Amen. Can we pray together? Father, God, you are holy today. And God, when we look at your holiness and we sing about your holiness and we get a glimpse of your holiness, Father, our minds really can't comprehend truly what that means and what that's like. But Father, it reminds me that a holy God came to such a sinful people like ourselves. And God, we are so thankful for that, God, and we praise you for that. And God, we just want to get a glimpse of your holiness today. God, we invite you to meet with us. We want you to speak to our hearts today. God, I don't know what burdens people in this room have come in carrying, but Father, in the few moments that we have together, looking at your word, God, I pray that you would be exalted, that you would be lifted high, God, that we would focus our attention upon you.
And ultimately, God, you would get the glory for all that it's done here in this place. Father, we love you. We worship you today.
And all God's people said, amen and amen. You can have a seat here today. Well, how is the 11 o'clock crowd doing? You guys doing good?
Give me like a thumbs up or something. You guys have gotten more sleep than the 830 crowd. And so, uh, so you guys should be awake, alert, and ready to go. And it is so good to see every single one of you here today. I do want to echo what Pastor David said earlier, that if this is your first time or the first time in a long time, thank you so much for being a part of our service here today. We count it a privilege that you're here and we recognize you could have been in a lot of different places and you've chosen to worship with us today. And we just want to say thank you.
And we do invite you to take one of those new here cards. Many of you do that every week and we're grateful for that. And that's an opportunity for us to just connect with you a little bit more and just thank you for coming and that kind of thing.
But we also want to get a free gift in your hands, just as our way of saying thank you for being a part of our service here today. I will say one more thing and then we'll dive into God's word together. He mentioned starting point and I do want to kind of say that, that if you've been attending our church for any length of time, and one of my favorite things about starting point is that we have people that show up to starting point that have literally been attending our church for like two Sundays, you know, and they're brand spanking new. And then we have some that are at starting point that's like, hey, I've been here for 15 years and I've just never joined the church and that kind of thing.
I love that. And so it doesn't matter how long you've been attending or anything like that. If you're interested in learning more about the church or you just want some information, you want to meet the pastors, that kind of thing, then we would love to invite you to be a part of that. And you can see one of us here today to get more information or you can go right onto our website. It's on the front page. You'll see a button there that says starting point. We invite you to click on that.
You can find out some more information and childcare and a free meal is provided. And so go for it. And so make good use of that. And we would love to invite you to join us for that. Well, if you have your Bibles, I hope that you do. I go to Acts chapter number two. If you don't have your Bible with you here today, that's okay.
Everything's going to be up on the screen to help you follow along a little bit to keep you as engaged as possible. Well, listen, we began a brand new series a few weeks ago entitled I am a church member. I am a church member. Now, anytime we talk about a title like this and you're in here today and you're not a church member, here's what I don't want you to think is that this series is not for me.
This is only for Union Grove, that kind of thing. I want you to realize that this series actually is good. And I'm glad you're here to be a part of it because you're going to get through this series, really just an inside look, if you would, at our church and, and, and also how to be involved in our church, a little bit about what we're about and that kind of thing.
And that's what this series is really for. We started 2025 with this series and over the few weeks of the series, we are going to look specifically at the mission and vision of our local church. And also more importantly, how you can be deeply connected to the mission and vision of our church. So I want to give you our mission here. And, you know, depending on your church background, they probably have the same or a similar mission might say it a little different. This is what we say here is at our church is really the scoreboard or the mission of why we exist. This is we exist to reach as many people as possible with the gospel and to disciple them into becoming devoted followers of Jesus Christ. This is the scoreboard of why we do what we do. I'm sure wherever you work at your business or whatever you do, I'm sure that there's probably a mission of why you exist and some value systems that's attached to that.
And you probably look to that and that's the scoreboard by which you measure success in the organization that you, that you serve in. Well, for us at our church, this is how we measure success. This is what we look at as a church of why we exist. And by the way, we went through this couple of weeks ago and we kind of broke it down as a church and we took a lot of this from Acts chapter number two, which is actually where we're going to be at again today about how Peter gets up and he preaches and, and he shares the gospel of why the church began. And so we're going to pick it up in verse number 42 of Acts chapter number two.
I want to give you a little bit of background about Acts chapter number two, because it's important and I think it matters so that you can understand verses 42 through 47 here today, Acts chapter number two, we pick up with the apostles and, and really all of the Jewish community. They had all gathered into Jerusalem and they were there for a very specific and common purpose. Everybody had gathered in Jerusalem for one of the seven Jewish feasts that we call Pentecost. And, and so they had all come, it was one of the three Jewish feasts that were required for all Jewish people to, to travel into Jerusalem, regardless of where you live, you got to go to Jerusalem to observe this together.
And so all the Jews kind of gathered there in, in Jerusalem. The closest thing that we've ever seen to something like this is like the barbecue festival, right? You know, a lot of people come in for the barbecue festival. How many of you go to the barbecue festival?
You're just all about it and stuff, few of you. And so some of you have been before you're like, okay, I get it. I've been there once and that's all that I needed or whatever, but it's probably the biggest day in Lexington and this area that we see that people come in from time to time and stuff. Well, that's what Jerusalem was like during this day in Acts chapter two, everybody had come in.
So it was jam packed. It was full of people and everybody came for this thing called Pentecost. Now you say, what is Pentecost? It was a time where all the Jews would take their first fruits of the crops that they had just harvested and they would bring it in Jerusalem and they would offer their first fruits to God. In fact, in the old Testament, this feast was also called the feast of not only Pentecost, but of first fruits.
So they would offer the first fruits up to God and they would give them over to him first before anything else, before they went out and made money on the rest, they would offer them up first to God. You say, what were they observing at the day of Pentecost? What were they remembering? If you would, they were remembering the moment that God descended from heaven to Moses on Mount Sinai.
Now we know that because that's when God gave Moses the 10 commandments and all the different laws and different things like that, where God came down from heaven and he met with Moses there on Mount Sinai. So all these Jews came together and they were remembering that moment. They were remembering it. So you can imagine they were probably talking about it.
They're probably hearing stories about it. They were reading the old Testament law and they were remembering like, man, what was that like? Can you imagine God coming down and meeting with Moses and giving them all of this, a religious system that they were a part of and giving them all of the laws and what we call as the Pentateuch, the first five books of the old Testament and giving them all of this information.
Can you imagine what this is like? And so everybody's having that conversation about when God descended from heaven on Mount Mount Sinai. Well, in Acts chapter two, they've all gathered together, remembering that moment and God chooses to spend this day to descend again from heaven and this time in the form of the Holy Spirit. So God in the third person of the Trinity, he comes down from heaven. And now in Acts two, when all of these believers are gathered together, the Spirit of God indwells the believers for the very first time.
This has never been done before. And so now the Spirit of God is with them. God is with them. And now God is always with the believers.
For us, here's what matters for us. The moment that you trust that Jesus is your Savior, you got the indwelling Spirit of God living within you. And so that's what they were experiencing in Acts chapter number two for the very first time. And when the Spirit of God came, crazy things happened. If you read through Acts chapter number two, when the Spirit indwelled believers, what happened is many of them begin to speak in all of these different tongues.
It says that there was a mighty rushing wind and there were cloven tongues like fire. There was all this stuff happening when the Spirit of God came. So there was a lot of religious critics that were kind of watching this and they weren't believers because they didn't have the Spirit come and indwell them. So they're looking at these people and they're looking at them and they're saying they're speaking in other tongues and all this crazy stuff is happening.
So they begin to be skeptical about what is going on, so much to the point where they said that they must be drunk with wine because they are crazy and they have lost their minds. What's in the moment of that, that Peter stands up and he delivers his very first sermon to all of these people watching what is going on and he gives the clear plan of the Gospel. What we derived our mission from, we exist to reach as many people as possible with the good news of the Gospel. Well, Peter gives the Gospel at this and then in verse number 42, we will see what happens as a result of the Gospel and the indwelling Spirit of God and we will see as a result what happens from that. Look at verse number 42. It says this, and they, everybody say the word they, they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers and fear came upon, what's the next word, every soul and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles and all, everybody say the word all, all that believed were, what's the next word, together and had all things common and they sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as every man had need and they continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people and the Lord added to the church daily such as should be, be saved.
So in order for us to understand this and kind of dissect, if you would, these verses, here's what I want you to know is that first the Holy Spirit of God had to indwell the believers before verses 42 through 47 happens. In other words, when the spirit indwell, that's salvation. So if you have trusted in Jesus as your savior, that means that, that you have stopped trusting in yourself. You've stopped trusting in the works that you can do, realizing that all of your good works still fall short of the glory of God. And you finally say, Hey, I can't save myself. So now I'm just going to trust in Jesus.
What Jesus has already done on the cross for me at that moment when you stop trusting in yourself and trust in Him, you are what we call saved. And at that very moment at conversion, you get the Holy Spirit of God in your life. And what we find is that when the Holy Spirit of God indwells us, things change. Things changed. In fact, you could say it this way, what we find here in these verses is this, as the gospel changed lives, it began to affect how the disciples viewed their money, how they viewed their possessions, how they viewed their time, and ultimately how they viewed their life.
And that should be true of you and me. When, when you get saved and you trust in Jesus and your life has been radically changed by the goodness of the gospel, here's what I'm going to tell you. Your life's going to look different. You're going to start viewing the things around you differently. You're going to start viewing your time differently. You're going to start viewing your possessions differently. You're going to start viewing your money differently. You're going to start viewing your career differently.
You're going to start viewing your neighbours differently. Everything about them changed because of the indwelling Spirit of God. And by the way, they also, their community, also began to change. In other words, they desired the church. They desired to be with one another, and that's what we see here in this text. Let me say this, that when we talk about the church and we learn about the church from Acts chapter 2, which was when the church really officially began, I want you to know practically is this, you were not created for isolation.
David said it earlier in his announcements. He said, we were created for community. You were created for relationships. Now I'm not asking you if you are a introvert or an extrovert or where you fall in that and that kind of thing.
That's not the question, but here's what I'll tell you. Every single person, regardless of personality, every person was created to be with people. You see this from the very beginning of scripture. Remember when God created man, what did he say? It's not good for man to be alone. And every woman probably says amen to that, right? It's not good for man to ever be alone. You also see in the book of Ecclesiastes that it says that two are better than one. And in fact, he even says this, that pity the man that doesn't have anyone around him to help him up when things go bad. And so here's the point is that as the gospel transforms our life, the progression that we see here in Acts chapter two, as the gospel transforms your life, you begin desiring to be as deeply involved in community as you possibly can.
It completely radically changes everything about your life. And now you want to not be in isolation, but you want to be together. And because of this is here, you get the sense.
Remember I had you guys say a few things out loud and a few of you participated. They and all and together. You see these words that as the spirit of God had dwelt them, they grew together. They grew together. They weren't growing by themselves. They were growing with in relationship.
And by the way, here's what I'll tell you. We grow better together. We grow better together. That's why I'm leery of people that'll say things like this is they'll be like, man, I'm growing in my, my relationship with God, but I don't really need the church in my life.
Like I am a little leery of that. And here's why is because when I follow scripture, here's what I'll tell you is that there's something connected between spiritual growth and God's church. There's something deeply connected between the two that they go hand in hand. In other words, if you're going to grow in your relationship with God, you need the church to be a part of that.
That's the point. And so I don't know your story in here. I really don't know what kind of brought you here.
It could have been a parent just dragging you to church or, or whatever, or it could just be tradition or ritual. What you do every single week. I don't know what kind of where you're at, but here's what I want you to know is this. I really believe that every person in, in here is here because you want to please God, right?
And you can kind of nod your head. That's kind of our desire and that kind of thing. And so in order to do that, you have to be connected and plugged into the local church because that's God's pathway for us to grow. And so today, the word that is going to drive our sermon today, and I want you to hear this word throughout. It's the word together. It's the word together. Everybody say that with me together.
All right, together. That is the word that when I look at verses 42 through 47, that's, that's kind of the word that jumps off the page a little bit. Because, because you see verse 42 and they, that's the church, that's collective, right? Verse 43, fear came upon every soul together, right? All of them, verse 42, and all that believed were what? Together. And they had all things common.
In other words, together is the theme that you see verse 45. They sold their possessions. In other words, like this wasn't just one family driving everything. This was them collectively together accomplishing this community that God was, was building called the church. So they sold their possessions and they parted them to all men as every man. In other words, every single person in the church, if they had a need, it was being met by somebody in the church.
Every single one of them. Verse 46, and they collectively together continued. So together is the word that's going to drive everything that we're going to talk about because that is what the church is. We are to change and grow together.
So you say, what are we supposed to grow in here at the church? Number one is this, together we learn from this that they, the early church, together listened to Bible teaching. They listened to Bible teaching.
Verse 42 says this, they continued steadfastly. The word steadfastly, it actually means this, that they were devoted to it. They were focused on it. In other words, they were not easily distracted.
And you say, what were they focused on? Doctrine. Say, what is doctrine?
It just means teaching. So in other words, when the Holy, remember the progression, when the Holy Spirit takes residence in your life, that's salvation. After that, a result of that is a desire for the word of God. It is a devoted relationship to the word of God.
It is a want to. It is a focus on the word of God. Let me say as the pastor is that here at our church, I hope that the word of God always stays central to everything that we do. In fact, I would tell you this, if the word of God ever stops becoming central to what we do, I would tell you this, hey, it's time for you to kind of push me to the side and find a new person to lead this church. Because the word of God is the central thing that we are to do as a church.
But here's what I'll tell you. When we program our church services on the weekend or on Wednesday night and that kind of thing, we program these services really with about 35 to 40 minutes of Bible teaching. And it's always that way. Like you're going to come in on a Sunday and we are going to preach the Bible.
It's been that way. Pastor Fletcher did it. Pastor Harris did it. The two pastors before me. And I'm committed to preaching God's word.
But here's what I'll tell you that's interesting. We as a pastoral staff, we can program for this all day long. Like every week of the year, we can provide Bible teaching in our service. But here's what's interesting is that what you get here is that the devotedness to Bible preaching and Bible teaching, it wasn't just from the leaders of the church.
Here's what it was from everybody. In other words, we can get up here and preach every single day, but it's not going to mean a whole lot in your life. If you're not walking in here devoted to the same thing together, like this is mutual. As much as I have spent time in God's word studying this and preparing for this, here's when it really takes effect and takes root in your life is when you come in with as much eagerness to receive as I come in with the eagerness to deliver. Does that make sense?
You get that? That's the point. That's when it makes a difference in your life.
That's when you can really get and receive something from this, is when you come in with the same amount of eagerness to receive as I come in with the eagerness to deliver. That's why Bible teaching is important. You see that throughout the book of Acts with the early church, they were devoted to Bible preaching. Acts chapter number 11, that's when they were first called Christians or Christ followers in Acts chapter number 11. You know what it said? It said that for a year they studied the word together.
In Acts chapter number 20, we find the apostle Paul. He's preaching and it says that he preached until midnight. By the way, can you imagine that for a moment? We program, we read people's attention spans and different things like that, so we feel like about a 60 to 70 minute service is about normal and that kind of thing, and most services you go to that's probably normal, and then we lose people's attention. Could you imagine showing up and us going until midnight?
I asked the staff if I could try that today and just see how you would respond. They told me that's a really bad idea, but the point is the thing that I want you to see is that the early church, here's what they were committed to. They were committed to the Bible. They wanted to learn. They wanted to grow.
They wanted to read. You see it also in the book of Nehemiah even in the Old Testament. Remember when Nehemiah comes back to Jerusalem? We just studied this as a church and he comes back to Jerusalem and he's leading the Jewish people back to God. He's rebuilding walls and stuff, but he's really leading the Jewish people back to God because they had just kind of ran away from God's presence and different things, and here's what happened is when he did that, you know what, is now they have a craving for the word of God. They actually come to Nehemiah and Ezra and they beg them to read more of the scripture. You know that makes me happier than any other pastor in the world is when you crave the word of God as much as I crave delivering the word of God. You see, what they did here, you get the sense that together they listened to Bible teaching together, not just in isolation, and by the way, for you, I think it goes beyond just church. I mean, one thing we did last year, we read the Bible through together and we were kind of on the same plan, and regardless of if you made it or not, don't feel bad about where you finished up at the end of the year. I just want you to make progress, but I really enjoyed hearing from several people and even seeing some things on social media of people that kind of made it, if you would, with their Bible reading. They made it through and things like that, and listen, we're mid-January and we're doing it again, and so if you're kind of like, man, I would love to get in on that.
I need a plan or whatever. We have plans in our Welcome Center. We would love for you to follow along with that. They're also digital on your phone with an app and just helping you stay in the Bible every single day. I don't think reading the Bible is always private. Sometimes it should be together where we're doing this together because we grow better together, and so what we find here first is together they listen to Bible teaching. Number two, we find that together they helped one another. The early church helped one another, but what you find here in our text is that they would sell their possessions and help meet the needs of one another, and they would do this, and then as a result of it, they had favor with the community. They had favor with the community, and you say, how in the world is that? Because here's what I'll tell you. As a pastor, I want us to have favor in our community.
That's what I desire. I think we do, but I think we could do a better job of having favor in the community. You say, what's the answer to that? What's the secret? How can we have better favor?
Here's what I'll tell you makes a difference. The ones out there, outside the church, they need to look inside the church and see that we treat people differently than people out there treat one another. That's why they had favor. You see that in verse 47. They had favor in the community.
You say, how in the world? It's because when the community looked inside the early church, they saw, wow, they do things differently than those outside the community. They handle one another differently. They care for one another differently differently than those outside. And that's why the scripture in the New Testament talks about the one anothers.
You know what I'm talking about? There's over 50 times in the New Testament that the scripture tells us to do something to one another. The reason why is because we're meant to be in relationship and we should treat people differently than the ones that are not a part of this community that Jesus has built.
A few of those are this. We should submit to one another. We should forgive one another. We should encourage one another. We should restore one another. We should accept one another. We should care for one another. We should bear one another's burdens. You see, for us, these are the one anothers that we should be doing with one another. That's why we should do this together. And what we find here in Acts chapter 2, together they helped one another.
They helped one another. And this is, you know, I talked about this a little bit last week. Church is like family, right? That's what it is.
That's what we call it. It's a family. And here's what I'll tell you. Healthy families help one another, don't they? Like, you, I mean, you help your family and your family probably helps you.
Why? Because healthy families will help one another. And here's what I'll tell you. Healthy churches help one another. Healthy churches show up when everybody walks out. Healthy churches care for you when you go through a crisis in your life.
You see, that is what the early church was built upon. Together, they not only listened to Bible teaching, but they helped one another, which leads us to number three. Together, they were generous with their money. They were generous with their with their money. You see that they would sell their, this kind of blows my mind. I mean, really.
Because I'm sure that they were like you and I, to some degree. And here's what I'll tell you about my life. I have way more than what I need, right? Any of you agree, you're like, man, I got way more than I need.
I'm right there with you. We have way more than enough stuff, you know. And here's what they would do in the early church, is if somebody in their church had a need, whatever that need might be, we don't know. But they have needs, just like we have needs in our church today. Here's what I'll tell you, is if they had a need, and they couldn't financially just meet it, here's what they would do.
They would look at their stuff, and they would take something and they'd go sell something. And then they take what they make off that and they distribute it to those with needs. You talk about generosity. That's as generous as they come. Because here's what I'll tell you, is that when other people have needs that come into my life, I'm kind of like, man, I'll try to throw some money their way, but I never ever think about, wow, look at all the abundance that I have, the more than enough that I have.
Why don't I get rid of some of my stuff, and I take that and I give it to the people in need. That's what the early church did. They were generous with their money. And by the way, remember the progression. The spirit indwells them, salvation, right?
After that, the results. We crave Bible teaching, we desire to help one another, and we're going to be generous with our money. You see, that's why Jesus talked about money more than he did heaven and hell in the Gospels, is because he knew that there's something about your heart and money, and they work together, right? And so he talks about money a lot in his teaching in the Gospel, because, here's the thing, if money can become an idol, right, of our hearts a lot of times. And so what he tries to tell us is we should lay up treasures in heaven. Like, why on earth would you just die and accumulate tons of stuff that's just going to rot and decay? What we see in the early church is when you get saved, you now start looking at your money and possessions differently.
You now are looking like, man, I don't need to just accumulate. I need to give. I need to give more.
I need to give of my own abundance so that I can help meet the needs of others. Number four, together you see that they unified around the mission. They unified around the mission. You see, the mission drove them. The early church was driven by the mission.
You say, what does that mean? Listen, here's what I'll just be honest with you, is the early church, they were human beings just like you, just like me, right? They had, you know that they had preferences, that they had opinions and different things. But what we see here from Acts chapter number two is that when the Spirit of God indwelt them, here's what I'll tell you, they became unified around one main thing, and that's the mission of reaching people with the gospel.
In other words, what you could say is this, is that they were driven by that. Here's what I'll tell you, I've been a part of church my whole life. I don't know what your upbringing was. I've been around a Baptist church my entire life. And here's what I'll tell you, and I'm not harping on Baptist or anything like that because I am a Baptist. We are a Baptist church. But being a part of church my whole life, when I talk to people from the outside, here's what I found, is when you mention that you're part of a Baptist church, sometimes that comes with a bad rep. I don't know if you guys ever talk about it at work or something like that, and somebody's like, oh, you're a Baptist church, right? Why do people have a bad taste in their mouth for that?
Here's why. It's because I've been a part of it my whole life, so I feel like I can speak to it in a very loving, respectful way. But here's what I'll tell you, a lot of us have lost sight of what is really important. And there's a lot of churches that have lost sight about what's really important. There's a lot of Baptist churches that have lost sight about what's really important. And here's what I'll tell you, is when we start focusing more on music preference and dress preference and money and budgets and buildings and chairs versus pews and all this kind of stuff and colors and all this kind of stuff, here's what I'm going to tell you, because listen, if you've been around church your whole life, you know what I'm talking about. If we start focusing on those things, if we start focusing on those things, and we make those things the main thing and we elevate them to be the main thing, then don't expect favor in the community. Don't expect favor in the community, because what you find in the early church, sure they had preferences over all those things, just like you do. And by the way, I pastor 400 different opinions.
I have people all over the place coming to me, you know, I want this type of music, I want this kind of music, whatever, and we're just going to tell you is this, we're not going to elevate those things to be the main thing. The main thing of why we exist is the mission that God has called us to, to reach as many people as possible with the gospel and to disciple them into becoming devoted followers of Jesus. That is the mission and that is going to drive what we do more than anything else. That's the main thing.
And all the other things that we get wrapped up in, they're all going to remain secondary because that is what we see here. They were together, all things common together in unity, unified around one main mission, the mission of going out and being witnesses, just like Jesus had told them two weeks before this happens. To be witnesses of him, to be eyewitnesses of what they have seen. So together they were generous with their money, they listened to Bible teaching, they helped one another, they were unified around the mission. And then number five, together they relied on supernatural power.
They relied on supernatural power. Like what's amazing here is, is as they're living out this new community that Jesus has built through his death, burial, and resurrection called the church, and they're gathered together. And here's what I'll tell you, is it says this, that signs and wonders were done. And in order for us to understand this, here's why I think it's important that you know why we exist and this is this. Jesus, when he ascended, it was about a couple of weeks before Acts chapter number two, and when he ascended and he's going back up into heaven, he gave the greatest commission ever to his disciples.
Go into the world, right? In Acts chapter one he says, hey you're going to be witnesses of me to everybody. The greatest commission, that's your commission by the way, that's my commission. And he gives us that commission, go out and tell everybody you know about him.
And here's what's interesting is this, is that as he gave him the commission, he's ascending back up into heaven. And if you're like me, like I don't know if you've ever sat in like a meeting at work, and maybe your boss or the person over you, they give you something that you have to do, right? They sit with you and say, hey I need you to get on this, okay?
This is important, you got a deadline, you need to start. I know for me when I come out of those meetings, here's what I'll tell you, my mind is already starting to turn like, okay I got to get on this now. So I leave the meeting and most of the time I'll start right away on whatever they just told me that I had to get on.
And you're probably the same way, because we're wired when we hear a commission, we're wired to just go out and try to execute and strategize about how to accomplish whatever it is we're commissioned to do. But as Jesus gives them this commission, he's going up to heaven, you know what he says to tell them? He says, but first before you do anything with what I just said, wait.
Wait. Like if I was there, I'd probably be like, well wait Jesus, before you go, there's a lot of people dying and they need this. Why in the world do we have to wait?
But here's why. About two weeks later they're gathered for Pentecost there in Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit comes and indwells them, and then Peter delivers his very first sermon and the church was birthed and thousands of people were added to the church. Here's what I'll tell you, is this, the reason why Jesus told them to wait is I think he was trying to teach us that whatever we do for him is worthless without the Spirit of God leading us. You can't do anything in your own power.
You can't do anything in your own strength for him. We must have the Spirit of God indwelling us and when he is indwelling you, then he can work through you. That's why I say it this way, he didn't invite the church to do the mission for him.
Like that's not the point of this. He didn't just leave it to the church, you go out and do all the work. No, he invited the church, you, me, Union Grove, to join him as he does all of the work in and through the church.
It's not just us, no, it's who is working in and through us and as a church we must rely on the power of the Spirit of God. Number six, the last thing is this, together together they focused on evangelism. Together they focused on evangelism. Here's what I'm gonna say as we kind of wrap this thing up is this, what you see here in Acts chapter number two is that the early church grew. The early church grew. You know, I talked a few weeks ago when we kicked off this series that church has really started out as a movement.
It started out with a movement, they didn't know a whole lot, they didn't have constitutions, they didn't have bylaws, they didn't even have the full 66 books of the Bible. When the church began it started out as a movement built upon this fact that Jesus was sent by God to us in the form of God to ultimately reconcile you and I to him, right? That's the movement and that's what they were built upon, that was the extent of it. And here's what I'll tell you is that when we think of movements, movements always what? Move, right?
I'm really smart, I came up with that, right? Movements move, movements don't just stay the same, movements grow, right? They expand, they multiply and what we see here is that the movement, it started out, it grew. The early church grew. I mean verse 41 that we looked at two weeks ago, 3,000 people were added to the church. Could you imagine that starting point?
I couldn't imagine preparing food for that, right? 3,000 people were added to the church. Verse 47 says that people were added daily. To the church.
Chapters 3 and 4 of the book of Acts, right after this, the lame man got healed and after that Peter gets up and preaches again. 5,000 were added to the church. The point is, is that the early church grows and here's what I want you to know. You might be thinking, well, the pastor is all about the numbers and things like that. Listen, it's not about the numbers, but the Bible carefully mentions growth and so we should be growing because, here's what I'll tell you, healthy things always grow, don't they? Healthy things grow, healthy things expand, healthy things move and that's why when we look at our church and we look at our mission of reaching as many people as possible with the gospel and discipling them into becoming devoted followers of Jesus, here's what I'm going to tell you, that's the scoreboard. So we should have more people saved this year than we did last year. We should have more people taking steps deeper into discipleship this year than we did last year. We should have more people involved in community, Bible fellowship, so I'll talk about here in a second, this year than we did last year. We should have more people using their spiritual gifts and serving in the local church this year than we did last year. We should have more kids in our kids ministry this year than we did last year, right?
Because healthy things grow and you say, are you all about the numbers? No, but here's what I'll tell you, every single number has a name and every single name has a story and every single story matters to God and so if we believe that, then we have to look at our church and look, are we being successful with the mission that God has called us to? So the early church, they did all of this together. They listened to Bible teaching together, they helped one another together, they were generous with their money together, they were unified around the mission they were unified around the mission together, they relied on supernatural power together and then together they focused on evangelism. They focused on evangelism, reaching people and getting out into their community. By the way, they didn't leave it up to the pastoral staff to have a really good outreach strategy to do it, right? A lot of times that's what we think like, man, we're not we're not seeing as many lost people in our church, we're not growing as much as we can be. Pastor, you got to improve your outreach strategy, got to do better, got to do better, like we got to really come up with something good to get into the community.
You know what the early church did? They collectively took that mission upon themselves so when they left, they realized when they left the gathering that we talked about last week, when they left the gathering, they left their scent on mission by him. Wherever they go to work, they're sent. Wherever they live, they're sent into that community. Their friend groups, they're sent. Their groups, they're sent there.
See, that's the point. They were on mission together. Everybody say the word together, together. You say, what does that, what does that look like? Well, a couple of things. Last week, we talked about this. We talked about Starting Point last week and here's what I'll tell you. If you've been attending our church for any length of time and you're kind of curious about some of this stuff we're plugging in, here's what I'm going to tell you. Starting Point is your next point. Like, if that's where you are, it's where you can learn about our church, get a little bit more of a deeper understanding of what we've been talking about in this series.
You can get to know our pastors and we would love to invite you to be a part of what God is doing as a local church. But the point that I want you to leave with is this today. We grow better together. We grow better in the context of relationships. And with that in mind, you say, how in the world do we do that here?
Well, listen, here's what I want you to know. On Sunday morning, we had a great first service and then we have a great second service every single week. And in the few moments that we have, this is not a place, it's not designed for you to really one another everybody in here in the one hour time slot in this room, is it? Like, remember when I was growing up, they used to have a fellowship time, shaking hands time.
How many of you remember that? Where it's like, hey, as the music plays, get around and high five as many people as you can. And you walk around and you're like, hey, how was your week? And by that point, the music guys are already like, okay, let's sing together. And you're like, man, I didn't even get any good conversations with anybody.
Here's why. The corporate time where we're doing this, it's just not meant for that. We'd have to put 20 minutes every single week of just the instruments playing and you guys mingle and stuff like that. Maybe we should do that, I don't know. The way that we do the togetherness and the one anothers here at our church, and it can be done differently at other churches, is through our Bible Fellowship classes.
Our Bible Fellowship classes. Like, that's the thing. I want you for just a moment, in the seats around you, you probably had one of these.
We tried to put them in every other seat. And I want you to grab one because I want you to look at it for just a moment as we kind of dismiss this thing here in a moment. It's this. This is our Bible Fellowship brochure.
It's up to date. It's all the information in there is right. And here's the thing. The best way for you to actually accomplish what Acts chapter two looks like is for you to consider joining one of these. For you to consider being a part of one of these. And so we've included on here all the details that you need to know. On the back you'll find the times that they meet, what they look like, and things like that.
On the inside you're going to find every class that we offer here at our church. And we try to include as much information as we possibly can for you. We included things like the demographic in there because I know some of you, if you have kids or if you know your kids are older or whatever, you're looking for some people that are around your age and stuff. So we try to put as much information as we possibly can in here for you, designed for you. And we put the leader's information. We put kind of the location of where they are in the building.
And I encourage if you're newer to this and you're going to try out a class, ask somebody where it is because finding things around here can be hard. Can I get an amen there? Seriously. It took me on my first day as senior pastor of this church, it took me like 20-30 minutes to find my kids' Bible Fellowship classes. I'm like, I'm the pastor.
I had no idea where I was going. And so, but for you it's the same thing. I get it. And so we put everything that we possibly can here. But here's what I want you to know about our church. Every Sunday we have about 415 people that attend on a Sunday. It's kind of our average every week between both services. Okay.
And every single week we have this. And here's what I'll tell you. It's always true that if somebody goes through a crisis in their life, you can tell the ones that are in a Bible Fellowship class or the ones who aren't.
It's very quick. You say, why is that? It's because the ones that are is that like Pastor Bailey and myself and Pastor David, we're almost like second fiddle to them. Like they'll keep us posted a little bit with their crisis because we're pastors. But at the end of the day, they have people bring in meals. They have people caring for them.
They have people visiting them in the hospital or helping with their family and their kids and stuff. And I look at that and I'm just kind of like, you know, like that's what the church is for. We have three pastors across our staff and here's what I'm going to tell you. 400 different people in this church. It's going to be really difficult for the three of us to look around during the two services we have and make sure everybody's there. Who did I see?
Who didn't I see? And things like that. And know every need that is represented in this place. So what we ask is as we get bigger as a church, we invite every single one of you to step out of a row and into these classes, which are smaller, because this is where the care comes in. This is where the one another's really take shape in your life.
Where when you are wanting to be sharpened, this is where it happens, right? Because this is the best place for that. And so what I want you to know, I also, there's a QR code up on the screen. If you're more of a digital type person, I wanted to provide that for you. You can look it up online.
It has all of this stuff online. But here's what I invite you to do. This whole one another, this whole community thing that we just looked at, studying the Bible together, helping one another, giving, all of these different things. Here's what I want you to know. The best way for you to do that is to get deeply involved in one of these.
Now I do want to say this. If you're in here today and you're looking at this and you're like, man, what I'm looking for is not there. Like what I'm looking for is not there. Here's what I'm going to tell you. You're a member of our church. Listen, this might be an opportunity, God telling you in your heart, hey, you need to start whatever you don't see. Because there's probably somebody else in here that's thinking the same thing. Like what I'm looking for might not be here. Maybe you need to be used by God to start whatever it is that you don't see listed. And I want to invite you today to say, how did we sign up for a class today? I really want you to because this is so important to me. It's where community happens best in our church.
And here's what I'd invite you to do. On this QR code, you can leave that up on the screen for just a moment. The QR code is actually, it has a form on there that you can fill out and you can actually sign up for a class, get more information. That form goes directly to our staff and a team member will reach out to you and follow up with you and get you plugged in so it's not awkward. I understand going to something for the first time can be weird, uncomfortable, and awkward.
Our job is to make that as seamless and smooth as possible for you. But if you're like, man, I don't do QR codes and I have no idea what to do with that thing right there. If that's where you are here today, in the seat back in front of you, there's two cards. There's one that's called a New Here card. Behind it is what we call a Next Steps card.
It's a black and white card and you can take one of those and you can fill it out and there's this box on there that says I want more information about Bible fellowships and we would love to get in touch with you and help you so that you can be in community together with other people. Can you bow your heads with me? Gonna invite Becky to come and I'm gonna invite everybody in here, if you would, stand with me for just a few moments. The heads are bowed, hearts are lifted in prayer. Listen, I know the next step is a little bit different.
The application in this service was a little bit different than it usually is. You might think there's not a reason to come pray but I don't know what it is that you have in your heart today. Perhaps you're in here today and you slipped in and you don't know Jesus as your Savior. You don't know Jesus as your Savior and you've kind of slipped in here today and you say I'm on the outside looking in at the church. I don't have the indwelling spirit of God in my heart and if that's you, would you just be honest with me and before God today and just slip up your hand high enough for me to see it, long enough for me to recognize that I'm not going to embarrass you but I want to pray for you and I want to help you and I want to help you in any way that I can. Anybody in here say that's not where, I'm not a Christian.
I've never believed. Well for the rest of us in here, I just want to challenge you to take a step deeper into connection. Perhaps you've been a part of our church for a long time and you just are one of those that slip in Sunday morning and then you slip out as quick as possible and then you slip out as quick as possible and you're not in deep relationship with people within our ministry here.
I want to invite you to take a step, maybe it's starting point, maybe it's a Bible fellowship class, but I encourage you to take a step towards deeper connection so that you could experience all that God has for you because here's what I want you to know. You're missing out. If you're not involved in all of these things, you're missing out. You're missing out on all of these things. You're missing out. If you're not involved in all of these things, you're missing out on something that God wants to do in your life through the people around you. You're missing out on something that God wants to do in your life through the people around you.
Whisper: medium.en / 2025-01-22 10:10:46 / 2025-01-22 10:32:20 / 22