Introduction
Are you trying to follow Jesus mainly with good intentions and religious effort, or are you learning to live and serve in the power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit? The central teaching I want to press into you today is this: God never meant for us to live the Christian life in “word only,” but by the Holy Spirit’s dunamis power, so we can overcome sin, love faithfully, and bear witness to Jesus for such a time as this (1 Corinthians 2:3–4; Acts 1:8). I’m speaking to you as a fellow disciple who knows my weakness. I don’t have what it takes to be a consistent husband, father, neighbor, or servant of Christ on my own. Over and over I find myself crying out, “Lord, I need help. I need strength. I need wisdom. I need deliverance.” If you’ve come in dry, discouraged, tempted, or simply hungry to be used by God, I want to walk you through Acts 3 and the pattern God gives us: the Spirit empowers ordinary believers to display an extraordinary Jesus.
Main Points
Are you trying to follow Jesus mainly with good intentions and religious effort, or are you learning to live and serve in the power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit? The central teaching I want to press into you today is this: God never meant for us to live the Christian life in “word only,” but by the Holy Spirit’s dunamis power, so we can overcome sin, love faithfully, and bear witness to Jesus for such a time as this (1 Corinthians 2:3–4; Acts 1:8).
I’m speaking to you as a fellow disciple who knows my weakness. I don’t have what it takes to be a consistent husband, father, neighbor, or servant of Christ on my own. Over and over I find myself crying out, “Lord, I need help. I need strength. I need wisdom. I need deliverance.” If you’ve come in dry, discouraged, tempted, or simply hungry to be used by God, I want to walk you through Acts 3 and the pattern God gives us: the Spirit empowers ordinary believers to display an extraordinary Jesus.
Weakness Is The Right Starting Place
Paul’s posture in ministry helps us reframe our expectations. He was intelligent, trained, accomplished, yet after meeting Christ, he counted his former credentials as loss (Philippians 3). When he arrived in Corinth after a disappointing attempt to “meet people on their level” in Athens, he came with a different dependence:
- “I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.”
- “My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in the power and demonstration of the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:3–4).
I want you to hear this clearly: your limitations are not the biggest problem, self-reliance is. God is not asking you to impress people into the kingdom. He is inviting you to bow your heart and say, “Holy Spirit, I cannot do this without You.”
So let me ask you directly: In your home, workplace, and relationships, is your Christianity mostly “word only,” or is it marked by the Spirit’s power?
God Placed You Here For This Time
Esther’s story gives us language for our moment. Mordecai challenged Esther with God’s providence: “Who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14). That wasn’t random chance, it was sovereign placement.
In the same way, you are not an accident:
- You live where you live.
- You were born when you were born.
- You were saved when you were saved.
- You are in your job, neighborhood, and family by God’s providential hand.
And the devil hasn’t changed. He still aims to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). Darkness is real, so we should not be surprised that darkness requires more than polite religion; it requires Spirit-empowered witness, real deliverance, inner strengthening, and living faith.
“What I Have, I Give You”
Acts 3 shows the gospel on the move in everyday life:
Peter and John are simply heading to prayer at the ninth hour (Acts 3:1). Along the way they meet a man lame from birth who is laid daily at the Beautiful Gate to beg (Acts 3:2–3). He asks for money. Peter and John stop. They give him their attention. Peter says, “Look at us.”
Then comes the line that should search us:
“Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” (Acts 3:6)
This is not performance. It’s not hype. It’s not a man showing off. It’s a disciple who has something real from God and is willing to give it away.
Notice what’s happening:
- Sensitivity to the Spirit: they don’t rush past the need even though they’re on their way to a “spiritual event.”
- Faith and risk: Peter steps out, believing God wants to act.
- A response of faith: the man receives, takes the hand, and rises.
- Immediate transformation: feet and ankles strengthened; walking, leaping, praising God (Acts 3:7–9).
- Public witness: the crowd recognizes the man and is filled with wonder (Acts 3:10).
I want you to sit with this question: Could you honestly say to someone, “What I have, I give you”? Not money, not mere advice, but Christ, His presence, His power, His hope.
Faith Pleases God; Unbelief Grieves Him
God works through faith. Scripture is clear: “Without faith it is impossible to please Him” (Hebrews 11:6). Jesus marveled at remarkable faith, the centurion (Matthew 8) and the Syrophoenician woman. But He also marveled at something else: unbelief. In Nazareth, He “could do no mighty work” and “marveled because of their unbelief” (Mark 6:5–6).
I want to disciple you into a sober honesty here: we often call out obvious sins, but we excuse unbelief as if it’s harmless. Yet the Bible repeatedly exposes unbelief as deeply serious, like Israel in the wilderness, refusing to trust God though they had seen His works.
So I’m asking you: Where have you settled into unbelief, assuming God won’t act, won’t speak, won’t help, won’t empower? Even mustard-seed faith matters (Matthew 17:20). God is not looking for confident personalities; He is looking for trusting hearts.
Don’t Trade Power For Prosperity
There’s a sobering illustration that captures the danger: a pope (as the story goes) celebrated that the church no longer had to say, “Silver and gold have I none.” But Thomas Aquinas replied, “Yes, but perhaps we are also in danger of not being able to say, ‘Rise up and walk.’”
That’s the warning of a comfortable church.
Jesus rebuked the Laodiceans for claiming they were rich and needed nothing, while being spiritually poor and blind (Revelation 3:17–18). And Paul warned that in the last days many would have a form of godliness while denying its power (2 Timothy 3:5).
Let me put it plainly: we can accumulate resources, polish our programs, and still lose the very thing the early church refused to live without, the manifest help of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit In You And Upon You
Jesus promised the Holy Spirit before the cross: the Spirit would teach, lead into truth, and bring His words to remembrance (John 14:15–16). After the resurrection, Jesus breathed on the disciples and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). They belonged to Him.
But then He gave another command in Acts 1:
- “You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now” (Acts 1:5).
- “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be My witnesses…” (Acts 1:8).
This is the difference I want you to grasp: the Spirit’s work is not only to regenerate you, but also to empower you for witness and ministry. Jesus didn’t tell them, “Try harder.” He said, “Wait. Receive. Then go.”
And this “power” is dunamis, strength, might, miraculous enabling, the root of our words dynamic and dynamite. It’s meant to be real, noticeable, and Christ-exalting.
My Story: Trying Without Power Fails
I want you to learn from my own pattern. As a kid, I heard the gospel in a church where I didn’t fit in at all. I tried to escape, ended up in the sanctuary, heard that God wanted to be my Father, heard I was a sinner, heard Christ died to reconcile me to God, and I wept. I responded. I prayed. I was baptized.
And yet for years I could not consistently live for Jesus. I’d repent at camps, feel conviction, mean it sincerely, and then collapse again. At 24, when the Lord rescued me out of the miry pit, I realized what was missing: I had been trying to live the Christian life without the empowering baptism of the Holy Spirit.
You can be moral. You can be sincere. You can love Christian activities. But if you try to overcome sin and serve Jesus in your own strength, you will eventually meet the wall of your inability. Jesus’ way is different: receive His Spirit, then live from His strength.
That’s what we see in Acts:
- Acts 2: the Spirit is poured out; Peter preaches and thousands are cut to the heart and saved.
- Acts 3: Peter speaks healing in Jesus’ name; a lifelong cripple walks.
- Acts 6: Stephen, a newer believer serving tables, is “full of faith and power” and does great wonders and signs (Acts 6:8).
This is not about spiritual celebrities. It’s about what happens when ordinary disciples are filled with the Holy Spirit.
Conclusion
I want you to examine your life with me: Are you walking in a form of Christianity that is mainly words, or are you seeking and depending on the Spirit’s dunamis power? God has placed you where you are for such a time as this. And the need around you, sin, bondage, despair, spiritual darkness, will not be met by human wisdom alone.
Let’s hunger again for what the early church carried: the presence of Jesus, the courage to obey, the faith to step out, and the power of the Holy Spirit that makes the gospel visible. I want you to be able to say, with integrity and love, “What I have, I give you”, and to give people Jesus, not merely ideas about Him.
Father, I come to You in weakness, admitting I cannot live for Jesus in my own strength. Forgive me for self-reliance, for unbelief, and for settling into “word only” Christianity. Thank You for saving me through the cross and for Your love that first loved me.
Lord Jesus, You commanded Your disciples to receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them. I ask You to baptize me afresh with the Holy Spirit, fill me, strengthen my inner person, and make me a faithful witness where You have placed me for such a time as this. Give me living faith, sensitivity to Your leading, and courage to obey. Use my life to bring hope, healing, and salvation in Your name.
Holy Spirit, come with power and demonstration. Glorify Jesus through me. I yield myself to You as a living sacrifice. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Conclusion
I want you to examine your life with me: Are you walking in a form of Christianity that is mainly words, or are you seeking and depending on the Spirit’s dunamis power? God has placed you where you are for such a time as this. And the need around you, sin, bondage, despair, spiritual darkness, will not be met by human wisdom alone.
Let’s hunger again for what the early church carried: the presence of Jesus, the courage to obey, the faith to step out, and the power of the Holy Spirit that makes the gospel visible. I want you to be able to say, with integrity and love, “What I have, I give you”, and to give people Jesus, not merely ideas about Him.
Closing Prayer
Father, I come to You in weakness, admitting I cannot live for Jesus in my own strength. Forgive me for self-reliance, for unbelief, and for settling into “word only” Christianity. Thank You for saving me through the cross and for Your love that first loved me.
Lord Jesus, You commanded Your disciples to receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them. I ask You to baptize me afresh with the Holy Spirit, fill me, strengthen my inner person, and make me a faithful witness where You have placed me for such a time as this. Give me living faith, sensitivity to Your leading, and courage to obey. Use my life to bring hope, healing, and salvation in Your name.
Holy Spirit, come with power and demonstration. Glorify Jesus through me. I yield myself to You as a living sacrifice. In Jesus’ name, amen.