Today, we come to the fifth and final message in our series, A Church that Pleases God. I want to look back at the ground we have covered because this series has been building toward this moment from the very beginning.

In week one, we began with awe, the foundation of everything. Awe is the posture of a heart that has seen God clearly and responds with reverence, a hunger and thirst, and a deep, settled awareness that he is worthy of everything we have to give. You could say that awe is the soil in which everything else grows, because if we lose it, we have lost everything.

In week two, we talked about obedience, the loving response to God’s voice. We learned that obedience is not legalism; it is not a burden but the natural language of a heart that loves God and trusts that his ways are good. And so we don’t obey to earn God’s love; we obey because God first loved us.

In week three, we discussed faith and confidence in God’s character and his promises. Real faith is not passive; it acts on the word of God, holds steady in the waiting, and steps into the future with the boldness that comes not from our own ability but from the Holy Spirit, who strengthens our confidence in God.

Last week, we talked about identity and discovered that it is the foundation for everything else to be sustainable. That you cannot walk in awe, obedience, and faith over the long haul if you do not know who you are. We saw how the Father has spoken the same declaration over every one of his children that he made over Jesus at the Jordan River. “You are my child, I love you, and I am pleased with you.” Everything else flows from that, including the purpose you and I are walking in today.

The principle we identified last week, that identity precedes calling, is where purpose begins. Before God ever tells you what to do, he tells you whose you are. Before he commissions you, he adopts you. Before he sends you out, he draws you close.

And so, purpose flows from identity, like a river flowing from its source. And if you try to build a life of purpose without first being rooted in the identity God has given you, you will eventually run dry. And so, it is that purpose, that divine purpose, the one God has been preparing for you all along, that we turn to now.

God told the prophet Jeremiah that his purpose had been set long before he drew his first breath. He said,

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations” (Jeremiah 1:5).

That assignment was unique to Jeremiah, but the principle behind it was not. In fact, it belongs to every child of God because you, too, were known by God before you were formed and set apart for his purpose before you were born.

Let me prove it to you in Ephesians chapter one. The Holy Spirit says through the apostle:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight” (Ephesians 1:3-5).

In other words, before the creation of the world, God chose you, blessed you, set you apart, and determined that you would be adopted into his family through faith in the redeeming blood of his Son, Jesus Christ.

What God spoke to Jeremiah about a divine calling, he has spoken over every believer about salvation, adoption, and purpose. But God said something else to Jeremiah that has encouraged believers in every generation since. In chapter 29, he said,

“For I know the plans I have for you… plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11).

In other words, not suggestions or possibilities, but God has a specific, intentional, carefully designed plan for your life. His future for you is the best one, and the starting point for discovering it is not a personality assessment or a career inventory but an encounter with the Living God who designed you and knows exactly what he created you for.

A church that walks in awe, obedience, faith, and identity is ready to walk in purpose. That purpose is not complicated; it’s not a secret. It’s the same purpose Jesus gave his disciples before he ascended to the Father, and it’s the same purpose for which the Holy Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost.

Each of us has been called to be witnesses, carrying the good news of Jesus Christ to every person in our sphere of influence and beyond. Not in our own strength, but by the power of the Holy Spirit, until every corner of this world has heard the name of Jesus.

Before he ascended, Jesus gathered his disciples and gave them a promise and a commission that would define the church's mission for every generation until he comes. He said,

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

This verse is the heartbeat of this message, and those two phrases, “you will receive power” and “you will be my witnesses,” are inseparable because the power was given to fulfill the purpose. God always empowers his people to do whatever he has called them to do, because you cannot fulfill your purpose without his power.

The first thing I want you to see is that this purpose is confirmed by Jesus’ commissioning. When he appeared to his disciples after the resurrection, he did not gather them for a strategic planning meeting or teach them a class on church growth. There was no program, no model, no five-step plan. He simply said,

“As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:21-22).

Jesus was not just giving his disciples a job; he was commissioning them and inviting them into the same mission and relationship he has with the Father.

In the same way, every believer is a sent person. Every follower of Jesus has a mission field. And the one who sends us never sends us alone but gives us the Holy Spirit. And so, our commission is personal and direct because it applies to every person who bears the name of Jesus.

In other words, the commission was not just for the 120 believers gathered in the upper room. You, too, are commissioned and sent. That calling is not reserved for missionaries, evangelists, or people in vocational ministry. It belongs to every believer who has been born again by the Spirit of God. The Bible tells us plainly,

“To each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7).

And so, you have been sent into your neighborhood, your workplace, and your family with the same message Jesus carried.

“God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

That is your message, because Jesus said,

“You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14).

Not that you could be the light of the world, not that you might become the light of the world, but you are, right now, exactly where you are, surrounded by the people around you, and your light was never meant to be hidden. It was meant to shine brightly so that people couldn’t help but take notice.

The second thing I want you to see is at the heart of biblical Christianity. Just as our identity is rooted in being known by the Father, our purpose is rooted in being filled with his Spirit. Jesus said,

“God is Spirit, and his worshipers must worship in Spirit and in truth” (John 4:24).

In other words, without the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, neither worship nor Jesus commission can be fulfilled as he intended.

Notice that Jesus did not just say, “Go and be my witnesses.” But he said,

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8).

And so, the power comes before the witness. Which is why Jesus told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem until you have been clothed with power from on high (Luke 24:49).

A hundred and twenty believers gathered in an upper room for ten days. Suddenly, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit filled the room. The Bible says,

“All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them” (Acts 2:4).

Peter, who had denied Jesus three times just weeks earlier, stood in the streets of Jerusalem and preached with such boldness that 3,000 people were saved in a single day.

That is what the baptism of the Holy Spirit does. The Scripture confirms that this baptism is a distinct experience subsequent to salvation, giving the believer supernatural power for life and witness.

In the book of Acts, the initial physical evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is speaking in other tongues, but that is not the final product. The final product is a life of bold, Spirit-empowered witness, a church like the one in Acts that turned the world upside down, not through political power or impressive institutions, but because they had been filled with the Holy Spirit and were willing to go wherever he sent them.

That same Spirit is available to every believer in this room today. He is still empowering the church today, and he said,

“I the Lord do not change” (Malachi 3:6).

And so, if you have never received the baptism, the fullness of the Holy Spirit, seek him with all of your heart, because Jesus said it was the promise of the Father. And he said,

“How much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” (Luke 11:13).

The third thing I want you to see is that our purpose is expressed through ongoing Spirit-filled witness. And a witness is simply someone who tells what they have seen, heard, and experienced. In a courtroom, a witness does not need to be an expert; they only need to testify truthfully about what they personally know or have experienced.

That is exactly what Jesus calls every believer to do. So you do not have to have all the answers; just tell the truth about what God has done in your life. It’s the gospel that has the power, not your eloquence or your ability to argue someone into the kingdom. The apostle Paul testified with that same simplicity, saying,

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).

And so, our responsibility as witnesses is simply to carry the gospel, the good news of Jesus, to the people in our circle of influence. The Bible says,

“You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

In other words, your Jerusalem is your immediate circle, your family, your neighbors, your coworkers. Your Judea is your broader community, the people of Emmitsburg and the surrounding area. Your Samaria is the people who are different from you, the ones you might not naturally connect with. And the ends of the earth are the mission field beyond what you can reach on your own, which is why we give, pray, and support those who go where we cannot.

Being a witness is not a program; it is a lifestyle, the natural outflow of a life touched by the grace of God. When you are walking in the Spirit, in awe, obedience, faith, and your identity as a child of God, witnessing becomes as natural as breathing, because you cannot contain what God has put in you. And that lifestyle is sustained not by a single experience, but by an ongoing, daily filling of the Holy Spirit.

The apostle Paul gives these instructions to the Ephesian church. He doesn’t say to remember when you were filled, but he says,

“Be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18).

In other words, in the present tense, continually being filled with the Spirit. Jesus described it as rivers, not a reservoir, and told the people that it would be like:

“Rivers of living water will flow from within” (John 7:38).

And so, it was never meant to be a single drink that would last forever, but a continuous flowing source. That is why prayer matters so much to the church, because prayer is where you return to the source. It is where the fire that has grown cold is fanned back into flame, as Paul told the young pastor Timothy (2 Timothy 1:6).

The first-century church was a praying church because they understood that their mission was impossible without the ongoing empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Jude encourages the church, saying,

“But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit” (Jude 20).

These are not separate activities, but one integrated practice of the Spirit-filled believer who knows that,

“Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Hebrews 11:6).

That brings this series full circle because a church that pleases God earnestly seeks him, understanding that purpose requires power, and power requires an ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit, who gives it.

A church that pleases God is not a perfect church, but a purposeful one, a church that keeps returning to the foundation of awe, keeps choosing obedience, keeps walking in faith, keeps living from its identity in Christ, and keeps saying yes to the mission the Holy Spirit empowers it to fulfill.

This morning, I want to close this series with the same invitation Jesus gave his disciples. He said,

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8).

That promise belongs to every person in this room, and this morning, we get to respond to it in the most basic way any believer can. We are going to come to the table and celebrate communion, because the Bible says,

“Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26).

In other words, every time we take communion, we are doing exactly what we have been talking about all morning. We are being witnesses, proclaiming the gospel together until he comes.

And so, today, I want to invite you to come to the table as a witness. If you’ve never received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, let this be the moment you ask the Father to fill you and send you out with power. If your fire has grown cold, let this be the moment you fan it back into flame. And if you’ve never given your life to Jesus Christ, let this bread and this cup be your invitation.

The same gospel that we have proclaimed all morning is being proclaimed again at this table. That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

Graphics, notes, and commentary from LifeChurch, Ministry Pass, PC Study Bible, Preaching Library, and Sermon Central. Scripture from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.