Acts 1824-19:7
September 14, 2025
Crossings Community Church
Watch This sermon on YouTube at https://youtu.be/OrGbaHDKOMo

Introduction

The age of modern technology has changed our sense of what is possible. In ancient times, almost everyone was a farmer because producing food required so much labour. Today, even though fewer than 2% of Canada’s people are involved in agriculture, we easily produce a food surplus. A single person, with the aid of industrial farming technology, can grow a lot of food. For example, there are groups of people with combines travel from Southern Texas all the way up to the Canadian Prairies each summer and fall harvesting the whole way. The idea that one person could harvest their way across a continent in a few months would have seemed impossible to pre-industrial farmers. But being properly equipped changes things.

This is true in the work of farming. But this is also true in the work of the church: Building Community and Mission. In our case, it’s not technology that equips us for this work. It’s the Holy Spirit. In two back-to-back stories we’re going to look at from Acts, we see the Spirit building up a community that is able to partner with God in mission.

First Some backstory to set the stage: Last week, we looked at Paul’s time in Corinth. While he was there, he met a couple named Priscilla and Aquila, Jewish tentmakers who had ended up as refugees in Corinth after Emperor Claudius kicked the Jews out of Rome. After last week’s story, Paul, with Priscilla and Aquila, journeyed to Ephesus. Paul left Priscilla and Aquila there while he went back to report on his second missionary journey to the churches in Jerusalem and Antioch. Afterward, Paul begins the journey overland back towards Ephesus. That’s where we pick up the story

²⁴ Meanwhile a Jew named Apollos, a native of Alexandria, came to Ephesus. He was a learned man, with a thorough knowledge of the [Old Testament] Scriptures. ²⁵ He had been instructed in the way of the Lord, and he spoke with great fervor and taught about Jesus accurately, though he knew only the baptism of John. ²⁶ He began to speak boldly in the synagogue. When Priscilla and Aquila heard him, they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately. 

²⁷ When Apollos wanted to go to Achaia, the brothers and sisters encouraged him and wrote to the disciples there to welcome him. When he arrived, he was a great help to those who by grace had believed. ²⁸ For he vigorously refuted his Jewish opponents in public debate, proving from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Messiah. 

¹ While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples ² and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” 

They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” 

³ So Paul asked, “Then what baptism did you receive?” 

“John’s baptism,” they replied. 

⁴ Paul said, “John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.” ⁵ On hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. ⁶ When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. ⁷ There were about twelve men in all. (Acts 18:24-19:7, NIV)

In these two stories, we see the fingerprints of the Spirit, calling Apollos and the Ephesian Disciples into the community and equipping them for mission.

I. The Spirit Calls Us Into Community

Much of the action in these stories happen “off-screen,” but in these two stories, we see the Spirit, calling people to faith and into community.

A. Apollos

Somewhere along the way, the Spirit has given insight to Apollos—a biblical scholar—that Jesus is the Messiah. This revelation comes from the Spirit. After all, the scribes and Pharisees—Jerusalem’s collection of biblical scholars—had personal dealings with Jesus, but they didn’t recognize that he was the Messiah. But when Peter first confesses that Jesus is the Messiah in Matthew 16, Jesus tells him that this was a divine revelation. So the Spirit had been at work in Apollos. He becomes fervently convinced that Jesus is the way, and he embarks on mission, ending up preaching in a synagogue in Ephesus.

Apollos looks like our idea of a Christian Super-hero. He’s a talented speaker, and a fierce debater. But the text is also showing us that Apollos needs correction. He knows about Jesus, but he’s missing some critical piece of the puzzle. It seems that while he knows that Jesus is Lord (meaning he knows about his teaching, death and resurrection), he doesn’t seem to be aware of Jesus’ commands at his ascension: to baptize people in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and about the filling of the Holy Spirit.

Apollos looks like the kind of guy who can stand on his own, but he needs people like Priscilla and Aquila to help him. He’s a learned scholar. They are tentmakers. Yet, to Apollos’ credit, he accepts their correction graciously. After he’s been set right, he’s equipped to be a greater help to the church in Achaia. Like Apollos, no matter how gifted we are, we still need the help of other Christians.

B. The Ephesian Disciples

The Ephesian Disciples similarly, need to be a part of a broader community. The Spirit seems to have drawn them together, but the critical mass doesn’t happen until they come into contact with Paul. Paul is able to tell them about being baptized in the name of Jesus, And as he lays hands on them, they receive the Spirit.

C. The Spirit’s Call to Us

Just like the in both of the stories, the Spirit is at work in our lives, calling us to faith and calling us into community.

i. To Faith

Each of us comes to God through the work of the Spirit. But, usually, our faith journey also involves other people. A Sunday school volunteer, a coworker, Godly parents. While the Spirit opens us up to faith, God usually involves other people in that process. This is a blessing that God has given to us. If the most consequential thing in the universe is God reconciling himself to creation, he has privileged us to be a part of that work.

ii To Community

But the work of the Spirit is not just the work of calling us to faith, but also calling us into community. We see how even Apollos—a man of deep faith, and tremendous theological and oratory skills—needs the discipling community. God allowed him to have deficient knowledge, so that others (Priscilla and Aquila) in a discipling community could build him up.

Likewise, after we have come to faith, The Spirit still calls us into discipling communities. Other Christians instruct us and encourage us. Some Christians teach us patience and others teach us how to love the unlovable. Our transformation into new creatures isn’t a private affair between God and me. It always involves the discipling community.

While we live in a culture that prizes individuals who can make it on their own, the Spirit calls us into a new way of operating that prizes what we can do together. The word for this is interdependence. Dependent people rely on others. Codependent people need others to rely on them. Interdependent people experience mutual reliance – I rely on you while also allowing you to rely on me. As interdependent Christians, we understand that each of us has a unique contribution to make but we also realize everyone else i the community does too, because in his wisdom and blessing, God has given us limitations. All of us are needed and none of us can do it alone. We most often discover our unique contribution (and our blessed limitations) in the context of Mission.

II. The Spirit Calls us Into Mission

“Mission” comes from the Latin word for sent. The Father sent the Son. The Father and the Son sent the Spirit. The Father, The Son and the Spirit, send the Church to the world. Sending is something God does, and invites us to do with him. When I was growing up when we said ‘missions’ (always with an ‘s’ at the end) we were talking about telling people about Jesus overseas. But we need to understand mission more broadly. It means that we go into the world, as Jesus went into the world. It means that through our words and actions we demonstrate God’s love and compassion for all people. This can be by telling people about Jesus overseas, but it can also be in feeding the hungry or befriending the lonely in our community.

A. Our Dependence On One Another

When we start to do this kind of work, we find that, as individuals, we’re often not skilled enough to do it ourselves, but as a community, called together by the Spirit, God has given us what we need.

For example: Alice is a dreamer who can come up with inspiring plans to help the community, but she’s terrible at working out the details to make it happen. Carl is a details guy, who can’t inspire people, but who can organize the details masterfully. Elaina is the kind of person who makes everyone she meets feel seen and valued, but she doesn’t have much patience for the non-relational parts of ministry. But Winston is content to work unseen in the background. Each of these people have a skills that’s valuable to the group. But none of them can be effective without the others.

This is what the church is. A community called together by the Spirit, and called together for the purpose of mission. We are tempted to go it alone maybe because we want to see ourselves as the spiritual superstar or Maybe we find the process of surrendering our ideas to the wisdom of the larger group frustrating, But to effectively do mission, we need to learn to serve and depend on our Christian community.

B. Our Dependence on the Spirit

So we need one another to effectively do mission, but we also need the power of the Spirit working through us. Just as the farmers in my opening illustration couldn’t hope to accomplish their massive harvest with scythes instead of combines, so the church cannot rise to the task before it without the transformational power of the Spirit. The Church in Ephesus eventually became an important church. But at the time of our story it was a dozen guys in a big city before the disciples received the Spirit. It took Paul, who equipped them with the Holy Spirit to change that.

If we are going to be transformed and work for the transformation of our community, we need to seek the presence of the Spirit with us. Do we actively seek the Spirit? In Acts, the Spirit comes on people when they pray for it in community. I don’t believe it’s because of who Paul is that when he lays hands on people and prays, the Spirit comes It’s because God insists that the Spirit is ministered to one another in a community. So it’s not enough to just pray, “God, give me more of the Spirit” Instead, we need to involve other believers – We agree together and Spirit comes to us. As Jesus tells us: Matthew 18:19–20 “¹⁹ “Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. ²⁰ For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.””So the Spirit comes in response to our prayer together. How often do we pray with other believers for a filling of the Spirit?

III. The Coming of the Spirit

We need to be filled with the Spirit. What that looks like is a matter of some controversy. Some of our charismatic brothers and sisters insist that the filling of the Spirit is always accompanied by speaking in tongues. They point out that in Acts, it’s always this way. However, there are only three instances in Acts to go on, so saying it always happens that way is a bit of a stretch. This is more obvious when we consider that there are no references to speaking in tongues in the gospels, John’s letters, Peter’s letters, James, Jude, Hebrews or Revelation. This would be a staggering oversight if the Spirit always came with speaking in tongues.

Some say that all Christians can speak in tongues (even if they don’t learn how), citing Paul in 1 Corinthians:

⁵ I would like every one of you to speak in tongues, but I would rather have you prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be edified. (1 Corinthians 15:5, NIV)

To interpret this as Paul saying “All Christians have access to the gift of tongues misunderstands the broader point Paul is making: He’s not saying, “You all need to speak in tongues” Instead he’s saying, “while it would be great if you all could speak in tongues, it would be even better if you could exercise other spiritual gifts that are better at building up the entire body of Christ. So if you’re praying for gifts, pray for those gifts. This is because speaking in tongues—at least without an interpreter—only benefits the one who is speaking. He’s actually arguing that the Corinthian church shouldn’t be so hung up on speaking in tongues, not that tongues is the true sign that the Spirit is at work.

Some of our brothers and sisters on the other side of the debate (they’re called cessationists) say that the more miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit (like tongues and miracles) ceased to function with the completion of the New Testament at the end of the Apostolic age (~AD. 100). However, there is no scripture that backs this up that I’ve ever heard except a wildly out-of-context reading of 1 Co. 13:8-10

⁸ Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹ For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.

The completeness that Paul is referring to is not the completion of the New Testament Scriptures, but of the return of Jesus and the consummation of the new age. The signposts that point towards the coming age vanish when the coming age dawns in its fullness.

If we read 1 Corinthians in context, Paul is helpful at setting our expectations.

¹² Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³ For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. ¹⁴ Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many….

²⁷ Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. ²⁸ And God has placed in the church first of all apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, of helping, of guidance, and of different kinds of tongues. ²⁹ Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? ³⁰ Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? ³¹ Now eagerly desire the greater gifts. (1 Corinthians 12:12-14, 27-31)

The gifts of the Spirit, are about building up the body. Each member is given a unique gift, not to build themselves us, but for the service of the whole body. So we can’t ask, “what signs always accompany someone being filled with the Spirit?” There is no one-size-fits-all experience. Being filled with the Spirit takes different shape in different people, but the intent is always the same: to build up the body, making it more effective in mission. So when someone lays hands on a brother or sister and prays for the Spirit to fill them. That person could speak in tongues, but they might not. But if we ask in faith, God will give us the Spirit. As Jesus notes:

⁹ “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ¹⁰ For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. ¹¹ “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? ¹² Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? ¹³ If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:9-13, NIV)

Here, Jesus clearly explains that the gift we should be asking God for is the Spirit. The community enlivened by the Spirit is equipped by God to be his sustaining presence in the world. The Spirit calls us to faith. The Spirit draws us into a community. The Spirit equips us, so that we can join him in his work of calling others to faith and drawing them into a community. What that looks like varies greatly between people, but in every case, the Spirit is building up the church and calling us to mission in the world. So together lets seek the filling of the Holy Spirit.C