March 8, 2021 9:00 am
When we’re picking a movie theater, we decide based on what we can get out of the experience. But it can be a real problem when that attitude translates to how we think about church!
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Today on Summit Life, Pastor J.D.
Greer talks about our attitude towards church. You come with a sense of anticipation? Are you coming here to hear a guy give a decently entertaining religious pep talk? You come in here to hear some music? You come in here to check it out? What are you here for? You come in here expecting to meet with the Holy God, the fire of whose presence is now in the Holy Spirit? Are you coming ready to give words of God to others and receive words from God? Do you come with that sense of anticipation? Welcome to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of Pastor J.D. Greer.
I'm your host, Molly Vidovich. You know, when we're picking something like a movie theater for an evening out, we usually consider things like which one has the comfier seats or the better snacks, right? We're concerned about what will make it the most enjoyable experience. And there's nothing wrong with that when it comes to entertainment. But it can be a real problem when that attitude translates to how we think about church.
Is what I want really what's most important? That's our subject today as Pastor J.D. Greer unpacks what it really looks like to be part of a church family.
We're in the book of Acts chapter two. Have you been captured by the message of the Gospel? Not do you assent to it. I know that most of you assent to it.
That's the reason you're here. But have you been captured by it? Are you consumed by it?
Have you been ravished by it? Today what I'm gonna try to show you from Acts chapter two is what the coming of the Spirit was like. What the coming of the Spirit was like and then number two what the believer's response was to the coming of the Spirit.
So what it was like when he came and then what their response to him was. Acts 2 verse 1. Now in the day of Pentecost arrived, Pentecost by the way was a Jewish holiday, suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind.
Now to be honest I don't think the English there translates what the author is trying to say. Well it really means a tornado. And it filled the entire house where they were sitting and then divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. Verse four. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit. They began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. You say well what does that mean?
Great question. That's so he explains. Verse five. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem you see Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven and at this sound the multitude came together and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.
That's an important phrase. And they were amazed and astonished saying are not these who are speaking all these different languages are they not all Galileans? But others mocking said they are filled with new wine. But Peter standing with the 11 lifted up his voice and addressed them men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem let this be known to you give ear to my words these people are not drunk as you suppose since it's only the third hour of the day.
In other words it's 9 a.m. because they counted it from 6. Verse 16. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. In the last days it shall be God declares that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions your old men shall dream dreams. Well Peter goes on and from there and he preaches a sermon about who Jesus is. But the end of his sermon people call out Peter what should we do? And Peter says repent and receive Jesus as your savior and be baptized as a sign of that and 3,000 people respond.
All right jump down to verse 42. So they devoted themselves they devoted themselves to and he's going to give you four things. All right the movement of that spirit listen the movement of that spirit that mighty wind manifested itself in four devotions in their lives. What I want to try to show you is that if you've really embraced the gospel and if you've been filled with us by the spirit these will be four devotions for you. Here we go number one they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching that's the first thing he mentioned they devoured what was being taught. You see Christianity taught that salvation was a gift from heaven that it came from outside of you. All right that's why the wind comes from the outside not from within the the fire comes from outside of them and dwells on top of them it doesn't come from inside of them so you have to get the teaching and the words of God that are coming from the outside the apostle teaching you have to get them inside of you. There's something in your heart that is wrong there's something in your heart that is dead there's something in your heart that is dissatisfied and what you need is not changes to your circumstances what you need is a renewal of your heart. So you have to devote yourself to the apostles teaching because that word has got to get in your heart that is the only way that a dead heart becomes alive it's the only way that a dysfunctional heart becomes normal it's the only way that a heart that doesn't understand what God wants from it begins to have wisdom. You know there is no way around this there is no shortcut to this if you are going to be a disciple of Christ you are going to be a learner small groups are a tool for you to learn and devote yourself to the apostles teaching because there you take the words that I'm teaching you and you get into them and you unpack them and you put there you bury them in your heart they were devoted to the apostles teaching. Number two they were devoted to each other they were devoted to each other Christ had given up himself for them poured out his life for them so they devoted themselves to one another just like Christ had done and they did this get this by meeting in small groups small groups are where we give ourselves to each other and by the way it's not just being in a small group like that's some you know legalistic thing it's what you do in the small group that counts you look around verse 44 you'll see the word together start being repeated verse 44 those who believe were together verse 46 they attended the temple together they broke bread together they prayed together so the question is not just are you in a small group that's just a tool it's just a facilitator the question is are you investing in people's lives and opening your life so that they can invest in yours the question is not just are you together in a big group in a diverse church the question is are you reaching across racial and cultural barriers personally and getting to know those who are like you this was a natural response of the gospel to the gospel for them now I hear people say well I quit going to small group because it just I just wasn't getting that much out of it would you look at the way that that's phrased they devoted themselves they gave themselves away the point is not really how much you're getting out of it the point is you begin to give yourself away now here's the irony you'll start to get stuff out of it when you give yourself away it's kind of like a family not a family I don't participate in my family based on how much I'm getting out of it I don't like you know be like hey Veronica I'm not coming home for family dinner because last night's family dinner was just lame conversation I was ready to talk about some stuff but we said we talked about Jake and the Neverland Pirates and um you know Dora and I just I just wasn't interested so I'm gonna go eat somewhere else no I am devoted to my family right and so I give myself to my family vacations I've told you about this before I had to change the name of vacations in my family to family trips because when I called them vacations I would come back kicked off at how tired I was I'm like that was not a vacation you got four kids under the age of 10 you're not vacating anything I told my wife this summer I was like if I ever come home after a vacation less tired than when I left that means I need to repent because I didn't serve my family the way that I'm supposed to I'm devoted to my family now here's the thing being a part of a family is the greatest experience of my life and I get more out of it than anything else but it's not because I approach my family like a McDonald's where I'm like hey I gotta just take what I need from this and if you're not giving me my way then I'm gonna go to Burger King I'm gonna go to Chick-fil-a no you go not like a fast food restaurant you go to give yourself away and when you give yourself away that's when you become like Jesus and that's when you start getting something out of the Christian life so you need to quit being consumers you need to start being disciples because there's a huge difference it's an assembly oh we got you know I'll get notes from people who are like I don't like the church but man I love your sermons so I just listen to your sermon podcast and then I discuss it with two or three buddies that's not a church and I know you're listening to me right now normally I'm talking to the church and you're listening now I'm talking to you you're not in church you're not you've got to devote yourself to a body of people and that means you get in there with all the messiness listen this is a strong statement what I'm about to make here but you guys don't come here for me to play around I know that according to acts two you cannot be a true disciple of Jesus and be disconnected from the church you can't how do you devote yourself to each other if you're not even connected to even committed enough to be a part of a body of people or how about this one um people say well I love Jesus I just don't like the church hey news flash you can't love Jesus and hate his bride you're like well the church is full of hypocrites there's room for one more why don't you come join up with us all right yeah we got problems but we're the bride of Christ and he died for us and he sticks up for his bride you cannot love Jesus and hate his bride if you're going to follow Jesus you're going to be committed to the church now you're like are you saying that Christians who aren't are you saying that there are not Christians who are not in churches are you saying that I'm not saying that exactly all right but there are humans without homes and we call them homeless and we start ministries for them because that's not healthy Christians that are not part of churches are homeless Christians and it's not healthy and so yes we start ministries to bring you in and we're not content to leave you homeless because Jesus said if you're going to love me you're going to love my bride you're going to be devoted to each other period number three they were devoted to God's presence see verse 42 where it says they were devoted to the breaking of bread as much as I would like to read that as they were devoted to eating um that's not exactly what it means breaking of bread was a way they talked about communion it was the Lord's table and Jesus had promised to be present at the Lord's table in a very special way he's always present in worship of course but in the Lord's table first Corinthians 16 10 says he is present in an unusually powerful way when you combine that with this sense that every believer had that they were filled with the spirit of God when they came to church they expected to be in God's presence Paul explained in first Corinthians that the early Christians came to worship service prayed up filled with the spirit of God ready to hear words from God and ready to give words of God to others they came to meet with God here's a question when you come to church or when you come to your small group what do you come expecting you expecting to meet with God you come with a sense of anticipation are you coming here to hear a guy give a decently entertaining religious pep talk you come in here to hear some music you come in here to check it out what what are you here for you come in here expecting to meet with the holy God the fire of whose presence is now in the holy spirit are you coming ready to give words of God to others and receive words from God do you come with that sense of anticipation let me give you a few signs that you might not be expecting to meet with God now I'm not judging you really I'm not saying these always mean that you're not expecting to meet with God but if these things are true of you I think it's at least worth you asking the question okay coming late leaving early I realize life happens but I just know that for a lot of people the reason you show up late is because you're not really expecting anything you're not expecting to meet with God here's why I think that when we I say every head bowed and every eye closed there's like 60 of you stand up and head for the door what does that say about your sense of meeting with God when you only want to stick around and respond to what you've heard by getting in the presence of God yeah it's your house is on fire you just got a text message about it go home all right but otherwise I'm just curious as to what that tells me about the sense of what you expect when you come now here's one not bringing a bible or nothing to take notes with don't look around you know don't do that I realize that listen I got a friend who every time I say this he sends me an angry email he's like I just don't learn that way I just learn better when I'm looking at you and you know nothing in my lap okay fine there may be a few of you that are an exception to this but I'd say for a lot of you it just indicates that you don't come with really out of 50 minutes I'm gonna stand up here and open the word of God to you there's nothing that God's gonna say to you that's worth remembering writing down or meditating on throughout the week nothing nothing when your boss meets with you you probably bring a pad and a pen and you write down what he says or she says don't you I'm not judging you I'm just saying what does that indicate when you don't even bring a copy of the word of God to see if what I'm saying is coming out of there and you don't bring a pen to write down what the spirit of God might be saying to you it just might mean you're not expecting really to meet with God when you come to church how about one more just in case there's somebody I haven't ticked off yet standing in the midst of worship with a coffee cup in your hand there's a lot of things people do in the presence of God in the Bible standing with a coffee cup in their hand and a bored look on their face is never one of them and I don't want to just turn this into a thing of your posture I don't want you to start acting I'm just saying that your posture indicates that some of you have no anticipation of meeting with the Holy Spirit of God and they were devoted to it they were addicted to it they were obsessed by it and all came upon every soul you know what aw man it's verse 43 aw means this crushing weight is that what defines is that what defines our church a crushing weight of God's glory you know how I know when I'm really preaching it's not when people are yelling at me yeah man I mean that's great it's when people are looking up saying oh my God where they're looking within saying I can't believe that God loves me this way or I can't I see the sin of my heart is that sense of awe what defines our church is that sense of awe what defines your small group do you come ready for that with anticipation prayed up ready to hear the word of God and ready to speak it to others number four prayer they were devoted to prayer they seem to feel intimately their dependence on God so they prayed all the time all the time not because they were told not because they heard sermons on it it's just natural to them they felt the crushing weight of what God had called them to Jesus remember this had given him the largest assignment and then he left and told him to do nothing but wait until the Holy Spirit came 10 days how long they waited if you count the number between when he ascended on the 40th day in pentecost the 50th day 10 days they prayed for 10 days and waited after they prayed peter stood up to preach if you read this sermon it takes about 10 minutes they prayed for 10 days peter preached for 10 minutes and 3 000 people got saved now we pray for 10 minutes I preach for 10 days and three people get saved because all of our zeros in the wrong place you want to know why it's because we're too good at what we do not really but we think we are and we have this sense that we can and so there's not the sense of desperation they had that God you've got to move and if you don't move it's all worthless people that feel that sense of inability naturally pray without needing to be told prayerlessness is always a sign that you've lost touch with how dependent you are on the fullness of the spirit to do what you need to do the problem is not that you need more self-discipline to pray no the problem is that you need more of a sense of how desperate you are on God to do things through you and that you understand that apart from him you can't do anything when you crave the power of the Holy Spirit when you know how desperately dependent you are as a parent as a spouse as someone who is witnessing when we know that as a church we will need to be commanded to pray we'll do it instinctively and all who believed were together and they had all things in common and they're all selling their possessions and belongings and distributing their proceeds to all as any had need day by day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes they received their food with glad and generous hearts praising God and having favor with all the people and the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved so here verse 47 you got three thousand people saved in Peter's first sermon but now day by day in the community people are being saved they're being saved watch this as the church devotes themselves to these four things because it watch it is the church's devotion to these four things that demonstrates watch the power of the gospel and the reality of the spirit that is within them the spirit of God is invisible is he not the kingdom of Jesus is invisible there was something about these people that showed you the reality of the spirit that was within them see that phrase in there glad and generous hearts you see that glad and generous hearts it meant that no matter where they were what they were doing there was the sense that they had joy paul goes to prison what's paul do in prison he sings peter goes to prison what's he do he sleeps singing means you're happy sleeping means you're content they were content and they were happy after their backs have been ripped open with a whip and they're in pain and they're in jail and they're singing and they're content and that pointed people to the reality of a spirit and a treasure that nobody else could see but nobody doubted because they saw it in them and then people said first peter 315 tell me about the hope that is within you because i see it um this week i spent time with my dad and i reflected i remembered something um just as i was talking with him because it's something he told me i'll tell you about in a second but i remember how as a child and how was your typical you know um mischievous kid and and did a lot of bad things and uh kind of quizzed you know cool and skeptical doubted a lot of stuff but i reflected on the fact that i never doubted the existence of god and i remembered why this week and that's because from the earliest memories i have as a kid i remember getting up at 5 30 or 6 in the morning if i ever got up that early i knew exactly where to find my dad he'd be on his knees with his bible open pointing out the needs of my family to god asking god for strength and i saw a dad who communed with a god that i could not see and i saw that god answer prayer and i saw that god is the source of the strength of what my dad was the godliest man that i've ever known i never doubted the reality of the invisible god because i saw the shape of him left and how my father was devoted to certain things this week my dad told me we had this conversation and he's retired now and uh he says the thing that i hate most about our new income is we're not able to give away nearly as much as we used to he said we still tithe of course on the social security and the pension we still tithe on all that he says and we actually do a good bit more than the tithe he said but my favorite thing when i had that source of income was just being able to give away and he said i'm not giving away stuff to the kingdom of god and i'm sitting here looking at him and i'm thinking he's doing it again he is painting for me unintentionally a kingdom that i cannot see and he's showing me that i wish that i could invest more in this kingdom because this one's not that important to me but that one is i've never doubted the reality of the invisible things in my father what are your kids seeing about the invisible god from your life i know what your mouth tells them but what does your generosity tell them about the reality of the kingdom of god because i'm gonna tell you this they see that a whole lot more than you realize they do they see what is real and what's fiction to you not about what comes out of your mouth but why you do what do your kids see about your relationship with god i know you bring them to church but do they see you struggling with god communing with god depending on god praying to god do they see him as the source of your strength have you given yourself to these four things if not again someone i would just tell you maybe it's because you don't really believe the message or you've never been filled by the spirit because people who believe the message and are filled by the spirit do this naturally they believe god came from heaven to save them so they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching to get the word in their heart they did it like their lives depended on it because they knew that it did if you believe that your heart is what god says it is that it's messed up if you believe that the world you live in is messed up like you like like he says it does then you're going to make sure that when you're in college when you're in high school and the rest of your life you're pumping the word of god into you because you can never hope to have a good home a good marriage a successful life never hope to please god unless when life cuts you you bleed god's word the question is what do you believe in do you come to church expecting to meet with god because you believe the fire of his presence dwells in his people and you can't wait to hear from your gracious savior are you devoted to the gospel if you're devoted to the gospel and filled with the spirit you'll do all four of these things are you devoted to the gospel but see we don't have a commitment issue we don't have a devotion issue all of you listen to me all of you you're all devoted to something you're all devoted to something are you devoted to the gospel if you're devoted to the gospel it'll show itself in these four dimensions the level to which you believe in the message is the degree to which you'll be devoted to it wow these are convicting words from pastor jd greer here on summit life if you missed any part of the message today you can listen again free of charge or study the complete unedited transcript at jdgrier.com now pastor jd in our new teaching series sent we are looking at the book of acts and the birth of the church and the event that kick-started all of it was pentecost when the holy spirit came and filled the disciples yeah molly i can say that of all the sermon series that i've done i think the study through the book of acts might have been the most personally fulfilling what you see in acts is that acts is supposed to be the continuation of jesus ministry right one of the key verses acts 1 1 tells you that there was a previous book that luke who's the author of acts that he wrote about all that jesus began to do and to teach began means that what he started in luke he's going to continue in acts but now through his spirit as he works through the church and so just like jesus empowered his apostles when he was here on earth to do miracles and just like jesus was was the power of god at work in the world that's what happens now so when it comes to fighting sin in our lives when it comes to sharing the gospel when it comes to raising children when it comes to overcoming addictions it is the spirit of god and the spirit of god alone that gives the strength to do that jesus said john 15 5 apart from me you can't do anything and the me in that sentence that that you that whose power you depend on we experience that through the holy spirit my prayer is that through this series and through the workbook that we've created to accompany this to help take you deeper into these truths you'll be encouraged you'll be encouraged to tap into the spirit's power both for your life and the ways in which god wants to use you in the lives of others you know there's only so much that we can get into in these half-hour programs so to help you gain a deeper understanding of the holy spirit's role in your life we'd love to get you a copy of this new resource that we created called sent the book of acts volume one it's a personal bible study jam-packed with commentaries study questions and topics for personal reflection the book is great for your daily quiet time or for a group study so ask for your copy when you donate today at the suggested level of 25 or more the title again is sent the book of acts volume one the second volume will be available this summer when we return to the scent teaching series call 866-335-5220 that's 866-335-5220 or give and request the book online at jdgrier.com i'm molly vidovich i'm thankful that you joined us today and be sure to listen again tuesday for a very special message from summit life with pastor jd greer so today's program was produced and sponsored by jd greer ministries
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-08-16 21:38:10 / 2023-08-16 21:48:41 / 11