Church: God Sends

Tom Shrader traces the doctrine of the church from Jesus' declaration in Matthew 16 through the day of Pentecost in Acts 2, emphasizing that Christ Himself builds and sustains the universal and local church. He draws from Acts 2:42–47 to outline the marks of a healthy church—apostolic teaching, fellowship, communion, and prayer—and calls believers to take their commitment to a local body seriously rather than treating church as a consumer choice. The teaching closes with a challenge to sacrificial, missional love, illustrated by Redemption Church's investment in the Broadway Corridor community.

“God says, I gave my son, and Jesus said, I gave my life for you, for the church — and the gates of hell will not overpower it.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Doctrine

Recorded: 2011 at East Valley Bible Church

Duration: 55 min

Themes: church, community, fellowship, mission, commitment, sacrifice, belonging, worship, new believer, church hopper, feeling disconnected, young adult, skeptic of organized religion, new to a city, searching for community, nominal christian

Scripture: Luke 1:1-4, Luke 24:50-53, Acts 1:1-11, Acts 2:1-47, Matthew 16:13-18, Ephesians 5:25, John 10:25-27, 1 Corinthians 3:4-6, 2 Timothy 3:12, Luke 10

Theological Themes: ecclesiology, church membership, marks of the church, apostolic teaching, pentecost, universal church, local church, atonement

Full Transcript

Introduction and Series Context

Open your Bibles. We are going to talk about the church today, and you would not think we would start where we are starting, but we will. Luke chapter 1, verse 1. If you need a Bible, raise your hand. If you get a Bible from us, it is page 555. Page 555, Luke chapter 1 and verse 1.

This is week 10 of a 13-week series on doctrine, and it has been a wonderful series — for me, anyway. The last three weeks are a mini-series within that larger group, and we looked at the topics of incarnation, the cross, and resurrection. The series has gone like this: there is the triune God who creates, the crowning jewel of that creation is man, but man sins. The wage of sin is death, so man is separated from God.

At that point, God is perfectly justified in saving no one, saving everyone, or saving some. Man is incapable of saving himself, so God decides that He is going to save some. For that to happen, the only way it can is for the holy, infinite God to become human. That is the incarnation. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us — the word "dwelt" literally means tabernacled among us.

Jesus came to earth and lived a life like you and me. He worked, He ate, He probably vacationed, He laughed, He cried, He got hungry. He was like you and me in every way except sin. So when He goes to the cross, He becomes the perfect sacrifice.

The Cross as the Most Lopsided Trade

That is what took place on the cross. God made Him — Jesus, who knew no sin — to be sin on our behalf. There was an exchange that took place.

Susan and I had a quiet week and a quiet weekend, so I watched a lot of television. On the Major League Baseball Network there is a show I like called Prime 9, where they count down the nine best throwing arms, the nine best left-handed hitters, and so on. They did the nine most lopsided trades, and it was fascinating. Number two was the Mets exchanging Nolan Ryan to the Angels for Jim Fregosi, and Ryan went on to do everything he did. But the most lopsided trade of all time, they said, was when Boston traded a left-handed pitcher who had won 24 games on average over four seasons to the Yankees for $125,000 — and that is how Babe Ruth became a Yankee. They played the whole thing out with the statistics, and somehow the Yankees even ended up with a lien on Fenway Park. It was a bad deal.

But it was nothing compared to the lopsided trade we have when we exchange our sin for His righteousness. That is the cross. When Jesus said, "It is finished," He was saying: I came to save My people from their sins — mission accomplished. And last week we saw the Father's amen to that declaration — the resurrection. God raised Him up from the dead.

The Question: What Now?

So those three weeks covered incarnation, cross, and resurrection, and your response has been remarkable. Many of you for the very first time came to repentance and faith in Christ. The question now becomes: what now? In our study of doctrine, having looked at incarnation, cross, and resurrection, today we look at the church.

When I think about the church, my mind immediately goes to that very first church and those very first church meetings. I would immediately go to the book of Acts, and we will go there in a moment. But first I want to look at Luke chapter 1, verse 1.

Luke Writes to Theophilus

Luke writes this: "Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting to me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus, so that you might know the exact truth about the things that you have been taught."

What we know about Luke is that he was a physician and a historian — precise and clear in his definitions. We also believe he was involved in the arts. Luke says he undertook an investigation of eyewitnesses, doing investigative reporting to understand what took place in the birth, life, and death of Jesus. That is what we see in his gospel. When we talk at Christmas about the Christmas story, we are typically drawing from one of two gospels — Matthew's or Luke's.

He is writing to a man named Theophilus, and interestingly, we are not entirely sure who he was, though we are convinced he was a real person. His name means "loved by God." There is conjecture — none of it provable — that he was a slave owner who developed great affection and confidence in one of his slaves and granted that slave his freedom, and that the slave was in fact Luke himself. There is also the thought that Theophilus may have been a patron of the arts, underwriting Luke's writing. Another possibility is that he was a God-fearing Gentile who had rejected polytheism and embraced the ethic of Judaism — in our culture, someone who goes to church and tries to follow all the rules.

J.C. Ryle writes this: "We know nothing for certain about this person. The prevailing opinion is that he was some Christian Gentile in a high position to whom Luke, for wise reasons unknown to us, was directed to address himself in the writing."

The Gospel of Luke and Its Recipient

The expression "most excellent," which we see at the end of verse three, seems to indicate that Theophilus was no common person. It is the same expression Paul uses when addressing several Roman leaders. F.F. Bruce simply writes that he is "a representative member of the intelligent middle-class public in Rome." What Luke says he is going to do is take all of this investigative reporting, put it in order, and send it to Theophilus to read. And he does exactly that.

Luke goes all the way through the foretelling of John the Baptist, the birth of Jesus, and all that goes with it. The Gospel of Luke has twenty-four chapters, and it ends exactly where you would expect it to end. Jesus is arrested, taken to court, brought before Pilate and Herod, Pilate tries to release Him but does not succeed, and Jesus is crucified and buried.

At the beginning of chapter twenty-four there is the resurrection, and then from verses thirteen through about verse forty-nine we have the story of Jesus appearing. That becomes very important, because it is not just that the tomb was empty. An empty tomb does not prove a risen Savior. There is the empty tomb, but then there is also the testimony: we have seen Him. The Gospel ends with this: "And He led them out as far as Bethany, and lifted up His hands and blessed them. And while He was blessing them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they, after worshiping Him, returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising God."

Luke Volume Two: The Book of Acts

After the Gospel of John comes the book of Acts, and we are going to spend the majority of our remaining time in Acts, primarily in the first two chapters. We know this book as the Acts of the Apostles, and we quickly learn who the author is in verse one: "The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach." This could rightly be called Luke, Volume Two. What Luke is going to give us here is the history of the apostles and of the early church.

He writes: "about all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when He was taken up to heaven, after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen. To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering." There is now a visible manifestation — they have seen the risen Lord. Verse four continues: "He gathered them together and commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, which, He said, you heard from Me."

Jesus has told them about this before. He prayed for the Holy Spirit to bring all these things to their minds. "For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Spirit not many days from now." When they had come together, they were asking Him, "Lord, is it at this time that You are restoring the kingdom?" And Jesus answered that it is not for them to know the time or the place.

The Commission and the Ascension

Verse eight sets the mission before them: "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth." Luke is now picking up the story he had left off in the Gospel. After Jesus said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.

"And as they were gazing intently into the sky while He was going, behold, two men in white clothing stood beside them. And they said, 'Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.'" You cannot even imagine this scene. They are standing there looking, and the angels say, "Why are you looking?" And the honest response would be: why would you not be? How could you not look at this?

It always reminds me of watching a space shuttle launch. I have never been to an actual launch, but I hear you can feel the earth tremble with the power of it. What I always love when they show the footage is watching the people in the stands — they just look and look and gaze upward. Every time I see that, I think of this passage, and every time I read this passage, I think of that image. This has to be an astonishing sight, and it is not something you expect.

The Mental State of the Disciples

Consider the mental state of these men. They have hung everything on Jesus. They have pinned all their hopes on Him. Then He is killed, and they are utterly confused. Then He rises from the dead, and they sense something extraordinary is happening. He tells them they will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them, that they are going to have an amazing and successful mission, that they will be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the remotest parts of the earth — that the gospel message will cover the planet. And then He is gone. That is, to me, an almost overwhelming thought.

The Day of Pentecost

So they gather together, and in chapter two we come to the day of Pentecost. "When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place." There are one hundred and twenty of them in one room. "And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind" — it does not say it was a wind, but that it was like a wind — "and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them, and they were"

The First Spirit-Filled Message

All filled with the Holy Spirit, they began speaking with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance. Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven, and when this sound occurred, the crowd came together. They were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. So there are Jews gathered from all over the world, and this event takes place, and they hear them speak in tongues.

We are not going to get sidetracked into this, but many will look at this and say it is to be normative — that speaking in tongues should be a regular occurrence. At the very least, let's acknowledge this: the tongues we see here were languages unknown to the speaker but known to the listener. It would be as though I just began to speak in French. You all know I am not a big traveler and I know nothing about France — I just began to speak in French, and one of you here who is literate in French says, "Well, when were you in Gay Paris?" And I said, "No interest." That is what is going on. Whatever is happening there, it is a known language.

What is being clearly demonstrated is that the Holy Spirit is coming upon them — I will take that as normative. So you get all these people who say, "Oh, it's the speaking in tongues." Well, how come we are not seeing tongues of fire then? This is a special occurrence of the Holy Spirit, a demonstration of the Holy Spirit. This is not normative; it is descriptive.

Peter's Model for Preaching the Gospel

When we get to verse 14, this is what I want to focus on. This is the first message delivered by a Spirit-filled believer — specifically Peter. Peter delivers this extraordinary message, and it would seem to me that if we are genuinely concerned about what teaching ought to be, we can learn a great deal from it, both in presentation and in content.

I would point out how Peter understood his audience and customized the message to them. He begins in verse 16 by referencing the prophet Joel. In verse 22 he says, "Men of Israel." He understands his audience is entirely Jewish, so he quotes the Old Testament and addresses them with an awareness of what they already know. When he gets to verse 25, he speaks about David.

Here is what I take away from this: for you and me, as we deliver and share the gospel message, we have to have a message. It is really similar to what Peter says in verses 22, 23, and 24. It is the gospel — Jesus died for our sin, it was part of God's divine plan, and in verse 24, "God raised Him up again and put an end to the agony of death." That is our message: that Jesus died for our sin, was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, He is a risen Lord, and consequently we can come into right relationship with the one true God.

When Paul gets to Athens in Acts chapter 17 and is dealing with the Greeks, he does not quote Joel and David. It would not make any sense — there is no connection. There is nothing wrong with taking the gospel message and presenting it in a way that the listener can understand within their own culture. We never change the message, but we have no problem changing the method.

On a Sunday on this campus, we have to deliver the gospel message to a first grader, a sixth grader, a high school student, a college student, a 35-year-old, and a 75-year-old — all coming with different life experiences, different backgrounds, and different levels of understanding. One thing is going to connect with one person that may not connect with another, and we have to put it in a way that is understandable. Through all of this, it depends upon the Holy Spirit to apply that message.

Repentance, Baptism, and the Birth of the Church

Peter delivers this message, and look at what happens. Verse 37: "They heard this and they were pierced to the heart, and they said, 'What shall we do?'" And he says, "Repent, each one of you, and be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of sin, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

Here is what we understand: salvation is through belief and repentance. Baptism does not save me. We could better translate this as "be baptized in the name of Jesus because of the forgiveness of your sin." Is baptism important? Absolutely. If you are a member of the body of Christ — if you have come to Christ in repentance and faith, whether it was 20 years ago or in the last three or four weeks — you should be baptized. Not for the salvation of your sin, but because of the salvation. It is a public declaration to identify yourself with Christ.

We were talking about this before — those are cloth panels out there, not solid walls, and behind them is a baptismal. Regularly we will have baptism in here. You will see in the bulletin that student ministries has a baptism coming up in a couple of weeks. We also do baptism in the home groups. The point is that it is a public declaration and identification. I take the old man — the old me, my sin, my guilt — and I submerge it, immerse it, cover it with the blood, and I become a new creature in Christ.

So here is what happens: Peter delivers the message, they ask what to do, and he says repent and believe. Verse 41: "So then those who had received the word were baptized, and that day there were added about 3,000 souls." You have seen those things at Christmas where you just add water and they come to life — this is like that, literally through baptism. You had 3,000 new believers. That is the scene, and you can see this movement beginning.

The Universal and Local Church

As certain as heaven is for every believer, there is nothing they can do to make themselves more ready. But God has decided to work through the church. When we talk about the church, we need to make a distinction between the universal church and the local church. The universal church is every believer, every place, every tribe and tongue, all around the world. On any given Lord's Day, gathered all around the world are perhaps billions of people who would say Jesus is Lord — that is the universal church.

Within different locales there are local expressions of that, where believers gather together as God's people. The word "church" means assembled, gathered, called out. So there is what is happening right here in Gilbert, and there are people meeting at the mission, and people meeting all over the valley — those are local churches. Even within Redemption, there are four local communities. So we have the universal church, and we have the local church.

I want to look at the universal church for a moment, because to me there is something very important to understand there, and then we will come back to the local church. Keep your place marked in Acts chapter 2, because we are coming back to it.

Jesus Introduces the Church

Turn to page 533, the Gospel of Matthew. I had the lesson pretty well figured out, and for whatever reason I ended up back in Matthew 16, verse 13. I went back to this passage because I believe it is, if not the earliest, one of the earliest mentions of the church in the Gospels — and it is particularly significant because it comes from the lips of the Lord Jesus Himself.

Here is the context. "Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi. He asked His disciples, 'Who do the people say the Son of Man is?' And they said, 'Some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, some say Jeremiah.'" Then He asked the most important question in verse 15 — a question for them, and a question for you: "But who do you say that I am?" We have been coming back to this for three weeks. Who do you say Jesus is? A good teacher? A good man? A great role model? No. The answer is: You are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God — God come in the flesh to save His people from their sins. That is Peter's answer.

Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but the Father in heaven." This was granted to Peter supernaturally. Then in verse 18: "I also say to you that you are Peter. Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overpower it."

The Rock on Which the Church Is Built

There is a side of me that does not want to get into all of this, because it leads right into the discussion where the Catholic Church would say, "You are Peter, and upon you — Peter the rock — I will build my church." I am pretty confident that Peter did not think that, did not act like that, and nor did anyone else see Peter that way. Some say it is a play on words in the Greek: you are Peter, a pebble, and upon this rock — which could refer either to the testimony of the gospel or to Christ Himself as the rock — upon this foundation, I will build my church.

Here is what I want you to see. As Jesus introduces the idea of the church, He declares that everything else is passing away, but this is not. I was listening to a cool FM station this week, and they were playing the old song drawn from Ecclesiastes 3 — there is a season for everything, a time for everything, a time to laugh, a time to cry. Everything around us is morphing, eroding, decaying, and fading away — but not the church. We are talking now about the universal church, the body of believers.

"I Will Build My Church"

So Jesus says, upon the rock — the person of Christ, the cornerstone, the gospel — upon this rock, look at the words: "I will build my church." Notice the singular personal pronouns. Who is going to build? I will build. It is my church.

I thought about this building and the history of this campus. It will be twenty years this November that East Valley Bible Church's Gilbert campus has existed. I thought about this specific building and how we conceived it. We saw the need, we began to envision how the campus could be used, we planned and designed it, figured out our needs and our budget, and then we constructed it. I remember when this building went up and we walked in — we were stunned at how small it felt. There was nothing in here. It was still dirt.

Then there was a day — one of the coolest days in all of the construction — when they brought in a big crane and set the massive beams that run from the back of the building to this point. These beams weigh tons. When I saw them do it, I thought I was not sure it was going to work, because each of these massive beams sits on only about six to eight inches on either side. So who built this church? We could name the construction company, the architect, the elders — but Jesus built the church. Jesus said, "I will build."

Remember the sentence from two weeks ago: God saves sinners. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — I will choose those who will be saved. The Father declares it before the foundations of the earth. Christ comes and dies for them. The Holy Spirit applies it to them. God says He will establish the church, He will build the church, He will sustain the church — and it is His church. He tells husbands, through the pen of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 5:25, that "husbands are to love your wife as Christ loved the church."

Christ Builds His Church

"And gave himself up for her." He redeemed her. It is His church. The passages just keep coming. We keep returning not just to the same theme, but to the same expression of it. Jesus, in John 10, verses 25 through 27: "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep. There is a relationship that Christ has with the church.

So who builds the church? It is like asking who wrote the book of Romans. Well, Paul wrote the book of Romans, but God wrote the book of Romans. The Holy Spirit inspired the book of Romans. This is not an excuse to become fatalistic or lazy. It is not an excuse to say God is going to do it, so I will do nothing.

To me, it is about finding the balance in the middle. I try to tell our staff, because staff tends to work too hard, that Christ died for the church — you do not need to. That is not an excuse to be lazy. It is a reminder to understand that the church is His work.

What is true corporately is also true individually. In your life, you are to be obedient and diligent. But He is divine. We are the branches. He produces the life. He produces the fruit. We obey. "I'll build the church" — He will build it through you.

A Lesson in Humility

He may work in different ways. My office used to be back here, so this is a long time ago. There was a guy from another church in town who visited on a Sunday, and afterward he came up and asked if he could meet with me that week. I said sure.

So we met — Monday, Tuesday, it does not matter — and he came in looking very frustrated. I asked how he was doing, and he said he was very frustrated. I asked why, and he said, "I was here Sunday. This church is about ten or fifteen times bigger than mine, but I am a much better preacher than you are." I said, "Okay — everybody is. I believe that." He was genuinely frustrated, and I understood it.

But I said to him, "Listen, it is a God deal. There is a church in Houston with 40,000 people in it. I do not get it, but God gets it." It is my responsibility to preach. It is our responsibility to obey. It is our responsibility to work. It is not an excuse to be lazy, but the fruit, the results, are up to Him. And there is great freedom in that.

Our Responsibility in Evangelism

In the whole process of evangelism, it is my responsibility — and yours — to share the gospel in a way that is clear, understandable, and biblical, and in a way filled with compassion, truth, and love. But at the end of the day, it is God's job whether you respond or not. That is what He is saying. There is a source of great comfort and great confidence here in our life as a church.

My inbox is filled with magazines and seminars and material on how to do church, and some of it is very helpful. We clearly work. It may not look like it to you, but pulling off a Sunday here is not easy. There are 600 or 700 kids over in the children's area, and we have to staff that, figure out curriculum, handle safety, set the campus, get signs placed, figure out lighting, decide how many services to run, and work out every technical detail. This looks simpler today only because there are no drums, but it is actually more complex for the sound team — mixing in the cello, balancing everything. We work and work and work.

But in the final analysis, it is up to God, because we can work and plan all we want, and if He does not show up, it is a total waste of time.

What Would Happen If No One Responded

I always wanted — and I confess this upfront, I know it is a dark thought — I always wanted a Billy Graham crusade where he would say, "The buses are waiting, your friends will wait," and no one came forward. Not a soul. I guarantee you what would happen afterward. People would go back and say, "Okay, George Beverly Shea sang three songs when he should have sung two." No. He did everything right. The point is that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are going to build the church. They are going to produce the fruit in your life. Your responsibility is to be obedient, diligent, biblical, and clear — and then God will bless. He blesses some in many different ways than others. "I'll build my church."

The Promise of Persecution and Victory

Now He says the gates of hell will not overpower it. There is some debate about what the gates of hell mean, but here is what I know at the very least: it means some sort of attack or peril. For those of us who are followers of Christ — for the church, and I am speaking now of the universal church, the local church, and believers individually — there will be those who persecute you.

That is what Jesus said the night before He died, speaking to the disciples. "If they hated me, they'll hate you. If they persecuted me, they'll persecute you. But do not lose heart. I'll give you peace, not as the world gives, but my peace. I won't leave you as an orphan."

Here is what He says, and there are really two promises in it — one you want, and one you do not. The one you do not want is this: you will be persecuted. There will be hardship. There will be peril. There will be moments of great anxiety, great difficulty, and great challenge. But the promise you do want is this: you will be victorious. He who began a good work in you — in me, in us individually, and in us corporately — will continue it until the day of Christ Jesus.

So here is what Jesus says about the universal church, about all believers. He will build it. He will produce that fruit. You work. You be diligent. But He will build the church. There will be adversity. Paul writes to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3, verse 12: "Those who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." That is a promise. The Sermon on the Mount says it as well: "Blessed are you when they persecute you." But all that persecution, all that adversity, will not —

The Early Church in Acts 2

They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe, and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. All those who had believed were together and had all things in common, and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all as anyone might have need. Day by day, continually, with one mind in the temple, they were breaking bread from house to house, taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God. The result of this was they were having favor with all the people.

The people on the outside were looking at them and saying, there is something different about you, something unique about you. The historians of the day wrote about the church and said they did not understand these people — that if somebody in their midst died and had no money for burial, the others would come together, pool their resources, and provide what was necessary. The world stood stunned as they watched the early church. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day.

Who builds the church? God builds the church. That is what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians. He addresses a church full of issues, one of which was people picking sides. He writes in 1 Corinthians 3:4, "One says I am of Paul, and another, I am of Apollos." His response: "What is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each of you. I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth." Something was happening in that early church, and God was beginning to use them.

Revisiting Acts 2 After Thirty Years

If you were at the very first service at East Valley Bible Church on November 3, 1991, I taught this passage — Acts 2:42–47. This morning I found, in a file I had not looked at in years, the actual notes from that very first message. It made complete sense to go to this passage to unpack what the church is.

When teaching on this passage, you naturally camp in verse 42. When someone asks how to find a good church, I will always point here: they ought to be studying the apostles' teaching, meaning the Bible should be taught, and there should be fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. If only one of those ingredients is present, I would say go where the Word of God is taught, and hopefully where it is taught, it is followed.

When we look at the local church, we see a group of believers gathered together, usually around some sort of commonality — a doctrinal distinctive, location, comfort, or any number of things. In that church we should see the teaching of God's Word, fellowship, and community. Fellowship is the koinonia, the one-anothers. That is the argument against a big church, actually — people say they want a church where they know everyone. My own view is that I need to be in community, and I can take a big church and make it small, but I cannot take a small church and get what I think are some of the benefits of a larger one. And then there is coming together for communion and for prayer. I have no problem with any of that.

The Challenge of Verses 43 Through 45

My problem begins in verse 43. "Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe, signs, wonders." Then verse 44: "All those who had believed were together and had all things in common. They began selling their property and possessions, sharing them with everyone." Somebody once asked W.C. Fields whether he had ever read the Bible. His answer was, "Only for loopholes." I am looking for the loophole here. I want out of verses 44, 45, and 46.

I can explain them. I do think this is not simply a matter of selling everything and throwing it into one communal pot. But there is definitely a sense of deep involvement in each other's lives, and that cannot be explained away.

I tried to summarize verses 43 through 45 in a single word, and I took nine shots at it. Here are the words I worked through: holy, diligent — in the sense that they kept doing this — prayerful, worshipful, obedient, generous, community, purposeful or missional, and humble. When I was done with that exercise, probably a wasted one, the word I landed on was love. It encompasses all of the others.

Loving One Another in Community

There is a section where he talks about the church being something that should be loved, and he mentions seven things. The first idea is that we ought to be involved in one another's lives. The second is that in that setting, sacrificial giving to one another was taking place. This is a culture different from ours, and how it manifests itself in our culture is, I think, probably determined individually.

We had a mini discussion on this the other day. We were talking about membership, and as we look at members and what we covenant to be to the members of the church, and what the members covenant in return, we talked about giving and sacrificial giving. I will be honest — I am not sure I know exactly what that means. All I know is that verses 43, 44, and 45 are immensely challenging to me, and we need to be about that — corporately and individually.

What God Is Doing Through This Church

One of the things we do so poorly at this church is communicate to you how God is using you and this church to bless the community. What follows is an expression of one thing you are already engaged in, and it begins to answer, to some degree, the question we have raised.

Phoenix is a sprawling city, and when cities sprawl, communities begin to change. Communities that were once middle to upper middle class suburbs are now changing in what seems to be the blink of an eye. The Broadway Corridor, just a handful of miles north of our Gilbert campus and about the same distance east of our Tempe campus, is one of these communities.

The Bible is clear that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves and to do unto others as we would want them to do unto us. In Luke 10, Jesus defines neighbors specifically as those who are in need and those who are not like us. Therefore, we as Redemption Church are making an investment in the Broadway Corridor. A wise sage in this community has told us that many people have taken an interest in the Broadway Corridor, but few have made an investment.

We are called to be like Jesus, and therefore we are seeking to serve as He served. We are investing and moving into the community, and we are ministering holistically — caring for both physical and spiritual needs. This is enabling us to live out our values of demonstration, proclamation, and diversity. We are ministering to students, the homeless, immigrants, the school systems, and the city at large.

Right now, we have two pastors on the ground serving this community and building a core team that will become a catalyst for a new church. This is so that we can see a longer-term, sustainable impact through the local church as we serve in the Broadway Corridor. You and I are to serve our families, neighbors, and coworkers, and we are to serve in our world as Christ served in His. As a church, we take seriously our call to be the light of the world, the salt of the earth, a city on a hill. We are the ambassadors of our great King and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Salt and Light in the Community

I share that simply as an expression of one of the ways we are engaged corporately. Some of you are involved in that work. Some of you spend time in the Broadway Corridor. As you heard, we have two full-time pastors there, and one of our next church plants will be located there. The idea is that we are to be salt and light in the midst of this community, living this out together, flesh on flesh.

When Driscoll talks about love, he says the first is our love for God, then our love for family, and then the way we conduct ourselves. He writes something I found particularly interesting. The third expression of love, he says, is that we are to conduct ourselves in such an honoring and respectful way that our church leaders find it a joy to pastor us — which is a practical way of loving them. We are to love fellow Christians, we are to love those who are neighbors — even difficult people and strangers — and we are to love our enemies.

Defining Our Mission

That brings me to what I was referencing earlier. When J.P. Higginbotham writes about this book, he mentions four reasons he appreciates it: it is biblical, clear, fair, and constructive. In the introduction, Stott writes this: "What is the Christian's responsibility towards his non-Christian relatives, friends, neighbors, indeed the whole non-Christian community?" He then takes a cluster of five words — mission, evangelism, dialogue, salvation, and conversion — and attempts to define them biblically. Those five words become the title heads of the book. I want to tell you, this book is really helpful and really good.

God leaves us here for a reason. He leaves us here to be salt and light in the midst of this crooked and perverse generation. He puts us in a local body and calls us to come together as believers, so there is this idea of community. And yet, the night before He died, here is what He prayed to the Father: "As you sent me into the world, so I send them into the world." There should be something in us that is compelling to the world around us.

The Local Body and Membership

What I want to touch on now — and I will pick up this theme again on October 16th — is the local body, your body here. As soon as I am done here, I am going over to have lunch with around fifty people who have signed up for the Connect class. What they are saying is: we are new to Gilbert, tell us about this church, and we want to figure out whether we want to be part of it.

As part of that process, we are revisiting the idea of membership at Redemption Church. In the document we have put together, we address doctrine, distinctives, values, and all that goes with it. But perhaps the most helpful portion was two things I came across that I found to be extraordinarily useful.

The Local Church Is Not Optional

I want to challenge you to be genuinely engaged in the local body. I meet all sorts of people who go from church to church to church until they find the right one, and the right one seems to be the one that says everything they want to hear — easy to come and go, climate controlled, perfect worship, everything exactly as they want it. One of the great challenges and disappointments to me over the twenty years here has been watching people treat their relationship with the church as just another disposable relationship: I quit shopping at Fry's, now I go to Basha's. I used to go to Dillard's, now I go to Nordstrom. I used to be at L.A. Fitness, now I'm at Mountainside.

Part of this is our own responsibility. I'm not sure we've taken church membership — and really the stewarding of your soul — as seriously as we should. It is important for you to be involved in the local church. Young Life is not the local church. Priority Living is not the local church. All sorts of little organizations are popping up, and they'll say, "We're not church." So what are you? Because I tell people at Priority Living this all the time: if you have to choose between church and Priority Living, go to church. Jesus said, "I will build my church" — not "I will build Priority Living," not "I will build Young Life."

I am really challenging you to take your relationship with the church very, very seriously. If all God wanted to do was get us to heaven, He would have taken us right then. He left us here for a reason.

God Is Not Looking for Free Agents

I spoke at a Major League Baseball conference four or five years ago, and one of my titles was "God Hates Free Agency." I thought it was clever — apparently you didn't, and neither did they. But God is not looking for free agents. God is not looking for you to do your own thing — come when you want, participate when you want, and if it works for you great, and if it's not working, find another one. I think that is far too cavalier an attitude toward God's plan for you and the local body.

You need to be within the local church. We have a responsibility to you, but you also have a responsibility to the local church. God designed the church universal, and its local expressions, to be the continuation of His work.

When we talked about Acts 29, a number of people came to me and said, "Acts 29 isn't even biblical — the book of Acts only has 28 chapters." That is precisely the point. The whole point of Acts 29 is that the story is still being written. I remember when Larry worked through the book of Acts and got to the very end of it, and it just stops — right in the middle of describing what Paul is doing, it just stops. Larry said, "This is one of those books that is still being written." It is the continuation. Those are the Acts of the Apostles, and they continue in us today. It is of paramount importance that you are connected with the local body.

What Disconnection Costs Families

Our student ministry staff meet with parents all the time who say, "Can you help with my high school student?" We ask what small group the student is in, whether they come to our ministry — and the answer is no. We will try, but I am telling you plainly: we cannot in one hour undo the damage done in the other 167 hours each week. These are your kids, not ours. It is not our responsibility to raise them. Our responsibility is to come alongside and supplement what you do as parents.

We pour enormous time, energy, effort, and money into that, but you cannot bring a kid in and expect us to triage the situation. The same is true with adults. If you go to Curtis and ask what he sees most often, the answer is marriages in crisis. And when you talk to those couples, the pattern is the same: they don't come regularly, they're not in a small group. We will try, but so much of that can be addressed ahead of time. There is counseling and encouragement happening all the time within small groups.

I met with a man just last week who was talking about his journey with the church. He said they were ready to move back home until God brought them to this church — and then he laid out this magnificent testimony of how God had used it in their lives.

The Church Is God's Design

God gave His Son, and Jesus gave His life for the church. Now we come together as that church. God did not simply concern Himself with bringing us to faith — He looks for us to be faithful. The church is not perfect. It has hypocrites and unbelievers and sinners in it, which means everyone should feel welcome. But it is God's design, and He builds it.

We find great comfort in that truth. As leaders here, we carry an awesome responsibility, and those who covenant with us carry a responsibility as well — to call this place home and be faithful to the call God has placed on their lives.

Father, thank You for this amazing and awesome truth. Thank You that You did not just concern Yourself with bringing us to faith, but that You look for us to be faithful. Help us even today to understand how You use the church. Guide us in the awesome responsibility we have as leaders here at Gilbert, and help the people who covenant with us to be faithful to that commitment. Thank You that You build the church — we find great comfort in that. Let us be faithful to the call You have placed on our lives. We ask this in Christ's name, amen.