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God's Great Desires for the Gospel of Jesus Christ
The Book of Acts - Part 66
Acts 19:1-7
Sermon by Rick Crandall
Grayson Baptist Church - December 28, 2014
*In 1 Timothy 2:4-6, the Apostle Paul said that God our Savior:
4. . .
desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
5.
For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus,
6. who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.
*God the Father wants all people to be saved, and His only begotten Son Jesus Christ is the only one who can save us.
As Peter said in Acts 4:12, "There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.''
In John 14:6, Jesus also said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through Me."
*A lot of misguided people are like the man who said that getting to Heaven was like getting to Boston.
There are a lot of roads that will get you there.
But a wise Christian told him: "No, getting to Heaven is much more like flying into the Boston airport.
The pilot has to land that plane on just the right runway, at just the right speed, at just the right time, at just the right angle.
There is only one way to land that plane.
And there is only one way to Heaven.
It's Jesus Christ!" (1)
1.
That's why God wants us to comprehend His gospel.
*In vs. 1-3, Paul met about twelve disciples who had a crucial lack of comprehension about the gospel of Jesus Christ:
1.
And it happened, while Apollos was at Corinth, that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus.
And finding some disciples
2. he said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?''
And they said to him, "We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.''
3.
And he said to them, "Into what then were you baptized?''
So they said, "Into John's baptism.''
*These men were disciples.
They were followers of John the Baptist.
They were sincerely doing their best to follow God, but they were sincerely wrong.
They were wrong, because they didn't know the rest of the story about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
*It's not enough to be sincere.
And it's not enough to be devoted if your devotion is based on the wrong information.
These disciples desperately needed to hear about the cross of Christ, the resurrection of our Lord, and the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Everybody needs a basic understanding of the good news about Jesus, because everybody needs to be saved!
It's urgent and it's crucial.
*Some years ago, Pastor James McCullen went to the hospital to visit a man who had just found out he had blocked arteries.
They talked about the fact that he had a sixty percent blockage in one of his heart arteries.
Then Pastor James said, "There are probably a lot of people walking around with clogged arteries who don't even know it."
*It turned out that Pastor James was one of those people.
He later said: "At that very moment my arteries were more blocked than the patient I was visiting."
(2)
*What we don't know can hurt us, for all eternity.
So, we must have a basic understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
2. And God wants us to comprehend His gospel.
-- He also wants us to communicate His gospel.
*If everybody needs to know, then everyone who does know ought to help others know.
This is exactly what Paul was doing in vs. 2-4, when:
2. he said to them, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?''
And they said to him, "We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.''
3.
And he said to them, "Into what then were you baptized?''
So they said, "Into John's baptism.''
4. Then Paul said, "John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.''
*Paul was faithful, and we all need to be more faithful in communicating the good news about Jesus.
*But why did Paul start the way he did in vs. 2? Paul asked, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?"
That seems like an unusual way to begin a spiritual conversation with these disciples.
But remember that the Holy Spirit is just as much God as the Father and Son are God.
[1] So in this verse God reminds us of the essential work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
*No one has ever been saved without the working of the Holy Spirit in their heart.
In John 17:7-11, Jesus explained this work of the Holy Spirit to His disciples.
And there the Lord said:
7. "Nevertheless I tell you the truth.
It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.
8.
And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
9. of sin, because they do not believe in Me;
10. of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more;
11. of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged."
*No one has ever been saved without the working of the Holy Spirit in their heart.
And no one has ever been saved without receiving the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ.
That why in Romans 8:9, the Apostle Paul said this to Christians: "You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.
Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His."
*No one has ever been saved without receiving the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ.
And no one has ever been born again without God's Holy Spirit.
That's why in John 3:5-6, the Lord used these words to explain being born again:
5. . .
"Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
6.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."
*The Holy Spirit is the third person in the Godhead who gives us the new spiritual birth of eternal life.
[2] Church: Another reason why Paul focused on the Holy Spirit here in Acts 19 is because it is not enough to be religious.
*It is not enough to just mentally believe in the truths about Jesus.
We must have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
And that relationship can only come through the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
That's why in Colossians 1:27, Paul talked to the believers about "Christ in you, the hope of glory."
And Christ in us is the Holy Spirit.
*Salvation is a personal relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross for us.
Salvation is a personal relationship with God, made personal by the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of every Christian.
*Our responsibility as believers is to communicate this good news to as many people as possible.
We all must help other people come to know Jesus in a personal way.
3.
So God wants us to communicate His gospel.
-- He also wants us to put confidence in His gospel.
*We must put our confidence in the gospel.
We must put our faith in Jesus Christ.
That's what happened in vs. 4-5.
4. Then Paul said, "John indeed baptized with a baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.''
5. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
*When those disciples of John the Baptist heard the good news about Jesus, they "believed on Him."
They trusted in the Lord.
They received Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
Then as a witness to their salvation, "they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus."
*They took a public stand for the One who died on the cross for us.
It was a testimony of their confidence in Jesus Christ.
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