Sermon Tone Analysis

Billy Graham has to be one of the most prolific evangelists of our time.

The man has not only provided so many different crusades where he provided the gospel message to thousands and millions through the crusades being televised but he also passed down to his own children the passion to be a witness for Christ.

Every time anyone of his children are on air to provide an interview or as a guest on a talk show they always give the gospel message.

Billy Graham has instilled a passion within the hearts of millions to share the gospel even in his own children but even though people have become imitators of Billy Graham in sharing the gospel do you know that the power to be a witness for Christ doesn’t come from Billy Graham.

The power in his children to be resolute in always providing the gospel on air doesn’t come from their father.

Also the power of those millions of people who heard the gospel message to understand the gospel message didn’t come from Billy Graham.

No the source of the message, the source of the understanding the source even of the witness doesn’t come from Billy Graham or Billy Graham’s education or his parents, mentors or experiences.

No the source of the power of Billy Graham’s witness comes from God and it is through the third person of the trinity the Holy Spirit.

This morning we will take a look at the third person of the trinity, a very special person just as the Son and the Father but He is the unsung hero of all of God’s Word, He is the Holy Spirit and He is a major theme and focus of Luke’s gospel and the book of Acts.

This morning as we continue wrapping up Luke’s gospel we will focus on the Holy Spirit.

As we began last week to wrap up the gospel of Luke we focused very clearly on Jesus Christ and the peace He has offered.

Jesus appeared to His disciples who were gathered together in Jerusalem and they were sharing with one another their personal experiences with Jesus and how Jesus revealed Himself to at least three of the disciples who were there.

As these men are sharing their experiences Jesus pops up out of nowhere and opens with a calming phrase, “Peace be to you.”

The men were frightened and Jesus had to assure them He was not a Spirit but He was flesh and bone.

He did this with His identifying marks on His wrists and feet and by eating food with them.

In Jesus’ life we can have life as well.

That is the offer Jesus provides in offering peace it is an offer of peace between man and God so that man can now come into God’s presence.

Jesus provides the offer of peace but the power of understanding all of this can only come from the third person of the trinity.

So let’s take a look at the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Power of the Holy Spirit

We will see this in Luke 24:44-49, Luke 24:44-49

Now what Luke provides for us here is a commissioning of the disciples.

The way Luke has written this makes it seem as though this is still the same day of Jesus’ resurrection, and it very well might be.

Luke here in verse 44 all the way through to the very end of the chapter is summarizing for us the what he will write in the beginning of his account in the book of Acts.

We have a more familiar commissioning of the disciples in the gospel of Matthew.

This commission in Matthew would have been given near Jesus’ ascension, however, there is no reason to look at this text and say well Luke jumped the gun or this couldn’t be the same day and time.

It is very possible Jesus gave two commissions and it is also quite possible Luke was just condensing Jesus’ last 40 days here because in Acts 1 he provides a more detailed account of Jesus’ final words to His disciples as He is taken away to heaven.

Still this doesn’t take away from the power and the impact and the reality of this event here.

The power of course is in what the Holy Spirit is doing and what He will do.

Luke 24:44 is still focused on Jesus’ teaching them.

This is great section of Scripture because here Jesus now in His glorified body is still teaching and training His followers and as He is teach and training them He provides the fulfillment of a past instruction, He provides a present understanding and a future office.

All of which comes from the Power of the Holy Spirit.

Let’s take a look at the The Power of the Holy Spirit in Passed Instructions

The Power of the Holy Spirit in Past Instructions

In verse 44 Luke writes, “Now He said to them, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”

We looked at this very important point two weeks ago that the Hebrew Scriptures as a whole point to Jesus Christ.

They point to Him and to the need for Him to come and even to die on a cross.

The Hebrew Scriptures are important, they are not an antiquated book that is written for us to have a history of the nation of Israel and it doesn’t apply to us.

The Hebrew Scriptures in actuality help us to understand the gospel better, and the book of Acts more fully and Paul’s Epistles as well as the other epistles.

I can recall many, many years ago, I really don’t remember who I was talking to but I remember the conversation.

The person told me that evangelical churches only focus on the New Testament and the Catholic church looks at the entirety of the Bible.

Well I grew up Catholic and I don’t remember ever hearing a message that spend the entirety of the Scripture I also don’t remember any teaching that provided any breath of the Scripture.

I also know of a very prominent pastor and teacher of our own do who set out to teach his congregation the New Testament as the Lord willed for him to do so.

It took him forty years but he did teach the entire New Testament but I also know this man didn’t teach the New Testament without taking his congregation to the Hebrew Scriptures as well.

You can’t have a full understanding of the purpose of God if you don’t spend a little time in the Hebrew Scriptures.

The Hebrew Scriptures are God’s instructions to the nation of Isreal and as we said two weeks ago they point to the coming of Jesus Christ.

Now the power of the Holy Spirit in this Scripture and as Jesus is telling His disciples here in verse 44 is the things that were written about Jesus in the Hebrew Scriptures must be fulfilled.

Moses didn’t just write his own words in fact Moses had no idea that when he was writing down Genesis 3:15 that God was pointing to Jesus.

Moses by what he wrote does demonstrate any idea that the Ark Noah built was a picture of the redemption God would bring through Jesus Christ.

Moses when he slaughtered the lamb for the first passover had no idea of the Lamb who would be slain and the kind of deliverance He would bring.

All that Moses wrote was not created out of his own mind but he and all the prophets and all those who wrote the psalm were all carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Peter the Apostle is standing here as Jesus is telling them this as He is providing His last instruction and as He does so Peter still doesn’t have the full understanding of what is about to happen.

But when the Holy Spirit empowers him in Acts 2 Peter becomes one powerful preacher.

Peter also writes two letters to the disburse Jews and in His letter he is telling them about what he witnessed on the mount of transfiguration.

Look at what he tells the church;

As you can see here Peter even tells the church they didn’t follow “cleverly devised tales.”

There telling sharing the gospel didn’t come from them, they were witnesses to the power and honor and the glory of God and Jesus.

Peter is telling the church what he and James and John saw on the mountain and then he continues and this is what I want you to understand.

Look at verse 19.

They are eyewitnesses to the events that happened for a purpose and Peter is telling them this so they would understand, it validates the prophetic word, that is the Scriptures, the Hebrew Scripture.

Now watch as Peter continues, he says in verse 20 that the prophecy which they have, the prophecy which we have today which has been preserved for us for millennia is not up for our own interpretation and I love this it was not made by an act of human will.

It was written by men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. Man’s personality, a man’s unique style might be visible in the original manuscripts but it was not by the mind of man that we were able to have all the rich truth of what God had to say.

It is from God who through the power of the Holy Spirit utilized these men to write what He wanted us to know.

The Holy Spirit is not some concept that was thought up by Luke as he was writing the book of Acts.

He was there at Creation, and he was there when Abraham was called, He was there when Moses was called.

He has always been there and He was the One who worked in and through the men of the past to write what God wanted penned.

I find it funny so many times the religious leaders of the day asked Jesus for a sign, they wanted proof He was the Messiah and all the while they had their proof in what the Holy Spirit had guided those men to pen.

God has utilized men to write for us what He wanted His people, the Nation of Israel to know and what He wants us to know.

God has written for us His words so the nation would have instruction about the coming of the Messiah and so they would have the signs of the coming of the Messiah.

He has also written what the Messiah would do and how the Messiah would redeem Israel and all nation to Himself.

It is through His suffering and being raised from the dead.

What the Holy Spirit has moved the prophets of the passed to write has been fulfilled in Jesus Christ, now we will see the power of the Holy Spirit in Present Understanding.

The Power of the Holy Spirit in Present Understanding

Look with me at verses 45-47.

Luke continues and tells us in verse 45, “Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”

He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.

This isn’t their eyes were opened this time it was their minds.

There was obviously still a fog.

In fact if you read through all the gospel accounts you find each time Jesus teaches these men there is always a disconnect between what He is teaching and how they perceive His instruction.

The simple reason why is because they didn’t have the understanding.

Poor, poor Peter he is has to be one of our greatest examples through out all of the gospels of how the Holy Spirit works in and through these disciples.

In Matthew 16:13-20 we have the confession of Jesus as the Christ by Peter, quite arguably one of Peter’s shinning moments, but we are about to see who’s moment it really is.

Jesus posses the question of who do the people say He is, began with those outside the group, getting a feel for the public opinion.

Then He asks the question of who do you say I am, to hit at the heart of His disciples.

Simon Peter is the first to answer here and he answers correctly, verse 16, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

First time it is uttered by a single person, the first time this is actually confessed.

Jesus acknowledges Peter’s answer but He the credit for the answer doesn’t go to Peter.

Verse 17, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.”

Now how do you think the Father revealed this to Peter.

It was through the work and power of the Holy Spirit.

This is the work of the Holy Spirit it provide illumination to the minds and hearts of believers.

We can’t understand the Word of God with out His intervening work.

In all honesty we can’t even get into the Word of God with out His prompting us.

The Holy Spirit is the only One who can open our minds and our hearts to the things of God and to the truths of Scripture.

Look at Paul’s prayer to the Ephesian church.

The spirit of wisdom and the revelation in the knowledge of Him the prayer fro the eyes of their hearts to be enlightened, that is the work of the Holy Spirit.

Now with their minds opened to understand now with the Holy Spirit working on their minds so they can understand what Jesus is telling them.

Jesus continues and says to them in verses 46-47, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

This is the present understanding the Holy Spirit is providing for them.

The only way they could understand the truth and the impact of Jesus’ death,burial and resurrection is through the work of the Holy Spirit in them.