The Devine Strategy for Anointed Witnessing

Leighton Ford, a former associate evangelist of Billy Graham, spoke many years ago at an outdoor crusade in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Billy Graham was scheduled to speak the following night but arrived a day earlier. So, Graham decided to attend the service incognito and hear Leighton Ford. Because Graham was wearing dark glasses and a hat, no one recognized him. An older man on the grassy field listened intensely to the gospel preached by Leighton Ford. When the evangelist gave the invitation, many people came forward as a sign of their commitment to Christ. The older man, who sat in front of Billy Graham, showed no sign of going forward to give his life to Christ, so Graham decided to do a little personal evangelism. He nudged the man before him and asked, “Would you like to accept Christ? I’ll gladly walk down with you if you want.” The old man looked him up and down, thought it over momentarily, and then said, “Naw, I think I’ll just wait till the big gun comes tomorrow night.” After the service, when Billy Graham shared this incident with Leighton Ford, they had several good chuckles over it. 

The motivational thrust of the text before us is that witnessing Christ is not a task relegated just to the “big guns” of the church; it is a mandate given to all, including the “little guns.” This text represents the last words of Christ to His disciples on a mountainside in Galilee before He ascended into heaven. Of all the things Jesus could have said to His disciples, He chose to give them their marching orders to be His witnesses. It is generally understood that the last words of a dying man or someone going on a long  journey carry enormous significance and require special attention. Our text is one of five New Testament passages that call us to action—to be witnesses of Christ (Matt. 28:18–20; Mark 16:15–18; Luke 24: 47, 48; John 20:21; Acts 1:8). We may regard this call to action as the mission statement for the church.As a call to action, we must carry out the instruction of Jesus faithfully and make witnessing a lifestyle. Marvin Newell wrote, “It is not our responsibility to bring the world to Christ; but it is our responsibility to take Christ to the world.” 

Our text reveals that witnessing, whether done one-on-one or in mass meetings, involves three critical elements: power, people, and places. These three elements together form the grand equation for reaching the world for Christ. This essay will show how these elements interrelate in a symphonic harmony for fulfilling the Great Commission.

The Holy Spirit Imparts the Power for Witnessing

Jesus said, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses.” In a parallel text recorded in Luke’s gospel, Jesus said: “Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). The point Jesus was making in this verse was that, for effective witnessing, we need the power of the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is indispensable for anointed witnessing.

We must remember that any work we do for God requires God’s power. We cannot do it on our strength. Before Jesus went to the cross, He told His disciples, “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5b). He knew His disciples needed divine power to execute His commission. Hundreds of years before Christ (520 B.C.), when Zerubbabel faced the monumental task of rebuilding the temple of God, God encouraged him through the prophet Zechariah, saying, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the LORD of hosts” (Zech. 4:6).

Effective witnessing requires enduement with power. The English verb “endued” (Greek: enduo) means to be clothed with a garment. To witness for Christ without being clothed with Holy Spirit power is to witness nakedly. No one wants to hear a naked person, and a spiritually naked person is vulnerable to the assaults of Satanic forces. The word “power” is a translation of the Greek noun dunamis, from which we get the English words “dynamite,” “dynamo,” and “dynamic.” Dunamis may refer to one’s ability to do extraordinary deeds (Acts 2:22) or power inherently residing in a thing or person (Matt. 22:29). It may also refer to the divine force or moral excellence working in a person (2 Cor. 12:9; 2 Peter 1:3). In the case of evangelism, dunamis refers to the ability to share the gospel with boldness (Acts 4:31; Eph. 6:20), discernment (Acts 13:9–10), and divine guidance (Acts 8:29).

Growing up in Hyderabad, India, I used to go each year with my parents to Kerala to see my grandparents. The most common mode of transportation in those days was the train, pulled by a massive steam engine. As a boy, I was awe-struck by the sight and sound of the train engine as it made its way into the station, puffing and sounding its distinctive whistle. It was fascinating to see the fireman inside stoking the fire to get a full head of steam. When sufficient steam pressure was built up, the engineer could do one of two things: pull the whistle cord or direct the steam into the pistons. Blowing the whistle would make an impressive sound and let everyone know the train had arrived. But the ultimate purpose of building the steam was not to make noise but to send it into the pistons to move the train. God, the Holy Spirit, is the “engine” thatdrives us to witness Christ.

Going for the souls of people is no ordinary task; it requires the aid and power of the Holy Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit can instill in us a passion for souls. Jesus, our Lord, depended on the power of the Holy Spirit to preach the gospel (Luke 4:14, 18; Acts 10:38). Stephen, the first martyr in the history of the church, witnessed Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit (Acts 6:10; 7:55). Barnabas, “full of the Holy Spirit and faith,” reached many for Christ (Acts 11:24). The Holy Spirit empowered the apostle Paul to preach the gospel (1 Cor. 2:4; 1 Thess. 1:5). The book of Acts, indeed, is the history of people witnessing for Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. Without the aid and enablement of the Holy Spirit, all we can say is, “who is sufficient for these things?” (2 Cor. 2:16b).

People are convicted and drawn to Christ when the Holy Spirit is at work in our witnessing. Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) was one of the sterling figures during the First Great Awakening in America in the early eighteenth century. On July 8, 1741, he preached a sermon titled “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” in Enfield, then a part of Massachusetts. He had preached this sermon several times before with no remarkable effect. But on this occasion, it was different. He was a manuscript preacher, so he read the sermon to his audience but could not finish it. Under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, people cried out for salvation; they felt that the floor they were standing on was caving into the pit of hell. Many came to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ that day. The incontrovertible evidence of witnessing for Christ or preaching the gospel under the power of the Holy Spirit is the conversion of souls, not how eloquent or loud one is or how scholarly or amusing one’s presentation may be (1 Cor. 2:4; 1 Thess. 1:6). 

The Holy Spirit Enlists the People for Witnessing

“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you [italics mine] shall be witnesses.” The New Living Translation (NLT) reads: “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere.” The “you” in the text refers to Christ’s followers. Witnessing Christ is not the task of just anybody or everybody. It is the duty of all who belong to Christ and whom He sends. The high privilege of witnessing Jesus belongs to people saved by grace through faith, not the angels in heaven who do not know what it means to be saved by grace. The account of Cornelius’ conversion in Acts chapter 9 attests to this truth. The angel who appeared to Cornelius had to yield to Peter, the fisherman, whom God enlisted to show Cornelius the way to salvation. 

The prophet Isaiah wrote, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news” (Isa. 52:7). The “him” in this verse referred to Jesus, the Messiah. Now that Jesus had come and ascended to heaven, the “him” is replaced by “those,” as Paul wrote: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Rom. 10:15 NIV). Now, we are the feet of Jesus upon the mountains and the valleys, and we announce the good news. Jesus enlists and sends all His followers, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or station in life, to share the good news—what God in Christ has done for us. 

In his book What’s Gone Wrong With the Harvest, James F. Engle showed, by way of a scale called the Engle Scale, that the journey from unbelief in a supreme being to faith in Christ involves a series of steps.  God uses different people to stair-step the person toward faith in Christ. For instance, God may use one person to move a person from unbelief in God to belief in the existence of God and another person to stair-step that individual to an initial awareness of the gospel. Thus, a Christ follower may be one of several people God uses to stair-step a person to the point of new birth. 

Sometimes God enlists people for specific assignments. God enlisted Philip, the evangelist, in the middle of a revival in Samaria to tell about Jesus to the Ethiopian high official (Acts 8). The Holy Spirit enlisted Paul to be the missionary to Gentiles (Acts 13:46; Eph. 3:1). That said, we cannot overemphasize that witnessing Jesus is a duty assigned to all believers. Douglas LeRoy notes: “Witnessing for Christ is the obligation and command of every believer. Believers are either witnessing for Christ or against Him. Someone has said: ‘Silence is golden, but when it comes to witnessing, it is just plain yellow.’” 

“And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere” (Acts 1:8 NLT).The content of our message is Jesus–His life, teachings, death on the cross, and resurrection from the grave.A gospel devoid of Jesus is “a different gospel” (2 Cor. 11:4; Gal. 1:6, 7).Witnessing Jesus should be verbal (in words) and visual (in how we live). The apostle Paul understood the significance of this when he wrote to the church at Thessalonica: “For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake” (1 Thess. 1:5).

The Holy Spirit Designates the Places for Witnessing

“And you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” God has designated the entire world as the church’s target for gospelizing. Jesus commissioned the disciples to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the end of the earth simultaneously, not sequentially. This means the church collectively has a global mission–to spread the gospel worldwide. Individually, however, we may find ourspecific “Jerusalem,” “Judea,” “Samaria,” or beyondwhere we can be the most effective witnesses for Christ.That could be our place of work, where we shop, where we live, and our friends, relatives, associates, and neighbors. That is “our world” in which we move and have the opportunity to witness.

Matthew 28:18–20statesthe paradigm for witnessing. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.” The word “Go” in Greek reads “having gone” or “when you have gone,” which means that as we go about our daily life, in our meandering, we must seize every opportunity to tell others about Jesus. Although the imperative is “make disciples,” the expression “having gone” draws its imperative mood from the phrase “make disciples. ”It is essential to remember that God may sometimes direct our path to specific places for witnessing, as He did in the case of Paul (Acts 13:4; 16:6–10).Another example is Philip, who was sent to Gaza to witness Jesus to the Ethiopian nobleman (Acts 8:26).

Conclusion

The Holy Spirit’s power is a prerequisite for effective witnessing. Once,some pastors gathered to discuss conducting a series of evangelistic meetings in their town. They talked about whom to invite as a speaker and what kind of music to have. The names of several speakers, some well-known, were mentioned. One preacher suggested, “Why don’t we invite D. L. Moody as our speaker?” Everyone thought it was a great idea except for one young preacher. He asked, “What’s so special about D. L. Moody? Does he have a monopoly on the Holy Spirit?” Several pastors in the group were shocked by this young man’s outrage at one of the most sought-after speakers of that day.One old pastor, who had spent many years in the ministry, looked at this young man with steely eyes and said, “Mr. Moody does not have a monopoly on the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit has a monopoly on him.”

Friend, does the Holy Spirit have a monopoly on you? If and when the Holy Spirit has complete control of us, we, as His enlisted people, will have the power to be witnesses in places that God has designated for us. Soli Deo Gloria.