God's promise is that we would receive His power to be His disciples, commissioned and with His authority to be His witnesses to all the world with the Good News of Jesus!

1. The Kingdom of Heaven verses 6, 7

The kingdom of God is a spiritual rule over the hearts and lives of those who willingly submit to God’s authority.

Napoleon Bonaparte, rightly recognized the absolute uniqueness of Jesus, and expressed it in these words: "I know men, and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the World there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force! Jesus Christ founded His Empire upon Love, and at this hour millions of men would die for Him."

2. BUT You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.

Jesus has given us BOTH the authority and the power.

You see from last week Jesus addressed the idea of authority and said He had been given all authority in heaven and on earth, and he was delegating that authority to us. (Matthew 28:18-20). This week Jesus is telling the disciples, that now they would have the power, but the power would not be from themselves or even for them per se,. the power would be from the Holy Spirit and enable them to do what God had in mind…

You may not look like much but if the Spirit of God can ever get a bit and bridle on your spirit, the world will be shocked at the transformation that takes place.

So, first – Jesus sent His Spirit to give His church POWER.

Then Jesus sent His Spirit …to make us His WITNESSES.

3. We are His witnesses…

So like it or not, you are a witness for Jesus if you have accepted Him. It means you are reflecting Jesus in your life if you choose to follow Him…

The Spirit of God will be changing you, you will be showing the fruits of the spirit, you will be a reflection of Jesus…

There is a secondary meaning in this passage… You will also testify to what Jesus is doing in your life… In other words all the ways that He has been working with you, changing you, making you look and act more like Jesus…

The Bible tells us that the Spirit of God does many things within us

- He speaks through us… Mark 13:11

- He helps us in our prayers

- He helps us to understand the deep things of God’s Word (John 14:26)

- He will testify about Jesus John 15:26

- He leads us into all truth

- He lives within us and guides us in Jesus ways…

- AND He empowers us

The second part of this passage for Acts 1:8 is that we will be witnesses to Jerusalem (to those closest to us), to Judea (to those who are just a bit further out from us), and to Samaria, (those who we may not know, but who are still considered our neighbors like other American’s) and to the ends of the earth…. Jesus died for the whole world, and our commission is to reach all of the world…