce words, that I'll get confused when I preach. I recognize there's always a spiritual battle. There's a spiritual battle for my mouth, and there's a spiritual battle for your ears, for your distractions. Jesus was always saying, “he that has ears to hear, let him hear.”

This thing that's going on in this very moment, as you and I are looking back and forth at each other, this is a moment where God is moving.

His word never returns void. I'm humbled. God, open a door. God, let me speak clearly.

God, open their ears. That they have ears to hear. I'm reminded of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch and how sensitive Philip was; he was a new deacon, but he turned into an evangelist very quickly. And he

was listening to the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit said, you see that chariot over there? And he goes, yeah. He goes, I want you to go over and talk to that guy. Have you ever had the Holy Spirit give you a nudge?

Go over there and talk to that person. Have you ever been, like, you're there with your kids at the McDonald's, and you're sitting in the booth and your kids are all in the ball pit? They're all in there. And you look across the booth and there's another mama sitting there, and she's facing you. Both of you were looking in the glass.

But then you look back and you see her looking back, and you kind of smile and then the Holy Spirit goes, talk to her about Jesus. And you go, but I don't know her. Is that you, Holy Spirit? I'm not sure I'm supposed to do this.

You feel awkward. I don't even know her name. Here's what I know. When that happens to me, I'll go, is that you, Spirit? Is that you, Holy Spirit?

And then I quickly will go, well, I know it's not me, because I wouldn't be thinking this. It's got to be you. And you learn more quickly. Philip has learned very quickly.

He feels the spirit's nudge, and he walks over and he goes, what are you reading? Because he sees him there. He's holding a scroll. He's just purchased a very expensive scroll because there were no printing presses, and it cost a fortune to buy something that had been written by a scribe by hand. And he, boy, he went out and bought the biggest scroll they had.

The book of Isaiah. And he's opened it up and he's at chapter 53, the suffering servant. And he goes, who is this that's being described? This man of sorrows, this one who will be pierced for our iniquities? Who is this?

And Philip says, I know who he is. I know his name. He says, climb up. And he gets in the chariot and he talks to him about Jesus. He preaches Jesus.

He tells him about Jesus and how he's been fulfilled. The fulfillment of Isaiah 53. And he baptizes him. Right there next to the road, there's some water. And he gets baptized.

And he baptized him. Why? Because he was prayed up and he was looking. And when the Holy Spirit nudged, he was ready to go.

Is that you? What an adventure to live like that. Ready to talk to people about Jesus? Well, the first essential is to pray. Grant me the opportunity today to talk to someone about you.

You might be thinking, you know, God doesn't answer my prayers, or God rarely answers. You might be thinking that. But let me say something to you. Are you praying? Our Father, which art in heaven, my will be done prayers or thy will be done prayers?

If you're praying, thy will be done prayers, know this. Christ has commanded us to talk to others about him. If you say, lord, open the door for me to talk to someone about you. Get ready. You're going to have an opportunity to talk to someone about Jesus.

I dare you to do it. I dare you to ask the Lord. Give me an opportunity to talk to someone about Jesus, because he will. And then it'll be up to you. Will you boldly speak out about Jesus?

I pray that this week, I just. I pray this week that somebody here says, I'm going to talk about Jesus for seven straight days and see what happens. And I want you to report to me and say what happened, because you're going to have a story that's going to blow us all away.

Here's another way this might look to you. I want to remind you, we've been doing this since the first of the year. You see this container over here with these orange cards? It says, it's time. It's time to start talking to people about Jesus.

And one way we can do this is write down the names of people that you know are far from God and come over here and just drop it in the container, put your hand on the container and say, lord, I pray that you'd stretch forth your hand with healing and signs and wonders and power. And lead this person to you in the name of Jesus. And if it's possible for me to be the one that talks to. To them, give me an open door to talk to them about. And as you're doing it, you're praying for all these.

Everything here. All those cards represent people far from God that we're praying for.

It begins with prayer. It begins with prayer. Here's the second. Here's the second essential. Boy, that was a good one.

I couldn't hardly get off of it. I'm going to have to speed up. Power.

2. Power. Rely on the Spirit to empower your witness.

Rely on the spirit to empower your witness, Lord. You consider their threats. I'm not going to worry about those threats. Grant to us to speak your word with all boldness. And then verse 30,

while we're speaking about you, Jesus, here's what we're asking you to do. 30 “...while you stretch out your hand to heal,” Stretch forth your hand. Take hold of people. Heal marriages, heal sickness, heal infirmities, heal people. And as I'm talking to them about Jesus, heal people.

30 “...and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” And so we're going to give all the glory and all the credit to your holy servant, Jesus. Stretch forth your hand. Can you picture that in your mind?

Can you think of somebody right now that's far from God? And just picture the Lord stretching forth his hand and shaking them up, touching them, asking God for the Holy Spirit's power to inhabit the words that you say, but also to move in their life.

You might look at this almost like prayer evangelism. Prayer evangelism would be praying for somebody by name and asking God to move miraculously in their lives and to show you a need that you can join God with through acts of radical kindness and then give Jesus the credit for it. When you meet the need in Jesus' name, just trust me. It's just going to open up people's hearts to be receptive to hearing the gospel. Lord, stretch forth your hand.

Because I can't save anybody. I'm just this crazy guy up here waving his arms, talking about Jesus. And I can't help a single one of you. I can't. I'm powerless.

But he has all the power to change your life. And I'm bragging about him to you. I'm pointing to him and saying, Jesus is the name that will change your life. I know him. He's changed my life.

Come on, get on board with Jesus. Get excited. Fall in love with Jesus.

You can rely on the spirit of Christ. You can ask in his name. And what happened when they did this?

I think God was up in heaven. He was like, look at these people. Look at my church. They're not asking me to rescue them. They're not asking me to get rid of the threat against them.

All they're asking is, can we obey you to talk more about you? I think heaven started shaking first, and then God stretched forth his hand and an earthquake hit the church. He shook him up. He shook them up like a salt shaker and spread them all over the earth and turned the world upside down.

Some have looked at this and said, well, it was a spiritual earthquake. I think it was. But it says the place was shaken. Oh, man. What was that like?

What was that like? Oh, Lord, come on, stretch forth your hand and shake up this place, people. Shake us up, Lord, out of our lethargy, out of our passionless view of Jesus. Just going through the motions. Shake us up, Lord.

Fill us afresh. Because that's what happened. He shook the place. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

And what did they do? They went out and did what they asked God to do. They went out and spoke the word of God boldly. They continued to do it. It was a way of life for them.

Our power to witness comes from the Holy Spirit. When Jesus was about to ascend in the early part of the book of Acts, chapter one, really at the end of Luke. Acts is kind of like Luke 2. It picks up where Luke left off.

And so he's at the Mount of Olives. And the Mount of Olives, elevation wise, is higher than the Temple Mount. It's one of Christ's favorite places. And you can stand on the Mount of Olives, and you're looking at the eastern Gate, the Golden Gate. You can see into the Temple Mount area.

You can see the open courts and stuff from the Mount of Olives. And just beneath, there's the Garden of Gethsemane. And then you go down into the Valley of Kidron. That's where he's at. And he turns to his disciples and he says, it's time for him to return to the Father. And he says this to them, Acts 1:8 (ESV) “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,

and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” He gives them both the source of their power for witness and the strategy for their witness. What's the source of their power? The Holy Spirit. You tell them what I've done.

You tell them how I died for their sins and how I was raised from the grave and how I've changed your life. You tell them that, but that won't save them. What will save them is the Holy Spirit's power that will empower your witness. That will open their hearts, open their ears to hear. And here's where I want you to start.

I want you to start where you are. I want you to start at home. I want you to start in Jerusalem. That's the hardest place though. Lord, I'd rather talk to a stranger than to talk to my mother in law.

Now he says, I want you to start at home. Then the larger area of Judea and then Samaria, which is near, but it's a people different from you. It's the people on the other side of the railroad tracks from you and then to a whole world.

Here's what he's basically saying, I want you to wait here and pray. And they waited for ten days, right? They prayed and the Holy Spirit came on them in tongues of fire. And Peter goes out preaching because our witness is like a lamp that hasn't been plugged in.

If we don't have the Holy Spirit empowering it, we have to plug in.

This is the second essential; The spiritual habit of witnessing. Here's the third: We've said prayer is the first essential; power from the Holy Spirit is the second.

3. Proclamation. Boldly speak of Jesus to others.

The third is proclamation. They boldly speak of Jesus to others. We're at the final part of verse 31. It says, 31 “And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.” As a result of their prayer, as a result of the Holy Spirit moving and shaking them up, it says they continued to speak the word of God with boldness. They went out and they continued.

It was their habit. It was their way of life. They continued in it. They proclaimed Jesus everywhere they went. Here's Paul again talking to the church at Colossae.

Look what he says.
Colossians 1:28 (NLT) “So everywhere we go, we tell everyone about Christ. We warn them and teach them with all the wisdom God has given us, for we want to present them to God, perfect in their relationship to Christ.” Everywhere we go; this Paul is crazy for Jesus.

Everywhere we go, we tell everyone about Jesus.

You know, some of us are sitting here right now and you have a friend that you've been talking to for a little while now. You've been getting to know each other and it's already past the point where it's going to feel really awkward to talk to them about Jesus because if he was really that important to you, you would have already told them about Him.

You need to boldly go ahead and break the ice on that one. Stop beating around the bush. Tell them who you are. Tell them your new identity in Jesus. That should be something.

It

probably should have been one of the first conversations that you had. A good conversation. Really? Really. It gets easier from there on out because I tell everyone everywhere we go.

I don't have my phone with me, but I've got notes in my phone. And some of you are going to think I'm crazy, but I'm not crazy. I'm just getting old and I forget things. Maybe I'm a little crazy. I'm crazy for Jesus.

And I'll go to a restaurant and I'll ask the waitress, hey, you're new here. I eat here a lot, on Tuesdays or whatever. What's your name? Well, my name is, you know, Susie or whatever. Hey, Susie, we're getting ready to pray for our meal.

Is there anything we can pray for for you? And I'll often have someone just start crying right there. Like she start crying and then tells me. I was at Fuji, the Asian restaurant over in the Staples strip over there, and I was talking to a young lady last year, Chinese girl, and asked her, and she said, I left my child, my son, in China in order to come here and make money, and I haven't seen him for a year. She started crying, which, if you ever work with the Asians, that's a very rare thing for them to expose emotion like that. And I said, what's his name?

And what's your name? She told me her name, something like, Sally. And I said, yeah, but what does your mother call you? And then she said it, and I went, okay, I'll call you Sally. I couldn't pronounce it, but I typed in.

And I typed in what I was praying for. And so what I'll often do is I'll sit in my car before I go into Fuji, before I go into Porfirio's, before I go into… You fill in the blank. Those are close to me where we work here, right? And I'll sit in the car and I'll go, okay, I'm looking for Susie.

So when I see her, I'm going to go, how's your son? Have you heard from him? Because I'm forgetful and I'm trying to keep where I'm at with the progress report of these people I'm talking to about Jesus and my fishing holes. And by the way, I get a good meal while I'm there, too, which is okay. Am I bragging about myself?

No, I'm just telling you. I'm a forgetful old guy that tries to love on people and I can't remember their names and sometimes I can't pronounce their names. But I could pray. I can ask God to stretch forth his hand and do something in China for someone that's here. Can you do that?

Yes, you can do it in the name of Jesus. It can turn into an adventure for you. Everywhere you go, everywhere you eat, everywhere you buy something, everywhere you work. Tell everyone about Jesus. Peter says this.

He says, 1 Peter 3:15 (NIV) “But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.”
Always be prepared. So we pray first.

God give me opportunities. Open the door of people's ears and hearts to hear and then God empower me to speak so I have clarity of speech and I know what to say that's unique, the thing that that person needs to hear about Jesus from me and then do it. Then obey and watch God move. Watch God use you. Watch him stretch forth his hand and save people and heal people and rescue people.

I dare you, I dare you to start talking about Jesus every day to somebody that needs to hear his name.

Let's pray. Father, thank you for Jesus. For there's no other name given under heaven by which we might be saved. And I speak the name of Jesus now over those that are listening. Have you ever given your life to Jesus?

Right where you're at, right in your seat, answer that question. Have you ever given your life to Jesus? You can pray with me right now. You can surrender your life to Jesus. Pray like this.

Dear Lord Jesus, I'm a sinner. I've been living my life according to my own will, my own plan. But today I repent of my sin and I turn my life to you. I believe you died on the cross for me, for my sins. That you were raised from the grave.

I believe that. And that you live today. I believe it. Lord, I invite you now to come into my life as my Lord and Savior. I surrender my life to you.

Forgive me of my sins. Make me a child of God. I want to follow you all the days of my life. If you're praying that prayer of faith, believing you can just say thank you right now. Because he hears your prayer and he's ready to change your life and to save you.

Maybe you're a believer and you've already given your life to Jesus. Would you pray as the first century Christians prayed? Lord, would you handle what I'm facing right now? You know my troubles. You know the trials I face.

You know what's heavy on my heart. But I don't want to camp out there right now, Lord. I've heard your word, Lord. Grant me opportunities to talk about you to people far from God. Forgive me for losing my passion.

Forgive me for losing my love and my fire. Right now, Lord. Fill me afresh. Shake me up. I want to talk about you to others everywhere I go, to everyone I see.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.