Acts 1-2 - Church and God Sends
Tom Shrader examines the birth and nature of the church from Acts 1-2, following Jesus' ascension and Pentecost. He emphasizes that Jesus builds His church - both universal and local expressions - and that believers are left on earth not just to get to heaven, but to be salt and light in community. Shrader challenges listeners to take local church membership seriously rather than treating church attendance as disposable consumerism.
“Jesus said, I will build my church, and everything else is passing away, but this isn't.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Doctrine
Recorded: 2011
Duration: 55 min
Themes: church, community, membership, commitment, purpose, mission, belonging, discipleship, church shopping, uncommitted believer, new church member, questioning church importance, casual attendee, seeking belonging, young adult, new believer
Scripture: Luke 1:1-4, Acts 1:1-11, Acts 2:1-47, Matthew 16:13-18, 1 Corinthians 3:4-7, 2 Timothy 3:12, John 10:25-27, Ephesians 5:25
Theological Themes: ecclesiology, church doctrine, pentecost, ascension, incarnation, righteousness, salvation, sanctification
Full Transcript
Why don't you open your Bibles, and we're going to talk about the church today, and you would not think we would start here, but we're going to. Luke chapter one, verse one. If you need a Bible, raise your hand. If you get a Bible from us, it's page 555. Page 555, Luke chapter one and verse one.
This is week 10 of the 13-week series on doctrine, and it's been a wonderful series, for me anyway. The last three weeks are kind of a mini-series within that larger group, and we looked at the topics of incarnation, the cross, and resurrection.
The Story So Far
So the series has gone like this: there's the triune God who creates. The crowning jewel of that creation is man, but man sins. Man sins, and the wage of sin is death, so man is separated from God. At that point in time, though God doesn't deal in point of time, but we need this language, at that point in time, God's perfectly justified in saving no one, saving everyone, or saving some of us. Man is incapable of saving himself, so God decides that He's going to save some.
For that to be the case, the only way it can happen is for the holy, infinite God to become human. That's the incarnation. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. The word literally means tabernacled among us. Jesus came to earth and lived a life like you and me, and He worked, and He ate, and He probably vacationed, and He laughed, He cried, He got hungry. He was like you and me in every way except sin. So that when He goes to the cross, He becomes the perfect sacrifice.
That's what took place on the cross. God made Him, Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf. So there was an exchange that took place.
The Most Lopsided Trade in History
Susan and I had a really quiet week, and a real quiet weekend. So I watched a lot of television. Did a lot of reading, but watched a lot of television. There's a show on the Major League Baseball Network that I like called Prime 9. What they'll do is they'll take nine best throwing arms, nine best left-handed hitters. They did the other night the nine best hitting seasons of all time, and that was really cool.
Well, they did yesterday the nine most lopsided trades. So they had these trades where obviously you think it's a good deal, you wouldn't make it, but it doesn't work out that way. I think number two was the Mets exchanged Nolan Ryan to the Angels for Jim Fergosi, and then Ryan goes on and does all of his stuff. But they said the most lopsided trade of all time was when Boston traded a left-handed pitcher who won 24 games on average for four seasons, traded him to the Yankees for $125,000 so that Babe Ruth becomes the Yankee. They go through and they play that all out, and they're just like, here are the statistics, here's what happened. Somehow the Yankees ended up with a lien on Fenway Park too. I'm not sure exactly how that happened.
Okay, so 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's the cross.
From Cross to Resurrection to Church
So when Jesus said, "It is finished," He's saying, "Here's what happened. I came to save My people from their sin. Mission accomplished." Then last week, we see the Father's amen to the Jesus "it is finished"—the resurrection. God raised Him up from the dead. So here's what we looked at in those three weeks. It's been an amazing series, and your response has been awesome. Many of you for the very first time coming to repentance and faith in Christ.
Well, the question becomes, what now? So in our study of topics, we look at incarnation and cross and resurrection. And today we look at the church. Now when you talk about the church and looking at the church, I think really of that very first church and those very first church meetings. So I would immediately go to the book of Acts. We're going to go there in a minute. But I want to look at Luke chapter one, verse one.
Luke's Investigation
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 you have been taught."
Here's what we know about Luke. He's a physician, a historian. Obviously an author. We think an artist or involved in the arts as well. But just think physician, historian, precise, clear definition. So what Luke says is that I undertook this investigation of eyewitnesses. I did this investigative reporting to understand what took place in the birth, life, death of Jesus. That's what we see. So when we talk at Christmas, so often about the Christmas story, we're typically coming from one of two gospels, either Matthew's or Luke's. He goes all the way back. He begins to investigate this.
The Mystery of Theophilus
He's writing to a guy by the name of Theophilus. Interestingly enough, we're not really sure who he is. We're very convinced he's a real person. His name means "loved by God." There's conjecture, none of this provable, that he was a slave owner and one of his slaves with whom he developed affection and one in whom he had great confidence and decided to give freedom was in fact Luke himself. There's the thought that perhaps he was the sponsor, the patron of the arts. So he's the one who's kind of underwriting Luke in this. That he was a God-fearing Gentile, meaning he had rejected polytheism. He had embraced the ethic of Judaism. So in our culture, this is what it'd be. It'd be somebody who goes to church and tries to follow all the rules. So there's all sorts of theories.
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 of this gospel. The expression we see at the end of verse three, "most excellent," seems to indicate he was no common person. It's the same expression that Paul uses as he addresses several of the Roman leaders. F.F. Bruce simply writes, "he's a representative member of the intelligent middle-class public in Rome." Don't know.
But here's what Luke says he's going to do. I'm going to take all of this investigative reporting, I'm going to put it in order, I'm going to mail it to you and send it to you, and you read it. And he does, so he goes all through. Here's the foretelling of John the Baptist and the birth of Jesus, all the stuff that goes with it.
Luke's Gospel Conclusion
It ends, so go all the way to the back now, the gospel of Luke. There are 24 chapters, and it ends where you would expect it to end. Jesus is arrested, He's taken to court, He's before Pilate and Herod. Pilate tries to release Him, doesn't get that accomplished. Jesus is crucified, buried.
Beginning of chapter 24, there's the resurrection. Then from verses 13, really through about verse 49, the story of Jesus appearing, and that becomes very important. It's not just that the tomb was empty. An empty tomb doesn't prove a risen savior. There's the empty tomb, but now we've seen Him too.
The gospel ends with this. And He, that's Jesus, verse 50, "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 away into heaven. And they, after worshiping Him, returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising God." So that's where that ends.
The Acts of the Apostles - Luke Volume Two
Now I want you to turn to the next book is the gospel of John, and the one after that is the book of Acts. It's page 591. We're going to spend the majority of the rest of our time in the book of Acts and in really the first two chapters.
So all we know, we know this as the Acts of the Apostles. 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." So here you go. Literally, though, we call this the Acts of the Apostles. It could be Luke volume two. What he's going to give us here is the history now of the church, of that early church.
So that's what I tried to accomplish in Volume 1. "All that Jesus began to do and teach," all the things we saw and things we heard "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." So there's now this visible manifestation. They've seen the risen Lord.
Waiting for the Promise
Verse 4, He gathered them together and He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, which He said, "you heard from me." Now as I've told you about this, obviously it's in the future, wouldn't expect you to get it all, but trust me, you've heard this. He's prayed for the Holy Spirit to bring to mind all these things to them.
"For John baptized with water, you'll be baptized with the Spirit not too many days from now." So when they'd come together they were asking Him, "Lord is it at this time that you're restoring the kingdom?" And Jesus said, "it's not for you to know the time or the place."
Verse 8, "but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. You shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem and all Judea, Samaria, and even to the remotest parts of the earth."
The Ascension
And after He'd said these things, so now here you go, here's what's happening. Luke is picking up the story that he'd left off in the gospel. "After He said these things, He would lift it up while they were looking on Him, 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 and look at the sky? This Jesus who has been taken from you into heaven will come just as the same way you have watched Him go into heaven.'"
So there's the scene. Can't even imagine this. They're standing and they're looking, and He said, "why are you looking?" And I would go, why would you not be? How could you not be looking at this?
So when you look and you see, and it's really familiar, and they just saw it again when they launched the very last space shuttle, what I always love, I love to watch that and the power of it. I've never been to a launch, but I hear that you can just feel the earth tremble and all that goes with it. But when they show the people in the stands watching, you just see them just look and look and look and gaze into this. I always think of this passage when I see that, or when I see that I think of this passage of they're just looking at this.
The Mental State of the Disciples
This has to be an amazing sight. This is not only, not something you don't see every day, it's not something you expect. And you're confused by the whole thing too. I mean think of the mental state of these guys. They've hung everything onto Jesus. They pin their hopes on Him. He's dashed away. He's killed. They're confused at this point. He rises from the dead. They sense something is going on, and He said, "you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you're going to have this amazing successful mission. You'll be My witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria. The remotest part is we're going to cover the planet with this gospel message," and then He's gone.
This is an amazing to me thought. So they gather together.
The Day of Pentecost
In chapter 2, the heading will say the day of Pentecost. "When the day of Pentecost had come, they were gathered together in one place." So here's all these guys, 120 guys, one room.
"And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind." Doesn't say it was a wind, says it was like a wind. "Filled the whole house where they're sitting, and there appeared to them tongues as fire distributing among themselves, and rested on each one of them."
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and 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're bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language.
So there are Jews who are gathered from all over the world there locally, and this takes place. They hear them speak in tongues. Now we're not going to get sidetracked into this, but many will look at this and say this is to be normative. That there is often this speaking in tongues.
The Nature of Tongues at Pentecost
Well at least, let's acknowledge this. The tongues we see here were tongues—languages unknown to the speaker, but known to the listener. So it would be as though I just began to speak in French. I don't know anything about France, but I just began to speak in French. And one of you here, who's literate in French, says, "When were you in Paris?" And I said, "I had no interest." That's what's going on.
So whatever's happening there, it's a known language. But what's being clearly demonstrated is the Holy Spirit is coming upon them. Don't take that as normative. So you get all these people saying, "Oh it's the speaking in tongues." Well how come we're not seeing tongues of fire then? This is a special occurrence of the Holy Spirit. It's a demonstration of the Holy Spirit. This is not normative, it's descriptive.
Peter's Spirit-Filled Message
When we get to verse 14, this is what I want to get at. This is the first message delivered by its spirit-filled pastor. In other words, a believer who's been filled with the Holy Spirit. And it's Peter. And Peter delivers this extraordinary message.
It would seem to me that if we're really concerned about what teaching ought to be, that we could learn a lot from this. We can learn both in presentation and really in content. So I would point out how Peter really understood the audience and customized the message to them.
Understanding Your Audience
So he begins by talking in verse 16 about the prophet Joel. Verse 22 he tells us, "men of Israel." So he understands his audience is all Jewish. So he quotes the Old Testament. He addresses them, understanding some preconceived understanding of what they would know. When he gets to verse 25, he talks about David.
So here's what I take away from this. For you and I, as we deliver and share the gospel message, we have to have a message. And it's really similar to what Peter says in verse 22, 23, and 24. So it's the gospel there. It's Jesus died for our sin. It was part of God's divine plan. But verse 24, "God raised Him up again and put an end to the agony of death." So there's our message. That's the gospel. That Jesus died for our sin, was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and He's a risen Lord. And consequently now, we can come into right relationship with the one true God.
Paul doesn't, when he gets to Athens in Acts chapter 17, and he's dealing with the Greeks, quote Joel and David. It wouldn't make any sense. They're not connecting.
The Message Never Changes, the Method Can
There's nothing wrong with us taking the gospel message and understanding that we're going to present it in a culture, in a way, that the listener can understand. We never change the message, but we have no problem changing the method. We understand that the message has to be able—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, who are all going to come with different experiences from life and different backgrounds, different understandings. And one thing is going to connect with them that may not connect with the other. And we have to put it in a way that it's understandable.
All this time, it depends upon the Holy Spirit to apply that message. Peter delivers this message, and look what happens. Verse 37, "They heard this and they were pierced to the heart, and they said, 'What shall we do?'"
The Response: Repentance and Baptism
And he says, "Repent, each one of you, and be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of sin, and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Now, here's what we understand, that salvation is through belief and repentance. Baptism doesn't save me. We could better translate this, "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, you've come to Christ in repentance and faith, whether it was 20 years ago, or maybe you're one of those people who've come to Christ in the last three or four weeks, you should be baptized, not for the salvation of your sin, but because of the salvation, to identify yourself with Christ. It's a public declaration.
So, we were talking before, these are cloth, they don't look like walls out there solid, but they simply slide out and before them and behind them is a baptismal. So, once in a while, regularly, we'll have baptism in here. You'll see in the bulletin, there's baptism for student ministries in a couple of weeks. We do baptism in the home groups. We're not terribly concerned, but it's a public declaration and identification. So I take the old man, the old me, my sin, my guilt, the old me, and I submerge it, immerse it, cover it with the blood, and I become a new creature in Christ.
Instant Church Growth
So here's what happens. Peter delivers the message. They say, "What do we do?" And he says, "Repent and believe." Verse 41, "So then those who'd received the word were baptized, and that day were added 3,000 souls."
So you've seen at Christmas, they'll have the geopets, just add water. This is like a geochurch. You just add water, literally baptism. And you got 3,000 believers. So that's the scene. You see this moving.
So now, again, second time today, if all God wanted—
to do was get these people to heaven, bam, they go right now. They're as certain of heaven as the saints that are already there, and there's nothing they can do to make themselves more ready. But God has decided to work through the church.
The Universal Church and the Local Church
Now when we talk about the church, let's make a distinction. We have the universal church, the local church. The universal church is every believer, every place, tribe, tongue, all around the world. So on this Lord's Day, gathered all around the world are perhaps billions of people who would say Jesus is Lord. That's the church, the universal church.
Then within different locales, there's local expressions of that where there's believers who gather together. They're God's people. Word church means assembled, gathered, called out. So it's this very moment here in Gilbert, there's people meeting at the mission, and they're meeting all over the valley. Local churches. Even within redemption, there's four local communities. So there's the universal church, there's the local church.
I want to look at the universal church for a minute and really understand what to me is something very important and then come back to the local church. Keep that place marked in Acts chapter two because we're coming back to it.
The Foundation of Christ's Church
Go to page 533 or the Gospel of Matthew. And I will tell you, I had the lesson pretty well figured out. And for whatever reason, I'd love to say God directed me. I got no clue. All I know is I ended up back in Matthew 16 verse 13. And I went back to this because I believe if it's not the earliest, it's one of the earliest mentions in the Gospels of the church. Perhaps particularly significant because it's from the lips of the Lord Jesus.
Here's the context. Jesus verse, Matthew 16, 13. 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. And then He asked, verse 15. The most important question is a question for them, a question for you. But who do you say that I am?
So we come back to this. We've been talking about it for three weeks. Who do you say Jesus is? Good teacher, good man, great role model? Well, the answer is you are the Christ, the Messiah, the son of the living God. You're God come in the flesh to save His people from their sins. That's what Peter answered.
And Jesus said to him, blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood didn't reveal this to you, but the Father's in heaven. This has been granted to you supernaturally. And then 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 True Foundation
And there's a side of me that says I don't want to get into all of this because it leads us right into this discussion where the Catholic church would say, oh, you're Peter, and upon you, Peter the rock, I will build my church. I'm pretty confident that Peter didn't think that, Peter didn't act like that, and nor did anybody else see Peter like that. Some say it's a play on words in the Greek. You're Peter, pebble, and upon this rock, which could be either the testimony of the gospel or upon the rock, Jesus, but upon this foundation, I will build my church.
Here's what I want you to see. As Jesus introduces the idea of the church, here's what He says. Everything else is passing away, but this isn't. I heard, I was listening to a cool FM this week and they were playing the old birds from Ecclesiastes three. There's a season for everything, a time for everything. Time to laugh, a time to cry. Everything around us is morphing, eroding, decaying, fading away, but not the church. And we're talking about now the universal church, the body of believers.
Christ the Builder
So He says, upon the rock, the person of Christ, the cornerstone, the gospel, upon this rock, and this is significant. Look at the words, I. Who's going to build? I will build my church. Singular personal pronouns. I thought of this building.
And we're going through a time, it'll be 20 years this November, that East Valley Bible Church, the Gilbert campus has existed. And I don't want us to be celebrating East Valley Bible Church. We're not that over redemption, but we do have a history. And I thought about the history of this campus. And I even thought about this specific building and how we conceived it.
We really thought we need this building and we began to see it. We could see that we could use the campus this way. We began to plan it, design it, figure out our needs, our budget. And then we constructed it. If you saw it, I remember in this building, when this went up and we walked in, we were just stunned at how small it was. There was nothing in here, it was still dirt.
And then there was a day, this was the coolest day in all of the construction. They brought in a big crane and they set the beams that go from the back of the building to this point in the building. And they're these massive beams. They weigh tons. When I saw them do it, I thought, I don't think this is going to work. Because this massive beam, literally on each side, sits on about six, eight inches. If I was you, I would not sit there. That's my point. That's my whole point. I'm safe, I'm under this. But I mean, it was amazing.
So who built this church? Well, we could name the construction company, Lithicum, the architect, the elders. Well, Jesus built the church. Jesus said, I will build. Remember the sentence from two weeks ago? God saves sinners. I, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, I'll choose those that'll be saved, the Father says. And I do it before the foundations of the earth. And Christ comes and He dies for them. And the Holy Spirit applies it to them. God says, I'll establish the church. I'll build the church. I'll sustain the church. And it's my church.
He tells those of us who are husbands, through the pen of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter five, verse 25, that husbands are to love your wife
as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her. That He redeemed her. That it's His church. The passages just keep coming back to not just the same theme, but expressed the same way. Jesus, in John 10, verses 25, 26, 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's a relationship that Christ has with the church.
So who builds the church? It's 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.
Not an Excuse for Laziness
We have to be really careful here. It's not an excuse to become fatalistic or lazy. It's not an excuse to say, "Oh, God's gonna do it, so I'll do nothing." To me, it's that balance in the middle. I try to tell our staff guys, because staff tends to work too hard, and I'll say, "Christ died for the church, you don't need to." That's not an excuse to be lazy. It's an excuse to understand that that's His work.
So we're to be diligent. What's true corporately, by the way, is true individually. So in your life, you're to be obedient, diligent. But He's the vine, we're the branches. He produces the life, He produces the fruit, but we obey. "I'll build the church. I'll build the church through you." And He may work in different ways.
A Humbling Reality
My office used to be back here, so this is a long time ago, and there was a guy from another church in town, and he was here on a Sunday. He came up and said, "Can you meet with me this week?" I said, "Sure." So we met Monday or Tuesday, doesn't matter, and he came in looking very, very frustrated. I said, "How you doing?" He said, "I'm very, very frustrated." I said, "Why are you frustrated?" He said, "Well, I was here Sunday. Now, this church is about 10, 15 times bigger than mine, but I'm so much a better preacher than you are."
I said, "Okay, everybody is, I believe that." He was so frustrated, and I got it. But I said to him, "Listen, it's a God deal. There's a church in Houston with 40,000 people in it. I don't get it, but God gets it. It's my responsibility to preach. It's our responsibility to obey. It's our responsibility to work. It's not an excuse to be lazy, but it says the fruit, the results are up to Him." And there's great freedom in that, by the way.
Our Responsibility in Evangelism
So now in this whole process of evangelism, it's my responsibility, yours, to share the gospel in a way that's clear and understandable, biblical, in a way that's filled with compassion and truth and love. But at the end of the day, it's God's job whether you respond or not. That's what He's saying. There's a source of great comfort and great confidence here.
In our life as a church, my inbox is filled with magazines and seminars on how to do church. Some of it's very helpful, and we clearly work. It may not look like it to you, but to pull off a Sunday is not an easy deal here. There's 600, 700 kids over there, and we have to staff that, figure that out, curriculum. It's not just a safety issue.
To get the campus set, to get signs set, to get lights figured out, figure out how many of these to do, how do you get the cross to pop up? This comes over here. This looks simpler today, only because there aren't drums, but it's more complex for the sound guys because now you have to bring all the sound in. How do I mix the cello in and all this? We work and work and work. But in the final analysis, it's up to God because we can work and plan, but if He doesn't show up, this is a total waste of time.
The Billy Graham Illustration
I always wanted a Billy Graham crusade—I know this is dark, I confess it up front—but I always wanted a Billy Graham crusade where he would say, "The buses are waiting, your friends will wait." I always wanted a crusade where no one came forward, not a soul, and I guarantee you what would happen. They'd go back and go, "Okay, George Beverly Shea sang three songs, he should have sang two. We should have..." No, you did everything right. The Holy Spirit, the Father, the Son, they are gonna build the church. They're in your life gonna produce the fruit. Your responsibility is to be obedient, diligent, biblical, clear, and then God will bless. And He blesses some in many different ways than others.
"I'll build My church."
The Gates of Hell Will Not Overpower It
Now He says the gates of hell will not overpower it. It seems to imply—and there's some debate about what the gates of hell mean—here's what I know at least. It means some sort of attack or peril. That there will be for those of us who are followers of Christ, for the church—I'm talking now about universal, local, believers individually—there will be those who will persecute you. That's what Jesus said the night before He died to the disciples: "If they hated Me, they'll hate you. They persecuted Me, they'll persecute you. But don't lose heart. I'll give you peace, not as the world gives, but My peace. I won't leave you as an orphan."
Here's what He says. This is a great promise. There's kind of two promises in here. One you want, one you don't. Here's the one you don't want: you will be persecuted. There will be hardship. There will be peril. There'll be moments of great anxiety, great difficulty, great challenge. But I promise you, you will be victorious. He who began a good work in you, me, us individually, and us corporately will continue it till the day of Christ Jesus. There's two wonderful promises there.
The Promise of Victory Through Persecution
So here's what Jesus says about the church universal, all the believers. Here's what He says: "I'll build that. I'll produce that fruit. You work, you be diligent. But I'll build that church." There will be adversity. Second Timothy, Paul writes to Timothy 3, verse 12: "Those who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." That's a promise. The Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are you when they persecute you." But all that persecution, all that
The Early Church's Distinctive Response
Adversity will not overcome you. To me, that seemed very important. I want to go back to the book of Acts. I wanted to get that out. As I said, that came in really after I had all the lessons figured out.
But to go back to that, the book of Acts, verse 41 is where we left off, page 592. Three thousand souls were added that day. So what do you do? I'm just going to read verse 42 through 47.
"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 to the apostles. And 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're breaking bread from house to house. They're taking their meals together with gladness, sincerity of heart, and they're praising God."
And the result of this is, they were having favor with all the people. The people on the outside were looking at them and saying, there's something different about you. There's something unique about you. The historians of the day wrote about the church, and they said, we don't understand these people. If somebody in their midst dies, and they don't have any money for burial, the others come together, pool resources, and they provide the resources necessary for that.
The World's Astonishment and God's Building
The world stood, and they were stunned as they saw the early church. And look at now, the Lord is adding to their number day by day. Who builds the church? God builds the church.
That's what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians to them. He said, you know, when I was there, we had all sorts of issues, and one of them was you were picking sides. So he says in 1 Corinthians 3:4, one says I'm of Paul, the other of Apollos. What is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believe, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each of you. I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused the growth.
So there's something happening in that early church, and God's beginning to use them.
Finding a Good Church - The Four Essentials
Now, I wanted to go back, because I want to give you kind of my expression, my thought, and see if we can pull some practical application out of it. If you were at the very first service at East Valley Bible Church on November 3rd, 1991, I taught this passage. Acts chapter two, verse 42 through verse 47. In fact, this morning, I hadn't seen this in years, but I was in a file, and apparently Karen or somebody must have filed it, and there were the actual notes from that very first message.
So we taught, totally explainable to go to this passage to unpack it, to talk about the church. And what you would do is you'd camp in verse 42 and say, okay, here's what we ought to see. So if somebody comes to me, I teach in an entity called Priority Living Through the Week. So on Wednesday and Thursday, three different places, not associated with Redemption Church, a separate entity, and I try, all three now meet in churches, I try to be in settings where there are friends who are there of people who maybe aren't Christians or people who are in churches, not very good churches, and we'll get the question, how do I find a good church?
Okay, well, we'll always say, you ought to see this stuff in here. They ought to be studying the apostles' teaching. In other words, the Bible should be taught, and there should be fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. But somebody says, there's only one of those ingredients. I'm going to say, well, you go where the word of God is taught and hopefully, if it's taught, it's followed.
Community in the Local Church
When we get to the local church, we see a group of believers who have gathered together, usually now, around some sort of commonality. It may be a doctrinal distinctive. It may be location. It may be comfort. It may be, who knows? But in that church, we should see those activities. We should see, hopefully you do, the teaching of God's word, the idea of fellowship, and that means community. It's the koinonias. It's the one and others.
So that's the rap, by the way, in a big church. So I have people say, can't go to Gilbert. It's too big. I want to be in a church where I know everyone. Really? You ever been in one of those? No, I'm teasing. But I mean, I don't know what my capacity is to know everyone. I don't know what the capacity is, but it's a numerical limitation.
To me it says I need to be in community. You need to be in community. I can take a big church and make it small. I can't take a small church and get what I think are some of the benefits of being in a large church. And then there's the coming together for communion and for prayer. I don't have a problem with any of that.
The Challenge of Verses 43-46
My problem begins in verse 43. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe, signs, wonders. Verse 44, all those who had believed were together and had all things in common. They began selling their property, their possessions, sharing them with everyone.
Somebody asked W.C. Fields once, Fields, did you ever read the Bible? And his answer was only for loopholes. Okay, I'm looking for the loophole on this. I want out of verse 44, 45, and 46. And I can explain them. I do think it's not what it might easily be assumed to be. It's not just some sort of selling everything and putting it in one pot, but there's definitely a sense of involvement in each other's lives.
Defining the Heart of Early Church Life
I tried to, and I made a little one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. I took nine shots at summarizing verse 43, 44, and 45 in one word. Here are the different words I used, trying to describe what I saw there. Holy. The idea of diligent. They kind of kept doing this. They're prayerful. They're worshipful. They're obedient. They're generous. There's community. They're purposeful. Some might say missional. They're humble.
I got all done, and this is totally, probably a wasted exercise. The word I came up with was love. It kind of encompasses all of that. Well, when I'm done
The Church Should Be Loved
With all of that part of my preparation, I go back and read Driscoll, the companion book, and he has a section where he's talking about the church should be loved, and he mentions seven things. Let me close with this idea. It's the idea that we ought to be involved in one another's lives. It's the idea in that setting that there was sacrificial giving to one another that was taking place.
It's a culture different than ours. How it manifests itself in our culture, I think, is probably determined individually. We had a mini discussion on it the other day. We're 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, and we talked about giving and sacrificial giving, and I'm saying, I don't know. I don't even know exactly what that means. All I know is verses 43, 44, 45 are immensely challenging to me, and we need to be about that. We need to be about it corporately. We need to be about it individually.
Serving Our Community
One of the things that we do so poorly at this church is communicate to you how God is using you and this church to bless the community. I want you to take a look at this video, and this is an expression of one little thing that you're engaged in now, and begins to answer, I think, to some degree this question that we've raised.
Phoenix is a sprawling city, and when cities sprawl, communities begin to change. Communities that were once middle to upper middle-class suburbs now are changing in what seems to be the blink of an eye. The Broadway Corridor, which is 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's clear that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, and that we are 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 in with the community. We are ministering holistically, which means we are caring for both physical and spiritual needs.
Living Out Our Values
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 this new church. This is so that we can see a longer-term impact, a sustainable impact through the local church as we are serving in the Broadway Corridor.
So you and I are to serve our families, neighbors, and co-workers. We are to serve in our world as Christ served in His. As a church we take serious 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.
I'll show you that just as an expression of one of the ways we're engaged here corporately. Some of you are involved in that. Some of you spend time in the Broadway Corridor. You heard Tyler say we have two full-time pastors there. One of our next church plants will be there. The idea is this, that we are to be salt and light in the midst of this community and we're to be living this out and we're to be living it out in community, flesh on flesh.
The Call to Love
So when Driscoll talks about love, he says first is our love for God and then our love for family and then the way we conduct ourselves. He writes this, I thought this was interesting, the third talking about love. 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're to love fellow Christians. We're to love those that are neighbors, even difficult people and strangers and we're to love our enemies.
That's what I was talking about when I was talking about, to me, really helpful in this book. When J.P. Higginbottom writes and he says I like this book, he mentions four reasons. It's biblical, clear, fair, constructive.
Our Mission to the World
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's talking about now in this book. "My task then is to take this cluster of five words, mission, evangelism, dialogue, salvation, and conversion and attempt to define them biblically." So those become the five title heads. Again, I'll tell you, this book is really, really helpful, really, really good.
God leaves us here and He 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. He says I want you to come together as believers, so there is this idea of community, but at the same time, the night before He died, here's 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's compelling to the world around us. What I want to just touch on, and I'm going to pick up this theme again on October 16th, is the local body, your body here.
Examining Membership
I'm getting ready. As soon as I'm done here, I'm going over to have lunch with 50 people or so who've signed up to the Connect class. So what they're saying is, we're new to Gilbert. Tell us about Gilbert. We want to figure out whether we want to be part of this or not. So we're examining as part of Redemption Church, revisiting the idea of membership, and in the document that's put together, we're talking about doctrine and distinctives and values and all that goes with it, but maybe the most helpful thing
I saw two things in here that I thought were extraordinarily helpful. One was membership and why membership is important, and the other was how to leave a church biblically. So I'm going to challenge you a little bit to be engaged in the local body.
The Disposable Church Mentality
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 one that says everything they want them to say. It has easy ingress and egress. The temperature seems to be climate controlled by each individual seat. The worship is perfect. Everything in it is just exactly as I want it.
One of the great challenges and disappointments to me over the 20 years here have been to watch people treat their relationship with the church as just another disposable relationship. Like I quit shopping at Fry's, but now I go to Basha's. I used to go to Dillard's, but now I go to Nordstrom. I used to be at LA Fitness, now I'm at Mountainside. Used to work there, but now I work here.
It's an amazing thing to me, and part of it 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. I think it's important for you to be involved in the local church.
Young Life's not the local church. Priority Living's not the local church. All sorts of little things popping up, they're going, we're not church. Okay, what are you? What is church? I tell people at Priority Living this all the time: if you have to choose between church and Priority Living, go to church. "I will build my church." Not I will build Priority Living. Not I will build Young Life.
God's Design for Community
I'm 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. But He didn't. He left us behind.
I spoke at a Major League Baseball conference four or five years ago. One of my titles was "God Hates Free Agency." I just thought it was clever. Apparently you didn't, and neither did they.
But God's not looking for free agents. God's not looking for you to do your own thing. Come when you want, participate when you want, figure out if you want. If it works for you, great. If it's not working, I'll find another one. I think that's way too cavalier for 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 have a responsibility to the local church. God designed the church universal and the local expressions to be the continuation of His word.
Acts 29 - The Continuing Story
When we talked about Acts 29, there were a number of people who came to me and said, "Acts 29 is not even biblical. Acts has only 28 chapters in it." Okay, clearly you're from the U of A. The whole point was that. Can you say "duh" any louder? That is the whole point of this.
I remember when Larry taught through the book of Acts. The first time he got to the end of it, the end of the book of Acts, it just stops. It's right in the middle, talking about what Paul's doing, and it just stops. I remember Larry saying, "Listen, this is one of those books that's still being written. It's the continuation." That's the Acts of the Apostles, but those continue in us today.
It's of paramount importance that you're connected with the local body.
The Supplement, Not the Solution
Our student ministry staff all the time will meet with parents who say, "Can you meet with my high school student? I need help with my student." Well, tell me about them. What small group are they in? Do they come to youth? "No, no, no."
Listen, we'll try, but I'm just telling you, we cannot in one hour undo the damage you do in 167 each week. These are your kids. They're not our kids. They're not our responsibility to raise them. It's our responsibility as ministry to come alongside and supplement what you do. Boy, do we throw a lot of time, energy, effort, and money into that. But you can't bring a kid in and triage it.
It's the same thing with adults. If you go to Curtis and ask, "What do you see most often as a problem?" Marriages. What happens when you talk to the people? "How often do you come?" "Well, not that often." "What small group are you in?" "I'm not in a small group."
We'll try, but you can take care of all of that stuff way ahead of time. There's counseling and encouragement going on all the time in the small groups.
God's Investment in the Church
I met with a guy last week, and he was talking about coming around. He was talking about church, talking about different things, and he said, "We were ready to move back home until God brought us to this church." Then he laid out this magnificent testimony of how God has used it.
So God says this: I gave My Son, and Jesus said, I gave My life for you, for the church. Now we come together. I deliberately ignored one obvious part of what the church is, and that is the idea of worshipers. We'll pick up and talk about that next week.
Father, thank You for this amazing, awesome truth. God, You didn't just concern Yourself with bringing us to faith, but You look for us to be faithful. God, I pray that even today, You would help us understand how You use the church. Perfect? No. Has hypocrites and unbelievers and sinners in it? So God, everyone should feel welcome.
God, thank You. Remind us of the awesome responsibility we have as leaders here at Gilbert, and the responsibility that people have as they covenant with us to be people who will call this place home. Father, thank You that You build the church. God, we find great comfort in that. Let us be faithful to the call You've placed on our life. We ask in Christ's name, amen.