What Every True Church Should Be - Part 1 - Part B

Why is doctrine on the first of the list in Acts chapter 2?

It's simple. Because the Word of God teaches us how to love, teaches us how to pray, teaches us how to worship, teaches us how to do missions, teaches us how to serve people, teaches us how to raise our kids. So then the preaching of the Word is central to the very definition of the Church.

The two most important things in the Church are worship and the Word. And today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip shares how God makes the Church and you a conduit of God's truth to the world. Before we begin, we invite you to check out the Connect with Skip mobile app. You'll have access to a treasure trove of Skip's messages right at your fingertips.

Find more information at connectwithskip.com. Now let's dive into today's teaching. We'll be in John chapter 17 as Skip Heitzig begins the study. Now this is another reason why it's important to meet together. Because when we meet together, it allows us to magnify God uniquely. Something happens when I am part of a worshiping community. It reorients my life. It reorients my life. You know, I may come in forlorn, I may come in disparaged, I may come in angry, I may come in selfish, and then the songs start being sung and people around me are closing their eyes or lifting their hands or bowing their heads and worshiping and it reorients me.

I start thinking, yeah, it's not really all about me. It really is all about Him. Yes, God is on the throne. Yes, He is in charge.

Yes, He can handle this. Don Whitney, who wrote a book on spiritual disciplines, wrote this. There's an element of worship in Christianity that cannot be experienced in private worship or by watching worship.

There are some graces and blessings that God gives only in the meeting together with other believers. Do you believe that? I know you believe that because you're here.

You know who else believed that? Martin Luther. Look what Luther wrote.

He said, at home in my own house there's no warmth or vigor in me, but in the church when the multitude is gathered together a fire is kindled in my heart and it breaks its way through. Now you know what they're referring to? In layman's terms, positive peer pressure. We know what peer pressure is. It can be bad, but it can be good. And in this case it's good.

It's positive peer pressure. Everybody's orienting themselves toward God, putting the focus on Him. So it helps me.

It changes the way I think. There's a great example of this in Psalm 73. I'm just going to read a couple verses to you.

Let me just tell you the background. In Psalm 73 the author is a guy named Asaph. Asaph is hot and bothered about the world.

Things are happening in his world to get him really really bummed out. So he begins by saying, truly God is good to Israel to such as are pure in heart. Now I think he started that way because he felt like he had to say that. Okay, I'm a worship leader. I need to say this. God is good all the time.

So he said it, but listen to what he says right after that. But as for me, my feet almost stumbled. My steps had nearly slipped for I was envious of the boastful when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. And the Psalm goes on where he describes, you know, God I follow you and I love you and my life seems so much worse than unbelievers who seem to be prosperous and at ease and not suffering like I'm suffering. I don't get that. I don't like that.

So he's bothered about that. And he says this down in verse 16, when I thought to understand this it was too painful for me. Man, I'm bothered by the fact that those unbelievers seem to have it made while I go through trial after trial after trial and God's supposed to love me.

It was too painful for me. Until, ah, now there's a shift. Until I went into the sanctuary of God, then I understood their end. You know, I came to church one day and there were worshipers there in that temple and all of a sudden when I was envious of unbelievers now in this place of worship my life is reoriented. I'm re-educated and I started thinking about the end of the life of an unbeliever and I wasn't envious of them any longer. They're going to be in eternity without God. I understood their end.

What happened to Asaph? He was in a crowd of believers in a place where God is worshiped and he was reoriented until I went into the sanctuary. So we glorify God by our declaration. We glorify God also by our demonstration, what we do. So go back to verse four in our Lord's Prayer. I have glorified you on the earth. I have finished the work which you have given me to do. Now look at that verse with your eyes. There are two sentences in it and this is what we call an oppositional statement where you have one statement made, a phrase or a sentence, followed by another one that is parallel to the first but explains the first. So the first statement, I've glorified you on the earth. Well how did you do that exactly, Lord Jesus?

Here's the second statement. I have finished the work which you have given me to do. So now let me ask you the question. How do you glorify God? By finishing the work he's given us to do. I've glorified you on the earth.

I finished the work which you have given me to do. You know that God has a task for you that only you can fulfill. God has an assignment that only you can accomplish so that the goal of your life is not just heaven. Now heaven's awesome and you're going to go there but don't think that, okay, the goal is just to get to heaven. I have to live through another day, another week. I just want to go to heaven. I'm glad you do and you will but do you realize if heaven were the only goal for your life, you know what would happen the moment you gave your life to Christ?

You'd keel over dead. Let's get him to heaven quick before he can mess up again. But you're here for a while.

Why? Because God wants you to do something. He has a task for you and the great joy of your life can be to discover why God put you here uniquely. Somebody once said the two greatest days of your life are the day you were born and the day you discovered what you were born for. What were you born for? What is your great task that God has uniquely carved out for only you to fulfill?

I'll put it to you this way. If you live to glorify God, you'll die having no regrets. If you make that your life's goal, I'm going to glorify God, you'll never regret that. You'll never get to the end of your life going, oh, I should have done this.

I could have done that. If you live to glorify God, you will die with no regrets. So number one, a true church demonstrates God's glory. Second, the true church communicates God's truth.

Now go down to verse six again and let's read this in a few verses. I have manifested your name to the men you have given to me out of the world. They were yours. You gave them to me and they have kept your word. I said to them what you told me to say to them. They listened to that and they're obeying that. They've kept your word. Now they have known that all things which you have given me are from you, for I have given to them the words which you have given me and they have received them and they have known surely that I came forth from you and they have believed that you sent me.

Let me unpack that. Jesus gave to his followers words of truth that the father gave to him. His followers listened to those words, listened to his sermons, listened to his conversations, all the things he revealed for three and a half years and they received that truth. They believed that truth and eventually they wrote down that truth for you and I.

It's called the New Testament, the words of God. So then true believers are those who receive God's communicated truth, which happens to be the business of the church, to communicate God's truth. So the most important things about the church are not the parking lot and the nursery.

They may be important, but they're not the most important. The most important things of the church are worship and the word. You know, people will grade churches. They'll go to a church and then they may take a little yelp survey and grade what they like and dislike.

But usually when we grade churches, we grade on what they do for me. Do they make me feel good? Are they friendly to me? Do they have programs for me?

Do they have programs for me? Etc. That's how we grade it. When God grades churches, He has two simple questions. Do they glorify me and do they preach my word? Do they glorify me? Do they preach my word?

That's part of the great commission. Matthew 28, some of the last words Jesus said to his followers, make disciples of all nations, listen, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. Now the disciples heard that and as we keep reading on, they did that. In Acts chapter 2, when the church was born, they made that a priority, teaching people, teaching the truth, communicating God's revealed truth, the words of God. And so we have a summary statement of the activity of the church in the book of Acts in chapter 2 verse 42 that says this, they continued steadfastly, or another translation, they devoted themselves wholeheartedly. They continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers.

Those four activities. They devoted themselves constantly, the apostles doctrine, fellowship, breaking bread, prayer. First on their list was the apostles doctrine. That's noteworthy because that would not be first on a lot of people's list. A lot of people's lists say the church should be all, number one, love. That's important, but it's not at the top of that list. Or number one, missions. That's important, but it's not on the top of the list.

Or teaching your family. That's important, but not on the top of the list. Because the apostles doctrine is on the top of the list. They were devoted to doctrine. They devoted themselves to the apostles doctrine. Honestly, how many Christians do you know that are devoted to doctrine? You may want a fun little exercise this week. Go up to a Christian you know and say, quick question, are you devoted to doctrine?

You'll get some strange looks, and maybe even stranger requests, or excuse me, responses. Are you devoted to doctrine? Now why is doctrine on the first of the list in Acts chapter 2?

It's simple. Because the Word of God teaches us how to love, teaches us how to pray, teaches us how to worship, teaches us how to do missions, teaches us how to serve people, teaches us how to raise our kids. So then, the preaching of the Word is central to the very definition of the church. This is why when missionaries generally go into an area that has been unreached with the gospel, the first thing they do is get a translation of the Bible in the language of those people. They'll spend years doing it.

They want to take and get a written copy in the language of the local people of the New Testament, in the very least a gospel, because they want to communicate the truth and show them what the Bible says about life. Now if you've ever come to church here for a few, more than a few times, you notice that we have a pretty predictable pattern. And you've gotten used to it, and most of you've come to love it, but you know it's possible to come and think things like, well every time I come it's sort of the same gig.

Sing some songs, guy gets up there, opens a book, talks and talks and talks about what that book says. And you do that every week. Couldn't you just change it up a little bit? Couldn't we have a puppet show one week?

I don't know, a raffle, an interpretive dance. Short answer, no, if you want to stay biblical. And we want to stay biblical. When Paul spoke to Timothy, one of the, okay, let's give God glory for that.

The last letter that Paul gave to Timothy, the very last thing he wrote was 2 Timothy, and this is what he said. I charge you, Timothy, before God and before Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead, preach the word. That was his last commandment, preach the word. That's what we need, preach the word. Don't preach to me your opinion. Don't give me some little aphorism that can be tweeted later because it sounds cool. Preach the word.

Be instant or ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and teaching, for the time will come when the will not endure sound doctrine. So preach the word. Now when we do that, when the word is preached, when God is glorified, and when the word is preached, and we listen to it and we receive it, something happens to us. First thing that happens to us is joy. Truth produces joy. Truth produces happiness. I want you to see how Jesus correlates joy and truth. Look at verse 13. But now I come to you, that is in prayer, and these things that I speak in the world, or these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves.

I have given them your word. And the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. So Jesus spoke truth to his disciples in sermons, in conversations with the lost, in conversations with people from all walks of life. The disciples for three and a half years listened to those words and it produced joy in them. Even though the world around them hated them, hounded them, hassled them, they were joyful.

So let's apply that. How can a person have joy in a world that hates God? How can a person have joy in a world that hates Christians? How can a person have joy in a world that is falling apart? Answer, God's word produces joy. God's word produces happiness.

It's filled with promise after promise to sustain you in the worst times of life. Last week we noted how mental health in our country and other countries in the world is suffering over the last 10 months due to the lockdown. There are several studies on this. We shared some of them with you. We talked about how depression is on the rise, suicides are on the rise, all because of isolation.

What I didn't tell you is the flip side of that truth. Numbers of studies have been done showing that going to church on a regular basis is good for one's mental health. A new poll suggests that though mental health has tanked, it is tanked with the exception of one group. And guess who that group is? Y'all.

Regular churchgoers. The Gallup organization put out an article entitled, Americans' Mental Health Ratings Sink to a New Low. And they're talking about the last 10 months of lockdown around the world. And in our country in particular, the article says Americans' assessment of their mental health is worse than it has been at any point in the last two decades. In the last 20 years, right now, we're at the lowest level of mental health.

And it says this, those who seldom or never attend religious services have the lowest ratings, whereas frequent attenders rank highest in excellent mental health. Now, I'm going to be risky here. I'm going to take a little risk. I'm going to divide the whole world into two groups. We have on one side people of the world, people of the world. And we have over here people of the word. People of the world? People of the word. People of the world who don't have the word of God, the promises of God, the truths of God, the scripture of God.

People of the word who do have the truth of God, the scriptures of God, the promises of God. People of the world are happy when happy things happen to them. When the happenings are happy, they're happy.

Oh, I'm so happy because you just did She did something nice to me and made me happy. There's happy happenings around me, so I'm happy. But it's up and down, up and down, up and down, up and down.

Right now, it's really, really, really, really down. People of the Word have a fixed point. They're reoriented to glorifying God. They're shaped by the Word of God, and they have a joy whether things are up or things are down. David wrote this in Psalm 119, verse 1 and 2. He said, Happy are the people who follow the law of the Lord. Happy are those who obey his decrees and search for him with all their hearts. Down in verse 35 of that Psalm, Make me walk along the path of your commands, for that is where my happiness is found. So truth produces happiness, produces joy. There's a second upshot of this, and that is truth produces holiness. Look at verse 15.

We're going to close on this. I do not pray that you should take them, my followers, out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. They're not of the world, just as I am not of the world.

Here it is. Sanctify them. By your truth, your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have also sent them into the world, and for their sakes I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by the truth. The word sanctify is a word that means make holy.

It's the word hagiadzo, and it means to be holy, to be different, or to be separate. The Scriptures make you clean. This is the best bar of soap I know of. This will clean you up like nothing else. Jesus said to his followers, now you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. That's how you get clean. Psalm 119 verse 9, how shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to your word.

Now let me just press this a little bit. That's true especially as we gather together to hear it. Now why? Why do you keep saying gathering together?

Because that was Jesus' intention when he said I'm going to build my church, Matthew 16. But here's why. When we're together hearing truth, there is a public accountability.

I'm hearing the same thing you're hearing. I saw you in the room when that truth went out. It's a public responsibility, a public affirmation.

Again, it is positive peer pressure. Tim Keller wrote this, sanctification can happen on the spot. As we sit under gospel preaching and engage in corporate worship, there are times when the Holy Spirit takes the scripture read, the prayer spoken, the chorus sung or the truth preached and presses it right to the point of our need and not merely informs our Christian walk but heals us in that moment.

This is the value of hearing truth together. So why do we exist? What is the purpose of the church? What did Jesus have in mind when he said I'm going to build my church? We're a group that demonstrates God's glory and we're a group that communicates God's truth. What does that mean to you personally?

Number one, learn to glorify God. Here's a simple question as you leave. What if from this day forward, from right now on, okay, this is the line.

We put it down and now we're going to walk on the other side of that line. Now what if from now on everything we said and did and planned went through the filter of does this glorify God? Would we tweet the same way? Would we text the same way? Would we talk the same way? Would we whisper to our wives and husbands the same way? Would we plan our lives the same way?

Probably not. If we lived for the glory of God, if our goal was to make God famous and then the follow up, learning to respond to God's word, learning to respond to something that produces joy and holiness. You want to really be happy and filled with purpose, be shaped by the word of God.

That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from the series 2020. Now we want to let you know about a resource that will encourage you as you explore the faith and failings of prominent women in the Bible. What stands between you and a more fruitful walk with Jesus? Find out how four prominent women in the Bible faced their struggles in a new teaching series from Lenya Heitzig called Queens of the Bible. Here's Lenya on the Queen of Sheba. Hearing is the first step towards spiritual blessing.

Right now, hearing is a step toward blessing because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Hear more from Lenya as she explores the faith and the failings of four different queens in scripture. The Queens of the Bible collection of teachings is our way of saying thank you when you give $35 or more today to support this Bible teaching ministry. Look, the cost of following Christ is to go wherever he leads. Get your copy of these unique teachings when you call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer.

Connectwithskip.com slash offer. Tomorrow Skip Heitzig shares how Jesus intended for the church and you to be his ambassadors to the world. Yes, we should be blessed as we gather together, but the purpose isn't that we be pampered. The purpose is that we glorify God, that we hear the preaching of the word. All of that equips us to go out and do something with it. And just so his disciples were clear, Jesus told them, it's always time to imagine. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.