What gives power to the gospel message? Or even better, who gives power to the gospel message? The world looks for those with eloquence and bravado, but God looks for holiness and faithfulness. In the sermon “The Sending of the Spirit” that focuses on Acts 7:37–38, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones proclaims that the power with which the apostles preached was not of human strength, but it was a direct result of what God had done in them. On the day of Pentecost, God sent his Holy Spirit to indwell and empower the ministry and life of those Christians gathered in the upper room. This accounts for the apostles’ boldness before the very Jewish leaders who had put Jesus Christ to death only a matter of days before. This new Spirit-empowered boldness surprised the Jewish leaders who thought the apostles to be nothing more than uneducated fishermen. But it was the Spirit that filled these rural uneducated men to speak with clarity and power of the risen Messiah, Jesus Christ. This Spirit that indwelled the believers of the early church is the same Holy Spirit that spoke in the prophets of Israel in the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit also inspired the Scriptures and the same Spirit that has been active in the church through the centuries. It is the power of God in the life of individual believers and in the church universal.

http://www.mljtrust.org/sermons/the-sending-of-the-spirit/