Powerful Church

The reason why the Christian Church is so anemic, why the Christian Church is so weak is because we have abandoned the primacy of the authority of the Word of God and we have gotten hooked on feelings.

The reason why we have ceased to be the conscious of society is because we have stopped saying, thus there's the Lord and no matter who likes it or doesn't like it. The power of the Holy Spirit and the gospel saturated the first century church and the impact of their passion and obedience is seen around the world today. Welcome to Leading the Way with pastor and Bible teacher, Dr. Michael Youssef. Up next, Dr. Youssef reveals four key ingredients found in the early church. Certainly not ingredients for a perfect church, but qualities you should develop within yourself to be an effective spirit-filled part of your local body. Here now is Dr. Michael Youssef with a message called Powerful Church. The history of the Church of Jesus Christ has been represented by the Waldesians in a picture of one anvil and many worn out hammers.

And there was an inscription, one anvil, many hammers, how to put worn out hammers, worn out hammers. The church as an institution may fail. Church as an organization may fail. The church as a denomination may fail. A church as a social entity may fail. The church as a system may fail. But the Church of Jesus Christ made up of all born again believers from around the world will never fail.

One anvil and many worn out hammers. Today there are many churches that emphasize creativity, marketing, entertainment, sports, and catering to every woman desire of its constituents. Books and magazines by the bucketful tell everyone who would listen that unless they move with the times, they are risking being irrelevant to this culture.

I want you to hear me right, please. I am all for relevance. In fact, I consider relevance to be of our most importance in any preaching. But the church that has all of the sports and all of the trinkets and all of the dancing around and all of the jazzing up and all of the marketing in the world. But if it is not Bible preaching, Christ centered, and other loving, it will fold like a bad souffle. Everything other than Bible preaching, Christ worshiping, and others loving is just a filler.

It's a filler. Dr. Luke is giving us in these very few verses, very few. He is giving us a picture what a spirit filled church is all about. He is giving us a magnificent picture of the hallmarks of the spirit filled church by telling us about the first church.

And he's basically telling us four things. Number one, he's saying that this church has to submit to the authority of the Word of God. He is telling us that this church, secondly, has to be loving and caring for one another and for the work of the kingdom. Thirdly, he's saying the spirit filled church must be focused on worship, worship of the living God. And fourthly, he is saying that a spirit filled church must be a witnessing church. Let me put it another way, the spirit filled church has to be word honoring, wallet opening, worship minded, and witnessing bent.

How about that? What do I mean by word honoring? The Bible said that the believers, the members of the early church, the first church, and if you're counting, there are about 3,120 of them so far.

But they were increasing every day. They were devoting themselves to the apostles' teachings. What's that mean? It means that it was a studying church. It means it was a learning church. It means it was a teaching church. Now, that's not very popular in many churches. You and I know of churches that studying the Bible is totally out of fashion. And in some so-called evangelical churches, to some of those, what they call Bible study is nothing but sharing mystical experiences.

There are some who would, what they call Bible study is sitting there and sharing their feelings. How do you feel today? Well, I feel good. Now, how do you, my feeling is this.

What do you feel? And then they might find a passage in the Bible to support what they feel. And we have boiled down the Christian faith to a series of feelings.

I want you to hear me right and do not misunderstand me, please. Until and unless the Word of God penetrates deep down into our inner being, our feelings are suspect. Unless and until the Word of God fills every corner of our intellect and our emotions, your feelings are totally unreliable. And the reason why the Christian church is so anemic, why the Christian church is so weak, is because we have abandoned the primacy of the authority of the Word of God and we have gotten hooked on feelings. The reason why the church has lost its moral authority in the world is because we have psychoanalyzed the Word of God.

The reason why we have ceased to be the conscious of society is because we have stopped saying, thus there's the Lord, and no matter who likes it or doesn't like it. Yet the Spirit-filled church must be a Bible-studying church. The Spirit-filled church must be a Bible-obeying church. The Spirit-filled church must be a Bible-honoring church. The Spirit-filled church must be those folks who not only believe the Bible intellectually, but practice it daily. Why? Because the Bible is not only spiritual food.

Now, if you are the kind of person who read your Bible once in a while or maybe once a week, let me ask you this. Try next week and have one meal all of next week, and then the following week, and then the following week see what happens. Now, please don't do this because you'll sue me when you get sick. That's what will happen.

You'll get sick. And it happens the same way spiritually. Every study that I have read, it says that no more than 20% of all born-again evangelical Christians read the Bible on a daily basis. And we are surprised at what is happening all around us. Listen to what God said to Hosea in 4.6.

He said, my people are destroyed for the lack of knowledge. Dr. Luke is telling us that the Spirit-filled church, not only a word-honoring church, but secondly, he said a wallet-opening church. Yes, you heard me right, wallet.

Somebody said, ah, he's going to talk about money. Yes, I will. Now, let me tell you something.

If you are a person who have never committed your life to Jesus Christ, now, what I'm going to say in the next few moments, just from that point, it's not for you. Do you know why? Because God wants you first before he wants what he has given you. Okay?

So, if you want to switch off, you can do that, but I hope you don't. Why do you like to talk about money? Well, the reason I love to talk about money is because I love to see the generous rejoice and the stingy squirm. Let me tell you something. If your blood pressure begins to rise as you hear a preacher expound what the Bible said about the use of material possession, I want to tell you why. It's because money has become your sacred and secret God, and you don't want him exposed. That's why, really.

Trust me on this one. It's because you are into idolatry. Now, whether you know it or you don't, you are. The bottom line is you don't want anyone to touch your secret and sacred God.

You want to keep him right there inside of you. But if mammon has become your secret and sacred God, I pray that the Holy Spirit will set you free this day. And you experience the joy of giving. God's word says that the believers in the first church had everything in common. It says they were selling their properties, they were selling their possessions, and they were given as the need arises. Now, look at verses 44 and 45 of Acts chapter 2. Now, I need to give you a couple of explanations about these two verses. Listen carefully, please. Very important explanations. Because in the old translations, it said they sold everything and they gave everything. And a whole bunch of people thought, man, this is the wonderful form of Christian communism, communal living.

Far from it. It has nothing to do with that. And I'm going to explain to you why. There are two verbs here, and those verbs are in the imperfect tense. You say, why is that important? It's important because it means they were kept on selling. They were kept on giving. They didn't just do it once, they kept on doing it. As the need arise, they will give.

They would sell some of their stocks and bonds to give to the need. Secondly, I want to tell you about something about these two verses that it was, they were giving voluntarily. It was not a force giving.

And I want you to listen, please, to what I'm going to tell you. Whenever generosity becomes compulsory, it is no longer generosity. It really isn't. And somebody said, you know, I'm just cutting a check. Here's my tithe and I'm fine. Let me tell you something.

God is more interested in what you're going to do with the 90% you've got left over than the 10% you just gave. I'm going to stick my neck out here, way out as if it's a very unusual thing to do. And I want to tell you that socialism is live and well in this country. See, what are you talking about? Listen, I know socialism.

I lived under it. I can smell it a mile away. And I want you to listen carefully. Whenever there is a system that taxes those who have more at a higher rate so that the state can redistribute these resources, that's socialism. Now, whenever giving is done forcefully, that's socialism. Now, please don't write me letters. I don't want to hear from you on this one. I'll tell you why.

Because if you love socialism, fine. That's okay. That's between you and God and it's your life.

Don't write me about it. But here's what I'm telling you. I am telling you that the early church and all the giving, it was given voluntarily, not under compulsion. And the reason these folks were so generous that they gave major parts of their income, of their net worth is because they were imitating their Heavenly Father. Your Heavenly Father has been so generous to you. But if you take and you take and you take and then you take Him for granted, let me tell you something.

You are not an imitator of the Heavenly Father. The Spirit-filled church is word-honoring. The Spirit-filled church is wallet-opening. Thirdly, the Spirit-filled church is worship-minded.

Look at the second half of verse 46. With gladness and sincerity of heart, they were praising God. Now, it comes as no surprise to the members of this congregation that those who are worshiping and praising God are joyful people.

They're joyful people. Praising God in the life of the believer produces joy. What does it mean to worship and praise God? Praising God is to recite the magnificence of God, is to recite the wonderful deeds of God. It is to recall and remind us of the great character of our God.

To praise God and to worship God is to recall the magnificent tributes of God. And when the early church exalted the name of Jesus, they experienced true happiness. They've experienced true joy. There are some churchgoers who are looking for joy, who are looking for happiness, but they're going to the wrong places and trying to find it, and they can't find it, then they come up dry. True joy and happiness can come only when you know how to give glory to the name of God. True happiness comes from focusing on God and not on yourself. True happiness comes when you are seeking God's glory, not your own. No wonder the scripture in the book of Galatians tells us that joy is a fruit of the Spirit. Listen, I know people, I have talked to people who think erroneously, of course, that the Christian life must be morbid, it must be miserable, it must be joyless. In fact, the reason why we call communion celebration is because we are celebrating the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ on the resurrection day, which is every Sunday. Believe me, I have met and I talk to people who think that the duller the worship is, the more morbid worship is, the more spiritual you are.

Forget it. The hallmark of the first church, it was a joyous church. There were joyous people.

Of course, there is the other extreme. I mean, the other extreme is so obvious that I nearly did not point out to it, but let me tell you, some people who think that joy is hanging from chandeliers or laugh uncontrollably. I mean, that's not necessarily joy, that's irreverence. I believe reverence and joy are not mutually exclusive. The fact that the mark of the spirit-filled church is experiencing the combination of joy and awe, both at the same time, both at the same time. So the spirit-filled church is word-honoring, wallet-opening, worship-minded, and, fourthly, witnessing bent.

Verse 47, to their number daily, the Lord added those who were saved. This is a very important part of these four marks, hallmarks of the spirit-filled church, because it tells us that the members of the first church did not get so preoccupied with learning the word of God that they forsook witnessing to their pagan neighbors. Because it tells us that those people in the first church were not so preoccupied with compassion and generosity that they neglected witnessing to their friends. It tells us that those folks in the early church did not become so preoccupied with worshiping God that they ignored the unsaved family members.

That is why this is very important. Because the Holy Spirit is a missionary spirit. He's the one who sins. Because the Holy Spirit creates a missionary environment, a missionary-minded, missionary-bent people.

Because the Holy Spirit rejoices when a sinner is found. Now, there are many churches who make the mistake of practicing the first three hallmarks of the church. And they neglect the fourth one.

And you know what happens? All doctrinally, they are wonderful. I mean, they're on the right track, and there's nothing wrong with them. But when the fourth hallmark is missing, that church soon will become self-centered church. Soon it will become self-serving church. Soon it will become inward-looking church. Soon they will become navel-gazers. Soon they will become vision-deficient church. There are several things I want to tell you very quickly I don't want you to miss.

Write them down. It says here that the Lord Himself is the one who is adding to their number. Not their marketing program. But He did it through the preaching of the apostles and the witnessing of the church members. God always does His work through His obedient children. God always brings the lost sheep into His fold through His faithful sheep.

And the second thing I want to tell you very quickly is this. That He added those who were saved. You see, they got saved first, then they became church members. The reason we take time and have new member seminar is to make sure, before anybody would join the church, is a person who is born again.

You see, you have to be saved first, then you join the church. The third thing I want to tell you very quickly is that it was added to their number daily. It wasn't just on a very special evangelistic outreach, it wasn't just, it was daily. These people were bringing people to Christ right there in the neighborhood where they lived. They were bringing people to Christ right in the schools where they were studying. They were bringing people to Christ in their clubs where they were socializing. They were bringing people to the Lord Jesus Christ. Wherever they may be, in offices or factories or shops. Everywhere you go, you're going to find people watching you and waiting for you to tell them about Jesus.

What He's done for you. On a daily basis, God was saving people through the witnessing of the new Christians. I want to conclude by telling you a true story to illustrate the point that the scripture makes here, that how daily God adds and that when you and I are faithful, God will bring the lost. As most of you know, in Islamic countries it's illegal, it's a crime to convert to Christianity. Many Islamic countries consider converting to Christ is equal to homicide and deserve the same punishment. But in one of these countries, there were four Libyan converts to Christ.

They wanted to meet together but they knew they couldn't, not in homes, not anywhere. So they decided to meet together early in the morning, beside a loud diesel tractor, using the engine noise as a cover so they can pray together. Believers, take this to heart. And within a very short period of time, some people want to join them. They grew to 16 and six months later they grew to 60, standing there around that diesel noisy engine to pray. Their supervisor is a nominal Roman Catholic Italian. When he saw that incredible zeal, when he saw this incredible commitment, he made the arrangement to bring in a pastor once a month to meet with them. God will add to his church when his people, faithfully, word-honoring, wallet-opening, worship-minded, witnessing bent.

Would your commitment to Christ lead you to choke on the smoke and fumes of a diesel engine just to worship and learn from God's Word? Convicting words from Dr. Michael Youssef on this edition of Leading the Way Audio. You know, just about every day, Dr. Youssef gets e-mails and cards and staff reports all telling him about the impact that Leading the Way is having on lives. And many of these are from people in Western nations who really appreciate how Dr. Youssef stands up for the truth, especially now in so many cultures of compromise.

But there's one connection that I want to share with you today that comes to us from Saudi Arabia. A woman connected with the Leading the Way team in the area, she had questions about her experiences with Islam and she wanted to find out answers about Christianity. So here's a quick summary from the team of this woman's experience. She initially rejected hearing that Islam is not from God but continued to be drawn toward the truth of Christ as shared by the Leading the Way team she connected with. Her questions grew as she was exposed to more and more ingredients of the Gospel. And once she compared the teaching of death and hell between Islam and Christianity, she quickly responded to an invitation to receive Christ. She has since been connected with a discipleship course and mature believers to help her grow in her knowledge and faith in Christ. Isn't that exciting?

Stories like these are very common with our teams. We're seeing God use Leading the Way to reach and grow new believers in your neighborhood and in neighborhoods just like yours all around the world. And we would love for you to learn more, to stand with Dr. Youssef. Here's how to do that. Call 866-626-4356. That's 866-626-4356. Or you can check out the many facets of Leading the Way when you visit the website, ltw.org. That's ltw.org. Or you can write to us at Leading the Way, post office box 20100, Atlanta, Georgia, 30325.

That's post office box 20100, Atlanta, Georgia, 30325. All right, there's the music that means it's time for us to say goodbye. But do plan to join Dr. Michael Youssef next time for another edition of Leading the Way. This program is furnished by Leading the Way with Dr. Michael Youssef. Connect with us through our YouTube channel, Facebook, Twitter, and all of our social media networks. Learn more at ltw.org.