To listen to the sermon from June 15th, click here.
the
church god blesses
ACTS 2: The Pentecost Model of
the First Church
06-15-14 Sermon
TO RECEIVE GOD’S BLESSING …
1. WE MUST __________________________________________________
“They
continually met together to pray as a group with one purpose in
mind…” Acts
1:14
“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one
place. Suddenly a noise like a
strong, blowing wind came from heaven and filled the whole house
where they were sitting. They saw something like flames of fire that were separated and stood over each
person there. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they
began to speak different languages by the power the Holy Spirit was giving
them.” Acts 2:1-4 (NCV)
“Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous
signs were done by the apostles.” Acts 2:43
2. WE MUST __________________________________________________
“Then Peter stood up and said… ‘These people are not drunk, as you
suppose; it is only nine o'clock in the morning! God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit ON EVERYONE. Your sons and daughters
will proclaim my message; your young men will see visions, and
your old men will have dreams.
Yes, even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour
out my Spirit in those days, and they will ALL proclaim my message….
Then, EVERYONE who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” Acts 2:14-18, 21
3. WE MUST ___________________________________________________
“They
devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching…” Acts
2:42a
“Peter
addressed the crowd: ‘… let me explain this to you … This is that
which was spoken by the prophet Joel…
I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth
below… And EVERYONE who calls on
the name of the Lord will be saved.’”
Acts 2:14, 16, 19, 21
4. WE MUST _______________________________________________
“…
They took part in the fellowship, and sharing in fellowship meals
and in praying together…” Acts
2:42b (TEV)
“
they were like family to each other” (CEV)
“All
the believers continued together in close fellowship” Acts 2:44 (TEV)
“they
lived in wonderful harmony”
(MSG)
“….they
met in small groups IN HOMES
for communion, and shared meals with great joy and thankfulness.” Acts 2:46b (LB)
5. WE MUST _________________________________________________
“They
continued to WORSHIP TOGETHER in the TEMPLE COURTS… PRAISING God
and ENJOYING the favor of all the people.”
Acts 2:46-47
“You’ve shown me the
paths that lead to life, and your presence fills me with joy!”
Acts 2:28 (TEV)
“Because of this, my heart will be glad,
my words will be joyful, and I will live in hope!” Acts 2:26 (CEV)
6. WE MUST __________________________________________________
“Those
who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added
to their
number that day!” Acts 2:40-41
“People
liked what they saw. So every day their number grew as God added
those who were saved.” Acts 2:47 (MSG)
“You’ll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on
you and then you will be my witnesses
in Jerusalem AND in Judea AND in Samaria, AND to the ends of the earth!" Acts 1:8
THE CHURCH GOD BLESSES
ACTS 2: The Pentecost Model of the First Church
06-15-14 Sermon
If I were to ask you what’s
the most important holiday in the church you would probably say Easter. Because that’s when Jesus rose from the
dead. And if I were to ask you the
second most important holiday you would probably say Christmas because that’s
when Jesus was born. But it wasn’t
until much later in the history of the church that they celebrated Christmas,
and the early church really didn’t celebrate Easter by itself, either. The most important holiday for the
early church was the Great Fifty Days, the time period starting with Easter and
ending with Pentecost.
Last Sunday was Pentecost
Sunday. Pentecost is the Greek
word for “fiftieth day.” It is the
fiftieth day after Easter. You
know what happened on the fiftieth day after Easter? The church was born.
Pentecost is the birthday of the Christian church.
Why is that important? Because the church is the only thing
that’s going to last for eternity.
Nothing else on this planet or in this universe is going to last for
eternity. The Bible says that one
day God’s going to start all over with a new heaven and a new earth. But the only thing that’s going to go
on from this one, from is God’s family.
That’s the church. That’s
you and me – people who have put our faith in Jesus Christ. The church is going to last forever.
No local church lasts forever. None of the churches that are in the Bible
exist today because the church is like human beings, like bodies. They grow, they develop, they get
mature, they reproduce and then they die.
But some churches have a premature death. I’m interested in that. Because as your pastor I want this church to stay alive and
vital and vibrant.
If you go to Europe you can
see many gorgeous, beautiful cathedrals, stained glass, stunning art work, intricate
architecture. And inside five, ten
people there. The glory has
departed. The building is still
very beautiful but the church inside has died.
What causes a church to die? The people stopped doing the things
that God created the church to do.
What keeps a church alive and vibrant? The blessing of God.
When God blesses a church it continues to thrive, marriages are saved,
lives are changed, broken people are put back together, people get out of debt,
people are healed, people come to know God. All kinds of miracles happen. People’s lives are dramatically changed when a church is
being blessed by God.
And there are people here at
this church who can testify of those kinds of miracles happening in their lives
as a result of their coming to this church. You are being blessed because of God’s blessing on this
church.
So how do we keep God’s
blessing? To keep God’s blessing
we just have to continue doing the things that God told the church to do.
I want us to go back today,
and look at the very first church and the day it was born. Because the day you were born, you had all
of the DNA you needed for your life.
You didn’t get any more dna
as you grew older. And everything
we need for God’s blessing was put in the dna
of the original church in the book of Acts, chapter 2, as the church of Jerusalem
was the first church.
What we find are the six
things that God says you must do if you want God’s blessing on your church. Acts 2 tells us six things.
1.
The first thing we do in a New Testament church is we
must pray for God’s power.
That’s the starting point. The presence of God’s power makes the
church different from every other organization or group. We have the Holy Spirit. Microsoft doesn’t have the Holy Spirit
to do its work. Dell and General
Electric and General Motors and Apple and all the other corporations –and all
the other groups around the world – they don’t have God’s Holy Spirit. No government has the Holy Spirit. Only the church gets the Holy Spirit. And he gives us power to do things that
we couldn’t do on our own.
God has given us enormous
responsibility. We are to populate
heaven with unbelievers. In other
words, now that we know the Lord, we’re to share that good news with everybody
else. We’re to bring as many
people with us into heaven. We are
to heal the sick and raise the dead and cast out demons and cleanse
lepers.
But God doesn’t expect us to
do this on our own. He gives us
his power. And how do we get God’s power?
It’s not rocket science. You
get it one way. Prayer. We pray and we get power. There is a direct connection between
prayer and power. Much prayer,
much power. Little prayer, little
power. No prayer, no power.
Let me give you the
background of this story. Jesus
died on the cross, was resurrected, walked around on the earth for another forty
days. Then he said, I’m going back
to heaven and I want you to just wait and pray until I send my Spirit to fill
you and live in you. And that’s going
to be the birth of the church.
He had about a hundred twenty
followers. He had them gathered in
a room. They didn’t know how long
they were going to have to wait. But
they waited and they prayed and they waited and they prayed and they waited and
they prayed… it took them ten days.
On the fiftieth day after the resurrection – Pentecost – God sent his Spirit. Jesus had said, Don’t you try to do anything with your life until I give you the power
to do it. Don’t go out and try to
do it on your own; you’ll just fail.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes into your life. Acts 1:8.
So that’s what they did. Acts 1:14 “They continually met together to pray as a group with one purpose in
mind…” They are all praying
together for one purpose. And all
they did was wait and pray.
Then on the tenth day of
prayer God sends his Spirit. When
the Spirit of God arrives on earth there are three amazing miracles. They’re kind of weird but they’re
amazing miracles that are going to be symbols of what the church is supposed to
do.
Acts 2:1 says “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all
together in one place. Suddenly a
noise like strong, blowing wind [It wasn’t a wind; it says it was a noise
like a strong blowing wind] came from
heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw something like flames of fire [it
doesn’t say it was fire; it says something that looked like flames of fire] that were separated and stood over each
person there. [So over everybody’s head was a little flame of fire; that
had to be weird] They were all filled
with the Holy Spirit and they began to speak different languages by the power
the Holy Spirit was giving them.”
On the very first day of the
church, the day the church was born, there are three very powerful signs. There’s a noise that sounds like a
hurricane inside the building. There’s
a bright flame that looks like fire.
And everybody speaks in a foreign language. Imagine that!
Why did God do that? These are three symbols of the dna of the church. How do you know you’re part of the true
church? How do you know you’re
part of the real deal, not some fake church, not some phony church, not some
cult church? How do you know the
true church? These six things that
we’re going to look at tell us the marks of a true church.
The first one is this: he
says there’s a noise like a hurricane, flame like fire, everybody spoke in a
foreign language. These symbols
are that the church is to be powerful, on fire, and multi cultural. He says you’ll know if it’s a real church
when it has power to change people’s lives. People’s lives are being changed; lives are being changed here
at Forest Grove. When people are
on fire, they’re excited, there’s warmth.
People say, that’s exciting.
There’s a fire there. And
it’s multicultural. People are
speaking in different languages. There
are people in the church from many backgrounds.
The Bible says in Acts 2:43 “Everyone was filled with awe, and many
wonders and miracles and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.”
The power of God was
displayed in that first church and it was seen in wonders, miracles and
miraculous signs. This summer
you’re going to need God’s power in your life. I want you to have more power at the end of the summer than
you have now. And power only comes
one way – through prayer.
If we want God’s blessing we
have to pray for power and…
2.
We must use every member’s talents.
That means yours. In the first church there were no
spectators. One hundred percent
participation. There was no
inactive member list. One was
saying, I put in my time, let someone
else do it. Every member was a
minister. There was no audience. Everybody was in the army. No one was AWOL. All ages, both genders, multi cultural,
multi ethnic.
Acts 2:14-18 and 21 “Then Peter stood up and said… ‘These people
are not drunk…” All these people
from all over the world had gathered in Jerusalem. They see these people; they’re hearing a mighty sound like a
hurricane. They’re seeing little
flames like fire, on people’s heads.
And these guys are talking in their language and they shouldn’t be able
to speak to them in their language.
Kind of weird! So Peter
stands up and says, let me explain.
“These people are not drunk, as you
suppose; it is only nine o’clock in the morning! God says… I will pour out my Spirit on everyone. Your sons and daughters will proclaim
my message; your young men will see visions, and your old men will have dreams. Yes, even on my servants, both men and
women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will all proclaim my
message… Then, everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
I want you to circle six words. Circle
“sons” and “daughters.” Circle
“young” and “old.” And circle the
word “men” and “women.” Sons and
daughters, young and old, men and women.
God says I’m going to use all these people for my glory, my purpose. Sons and daughters, men and women, young
and old.
Who does that exclude? Nobody!
So here’s the point. You can’t sit on the side line. Because you’re either young or old, a
man or a woman, or a son or a daughter. God says I’m going to put my Spirit in you. Young or old, man or woman, son or daughter. And I’m going to use you. And I’ve given you certain talents that
I want you to use and when you use them for me then I’m going to bless you. Plus, I will put my Spirit in you and
enable you to do things that go far beyond your talents and abilities.
There’s plenty of churches
where you can just go sit, listen, and go home – Sit, soak and sour. And you don’t have to do anything. Nobody’s going to challenge you. The pastor’s not going to say, be
involved in a ministry or be involved in a small group. Just sit, soak and sour. You can sit passively and they’ll never
ask or expect anything of you.
That’s not this church. If you’re going to come to this church I’m
going to challenge you to use your life for something bigger than yourself. I’m going to challenge you to use your
life for something more important than you. I’m going to challenge you to seek first the kingdom of God
and all these other things will be added to you, which is God’s promise. To be everything that God wants you to
be.
It says, God’s going to use all
ages, both genders, everybody, all nationalities in the church.
The third dna of the church God blesses is,
3.
We must be devoted to God’s Word.
That’s the fourth dna. We must be devoted to God’s Word. We hear it, we read it, we study it, we memorize it, we
meditate on it. Acts
2:42 “They devoted themselves to the
apostles’ teaching…”
What is the apostles’ teaching? It’s the Bible and what they heard from
God. The apostles wrote the New
Testament. The church that God
blesses is built on the Bible and what we hear from God today.. The family God blesses is built on the Bible
and hearing from God. The life God
blesses is built on the Bible and hearing from God. Not self-help psychology. Only the truth sets us free. But we can’t just study the Bible. A lot of churches study the Bible. We have to put it into practice. We have to go out and do things in the
community. We have to be doers of
the Word and not just hearers.
In the 9 years that I have
been here I have preached over 400 sermons at Forest Grove Church. I only repeated 3 or 4 of them. How many did you hear? How many did you do?
4.
If we want God’s blessing we must love each other
deeply.
This is part of the dna of the church. Growing churches love and loving
churches grow.
What do you call it when
Christians love each other? The Bible
word for that is fellowship. Fellowship. The Greek word is the word koinonia which means being as committed
to each other as we are to Jesus Christ.
In the first church they took care of each other. They genuinely loved each other. They treated each other like family.
Acts 2:42 says this “They took part in the fellowship, and the
sharing in fellowship meals and in praying together.” The Contemporary English Version says
they were more like family to each other.
When the first church started
two thousand years ago they were really ridiculed by the Roman Empire. In fact, it was against the law to be a
Christian so you could be killed if you were a Christian. The Roman Empire didn’t understand
Christianity. They didn’t understand
the church. In fact, they thought
the Christians were a bunch of wackos.
They said actually they’re cannibals. You know where they got that? Because they’d heard they did a thing called the Lord’s Supper
where we eat the body and blood of Jesus Christ. They’re cannibals.
Those guys are weird. They
had all kinds of strange beliefs about Christianity. But the one thing they said about Christians was, those guys
really love each other. No doubt
about it. Christians love each
other more than other people do. They
really do take care of each other.
They watch each other’s back.
They defend each other. They
love each other.
Is that what Christianity is
known for today? I don’t think so. We’re known more for what we’re against
than for our love. I think
Christianity should be known for what we’re for, not for what we’re against.
There are some things you
have to be against because there’s a war between good and evil. When you’re neutral you’re an ally of Satan. You have to be against some things in
life. But you should be known for
what you’re for; and we should be known for love.
Twice in the Bible, in the
New Testament, it says “Greet one another
with a holy kiss.” We don’t do
that anymore. They still do it in
the Middle East and some places like that. But we don’t do it in America. The interesting thing about the holy
kiss tradition is that for three hundred years, every time Christians saw each
other – in the grocery store or anything – they kissed each other. Because the Bible said greet each other
with a holy kiss.
We need to love each other
deeply. Verse 44 “All the believers continued together in
close fellowship.” The Message
paraphrase says “They lived in wonderful
harmony.” How did they do this? How did they show love to each other? Not in a big group like this. They did it in small groups. Verse 46 “They met in small groups in homes for communion, and shared their meals
with great joy and thankfulness.”
If we want God’s blessing on
our church, our families, in our lives,
5.
We must worship with joy.
God wants worship to be a
festival not a funeral. He wants
us to celebrate not commiserate. Some
churches die because honestly they’re just cold. They don’t have fun.
They don’t party. They
don’t celebrate. They don’t worship
with joy. They worship out of
duty.
You’ve been in these cold
churches. They’re so cold the ushers
ice skate up and down the aisle taking the offering. It’s the First Church of the Frigid Air. You look down in front to make sure
there’s not a coffin in front, that nobody’s died. Something has died.
The people have died.
A woman went to another well
known church. It was a little bit more
formal than her church, more up tight.
At one point she said, Praise the
Lord! She got excited. That’s
right! That’s good! Amen! And an usher came up and said, “Ma’am you’re going to have to be quiet. She said, I’m just so
full of the joy of the Lord. He
said, well you didn’t get that here!
What kind of worship attracts
people? Happy worship. I’ll be honest with you. I’ll tell you my bias. I believe it ought to be fun to go to
church; I really do. Jesus is alive. My sins are forgiven. I’m going to heaven. We’ve been given the Holy Spirit to
empower us to do everything that Jesus did. That’s cool!
There’s so much bad news in the
world the last thing you need to do is come to church and get more bad news. You don’t need that. All week you get the joy kicked out of
you. Some of you, you come to church
on a weekend. You’re emotionally
drained. And Forest Grove church
has these spiritual jumper cables to recharge you.
Worship only recharges you if
you participate. If you just stand
there, you don’t sing the songs, you don’t get involved, you stamp down all your
emotions, that’s not going to help you at all. You were made to express your emotions. You are emotional because God made you
emotional. If you don’t learn how
to express your emotions it’s like shaking up a coke bottle. It’s going to pop some day. So you’re worried about what are other
people going to think if you express some emotion. What do you care about what other people think? Really. Church is meant to renew your emotions on a weekly basis,
give you an emotional lift. It’s
not going to do that unless you participate.
You need to learn how to get
excited about God. Worship is
meant to be a celebration, to be fun.
The Bible says in Acts 2 “They
continued to worship together in the temple courts… praising God [praising means
joy] and enjoying [circle “enjoy.” You should enjoy worship. ] the
favor of all the people.”
How do you do that? Look at these other verses in Peter’s
sermon. Verse 28 “You’ve shown me the paths that lead to life,
and your presence fills me with joy!” God means worship to be joyful not a
duty.
Verse 26 “Because of this, my heart will be glad, my words will be joyful, and I
will live in hope!” There are
two reasons why you need to worship God joyfully. The first is it’s good for your own emotional health. You need it. You need an emotional release every week. And second, it’s a good witness to other
people.
Friends, there are two reasons
why many people who don’t know Jesus reject him. There are two reasons why lost people don’t come to Christ. One, they’ve never met a Christian. And two, they have.
They go, if being a Christian means being as cranky as that guy, forget it. Some people are poor witnesses for
Jesus because it’s like they’re spiritually constipated. They’re all bound up inside. They’re cranky and judgmental and
legalistic. I don’t want to be a
Christian like that. If that’s
what it means to follow Jesus, no thanks, Jesus. We’ve got to get the “J” factor, the joy factor back up in
your life.
And finally,
6.
If we want God’s blessing, we must bring others to
Jesus.
We bring others to Jesus. That’s the sixth thing that brings the
blessing of God in my life and on the church. Verse 40-41 says “Those
who accepted his message [Peter’s message] were baptized, and about three thousand people were added to their
number that day!” They
baptized three thousand people on that day. They became a mega church the first day of the church. This church is only one day old and
it’s got three thousand baptized members.
There were thousands of people on the first day. It wasn’t a small church. It had three thousand people the first
day of the church. And they were
reaching out to people.
At Forest Grove church we
received 45 new members in the last 9 years. At annual conference our bishop told us that our churches
should have a sign on one pew that read:
Reserved for the next 50 disciples
who will come and be a part of this church in the next 9 years.
Verse 47 says this in the Message
paraphrase “People liked what they saw. So
every day their number grew as God added those who were saved.”
Circle the phrase “liked what they saw.” Listen
closely. You know that friend, that neighbor that you have that’s headed for
hell? You want them in heaven
before summer’s over. I want them
in heaven before summer’s over. More
than that, God wants them in heaven before summer’s over.
How do I reach my friend who doesn’t
know the Lord? It says “They liked what they saw.” When people like what they see they’ll
listen to what we say. But they’re
not going to listen to what we say until they like what they see. Before people trust Jesus they’ve got
to trust you. Before people want
to know, is the Bible credible? They
want to know, are you credible? Are
you real? And how do you be real? You just love people. Whatever you like to do, whatever fun
thing you like to do – if it’s taking your kids to sports events, whatever you
like to do, this summer just do it with lost people. With people who don’t know Jesus yet. With people who Jesus died for. Show that love to them. If people like what they see, they’ll listen
to what we say.
And the opposite of that is also
true. If people don’t like what
they see and they don’t like what they hear, they won’t listen to what we
say. So for example, if a person
talks to other people in the community about their church in a negative way,
and tells them all the faults and failures of their pastor, and the faults and
failures of the church members, and all about that terrible annual conference,
and all about their bad bishop and all about the problems in the United
Methodist denomination what do you think the chances are that those people will
want to come to that person’s church?
I mean, if it is all that bad, why do they still go there? No one wants to go try out a church
that is filled with all that negative stuff going on! They already have enough negative stuff going on in their
life, they don’t need another load of bad news.
The other thing that is wrong
with that is that a church doesn’t have to be perfect for God to bless it. All the letters of the New Testament
were written to churches with problems.
Some with very serious problems.
But God loved them and had Paul and Peter and John write letters to them
to correct what was wrong and build them up
When we do what God commands
we get his blessing.
This is from the first church.
“You’ll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and
you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea and Samaria, and to the
ends of the earth!” He says
you’re to take the message to your own city, then to the county, then to the state,
and then to the whole world. I
didn’t make that up. Jesus did. The reason why God blesses a church is
because the church does what God says to do. And as long as we do what God says to do, go to the whole
world, then we’re going to have God’s blessing on our families, on our lives, on
our church, on our community.
Prayer:
Father,
I love these people. I thank you
for our church family. We really do
have fun being a part of your family.
Help us to pray for power. Help
us to use every language that you’ve given us. To use our talents that you’ve given us. Help us to be devoted to your Word and
hearing from you. Help us to love
each other deeply. Help us to
worship with joy, to be willing to sacrifice and to bring others to Jesus.
If
you’ve never invited Jesus into your life say, Jesus come into my life right now. Make yourself real to me. I don’t understand it all but as much as
I know how I want to open my life to you.
I want to begin to follow you and to learn to love and trust you. In your name I pray. Amen.
