Each One Bring One [B]

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Transcript:

We’re going to finish up the message this morning. I had something else prepared for tonight, but I only made it through one point of this morning’s message. Felt bad about that when I left, but at least I had a point, even if it was just one.

We’re going to start back in John chapter 1 where we were this morning. We started talking this morning about the theme that we used for this morning’s service of each one bring one. I told you we were going to talk about some things that we should be bringing people to.

Now, the emphasis for this morning was for each person to bring somebody to church. And that’s a good thing. We should be inviting people to church.

It is perhaps the easiest form of outreach is to be, as we meet people, just invite them to come to church. Now, I’ve read books that talk about evangelism that say, well, you know, people have gotten lazy. They just invite people to church.

Well, no, lazy maybe not to invite people to church at all. I could see the point they’re trying to make where we don’t want to just say that our idea of evangelism, our idea of outreach is just to invite people to church. But there’s nothing wrong with that being a part of it.

We need to be equipped to share the gospel with people wherever we have the opportunity. There are going to be times, though, we don’t always have the opportunity. We live in a fast-paced society, and we may meet somebody for 10 seconds.

And, you know, we may not have the time to go through the gospel presentation, but we certainly have the time to invite them to church. So there could be, I mean, there’s nothing wrong with inviting people to church. And I can assure you, as I did this morning, that if you invite them to church here, whether it’s what we’d call an evangelistic message or not, they will hear about Jesus Christ if they come to church.

But we need to be prepared and be able to share the gospel with people. It needs to be our motivation for what we’re doing in life to bring people to Jesus Christ. And that really was the point of this morning’s message as we looked at this passage in John chapter 1 that I’m not going to go all through again tonight. But we talked about when Andrew met Jesus, he went to follow Jesus, but the first thing he did was he ran and got Simon, his brother, and says, we’ve found the Savior we’ve been waiting for.

It’s Jesus of Nazareth. Come with me. And then Jesus, the next day, meets Philip, and Philip is told to follow Jesus.

And the first thing he does is run and get his brother Nathaniel, and he brings his brother to Christ. And for a Christian, each one of us should be focused on trying to bring someone else to Jesus Christ and the salvation he offers. We don’t save them. It’s not our job to save them.

We can’t save them. You know, I’ve heard little kids give a testimony after they’ve made a profession of faith, give a testimony before the church then of what happened in children’s church or vacation Bible school, and they’ll say, well, I prayed and brother so-and-so saved me. Okay, we have a problem here.

Either you’re just not expressing correctly what happened or we need to go back and you’re either misunderstanding or miscommunicating. There’s, hopefully they’re just miscommunicating what really happened. But we can’t save them.

We can’t even argue them into salvation. I hope nobody was bothered when I told this morning, anybody who may not have been a believer this morning, that it was not my job to argue them into heaven, and hopefully they felt safe in coming in here knowing they were not going to be beaten over the head. Guys, the Holy Spirit needs to work on.

It’s our job as Christians, as believers, to arrange the introduction to Jesus Christ, And then the Holy Spirit takes it from there. Now that is much more doable for us than to think we’ve got the sole responsibility of pushing them into heaven, saying just the right words or approaching them just the right way. You know what?

Just tell them about Jesus and trust the Holy Spirit to work. And so they went and got their brothers and said, you’ve got to come and meet Jesus. You know what?

They didn’t beat them over the head and say, well, let me tell you these 17 points about why you need to follow Jesus. They said, come and meet Jesus. You know what?

They dropped everything and followed him because Jesus took care of the rest. But we can’t save them. We can’t make them get saved, but we can introduce them to the one who can save them. And so it really is the job of every Christian, each one, to bring one to Jesus Christ and the salvation he offers.

We can lead the horse to water, and then it’s up to them and the Holy Spirit whether they drink or not. So we looked at these stories of Andrew and Philip, and there’s a principle for us there that that was the first thing they thought of. And if we are not focused on who can we bring to Jesus, then either, as I said this morning, we have either lost our awe of Jesus or we’ve lost our compassion for those around us.

And I lump myself right there in that category as well, because I don’t tell as often as I should. And so we need to ask ourselves, which is it? Have we lost our awe of Jesus or have we lost our compassion for the lost?

Whichever it is, and it could be both, we need to ask God to restore whatever it is that we’re lacking that has sort of quenched our evangelistic zeal. We’re going to turn to the second point tonight, which is in Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. I sat down and thought about all the things in the Bible that Christians were shown to bring other people to and thought of these three examples, thought of these three scriptures second one we’re going to look at is in Acts chapter 2 tonight.

Each one should bring one to the church and the truth it teaches. We’ve got each one should bring one to Christ and the salvation he offers, and each one should bring one to the church and the truth that it teaches. And we talked a little bit about Acts chapter 2 in Sunday school this morning as it applied to the church, and it applies here, and I didn’t do that on purpose.

I had this message ready before I knew I was going to be teaching Sunday school this morning and had looked at those scriptures, so it was just, I don’t want to say coincidence because I don’t believe in that, but it was just a happy occurrence that those two fit together today. We talked about, well, earlier in Acts chapter 2, we see Peter’s sermon at the day of Pentecost, and then we start reading in verse 41. It says, Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about 3,000 souls.

And the point that I made in Sunday school this morning, you know, I’ve always kind of glossed over that part in verse 41 where it says, then they that received his word, gladly received his word, were baptized. And today we would think of somebody gladly receiving the word as they enjoyed the message, they appreciated the message. That happens a lot.

I mean, you can find some Bible teacher, some that aren’t worth the title Bible teacher, but you can find some Bible teacher somewhere that you’re going to like what they say. And every Sunday, you know, we stand at the, I stand at the back door to shake hands with people as you go out. And most people say some variation of they enjoyed the message.

And that’s great. I mean, I’m glad you enjoy the message. I’m not telling you don’t say that to me because it does reassure me, okay, I didn’t put you to sleep.

As long as I don’t put me to sleep, we’re probably okay. But it reassures me that I didn’t put you to sleep. But probably even, I feel like some Sundays I get up here and it’s good, it’s probably interesting.

I feel like some Sundays I get up here and I drone on and is anybody even paying attention because I’m even lost about what I’m talking about. And I just trust that the Holy Spirit works in spite of the messenger sometimes. But it reassures me that you all are encouraged by the message.

But even, I would think, on a Sunday where you’re like, I didn’t care for that, there’s probably something you could find to like about the message. There’s probably something you can find a like about the Sunday school lesson. There’s something that can apply to your life that you can apply and that you can use.

That’s not the same thing as gladly receiving the word. Just because I came to church this morning and the preacher preached a sermon that made me feel good and I thought, yeah, I like that. That’s not gladly receiving the word.

Just because something was taught in Sunday school that answered your question that you’ve been struggling with for two or three weeks, and finally God gave you the answer out of the text on Sunday morning. That’s not gladly receiving the word. What they’re talking about here is when it says they gladly received his word, they’re referring back to the previous 40 verses in Acts chapter 2 where we read back at the sermon he preached, and I’m not going to go through all of it tonight because I could preach a five week series on just that sermon alone.

But he basically points out to them their sin as the nation of Israel in rejecting the Messiah had been promised to them, the Messiah that they’d been looking for all along. Remember, we read this morning that Philip said to Nathanael, the one that Moses wrote about in the law and all the prophets spoke about is Jesus of Nazareth. We found him.

We know who this promised Messiah is. They had been expecting for 4,000 years that God was going to send the Messiah to deliver the people of Israel. And yet when God did send his Messiah, they rejected him, they cursed him, they hung him on a cross and murdered him.

And so Peter points out to them that they had sinned against God and that when God deigned to deal with the problem of that sin, they killed the one he sent to deal with it. Now, ultimately, he says it was by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. God knew that was going to happen.

That was part of the plan that Jesus needed to die for our sins. And yet that didn’t absolve them of the responsibility of saying, you murdered the Messiah. And just because God knew you were going to do it, doesn’t mean you didn’t make the free choice to do it.

And he says, you’ve taken him and with wicked hands you’ve killed him. And he says still that God raised him up. And that now he says, and we are all witnesses.

They couldn’t argue with the resurrection as I’ve pointed out before. Even the Jewish authorities, as the story first started, they didn’t deny that the tomb was empty. They just said, we’re going to come up with a cover story to explain why it is.

And many of these people had seen Jesus walking around Jerusalem after he had been dead. He says, whereof we are all witnesses, not just we the disciples, but we, as in the inhabitants of Jerusalem, we are all witnesses, he says in verse 32. Then he talks about him being at the right hand of God the Father, and he ends in verse 36 by saying, therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ, that he is the master and that he is the Savior.

And it says in verse 37, when they heard this, they were pricked in their hearts. They were cut. Madeline was thrown a fit when I went to leave the house tonight because she didn’t want me to leave.

Madeline, stick a knife in here. It’ll hurt less. It’s killing me.

That’s what they felt. They were cut to the heart and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? I preached a message just on the subject of conviction about a year ago because we were going through a series on points that lead someone to conversion.

We might do that here sometime. But conviction is something we see in the Bible. And my mother, for years, when I said, I don’t understand why so-and-so is acting that way, mom would just say, well, it’s conviction.

Well, they’re probably just under conviction. That’s why they’re acting that way. And we see through the scriptures that when somebody is under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, they can reject it and they can run as far the opposite direction from God as they can possibly get, or they can run to God with such intensity.

But the one thing you can’t do under conviction of the Holy Spirit is sit still and ignore it. And so these men, it says they were pricked in their hearts and they were under the conviction of the Holy Spirit that they had sinned and that they had killed the Holy One that God had promised. And so their response was, as someone under conviction, what do we need to do now?

What must we do? And Peter said unto them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Now, I preached on this also as one of the most misinterpreted verses in the whole Bible, which, again, we might talk about that here too. Not going to get into all that tonight, except to say the point here was he was telling them they needed to repent.

Yes, it says, and be baptized. I’ll explain that another time. The Bible does not teach that baptism is necessary for salvation, as we talked about this morning with the thief on the cross.

He’s telling them they need to repent. Well, what is repentance? I’ve explained it before that it’s a change of mind.

It’s a change of heart toward God. And some people, you know, we don’t teach on repentance too much anymore, and we should because it is a part of salvation. Now, some people bristle against that because they say, well, you’re saying it works.

Now, I’m against those who say that he has to, what am I trying to say? There are some who teach he has to be Lord of everything or you’re not saved. Guys, we still have a sin nature.

And I’m not saying we as Christians have to be, I mean, I’m not saying we as Christians can live exactly like we want and still be Christians. Salvation is not fire insurance. What I’m saying is there’s a middle ground here between the people who embrace what the other side calls lordship salvation and the other side that says, well, it’s just cheap grace.

Grace is very costly. And my understanding of repentance, costly to the giver, my understanding of repentance from the scriptures is not that it’s teaching we have to clean up our whole lives before we can come to Christ. What I understand it to mean is that we can’t clean up our whole lives, and we actually feel godly sorrow over that for the first time. Because in our sin nature, please understand what I’m saying on this, in our sin nature, in our natural self, we are in rebellion against God, and we don’t care.

The Bible says that there’s none righteous, no, not one, says that we all like sheep have gone astray. We don’t care, and it says there’s none who seek after God, no, not one. We don’t care.

And even when we hear God’s law, even when we hear right and wrong, I’m going to do what I want still. And we don’t care. God says you need to be saved.

We don’t care until we get to the point of conviction where the Holy Spirit presses on our heart that we have sinned against a holy God. And we feel the weight of that sin. And just even the act of humbling ourselves before God to admit that we are wrong, I believe, is representative of that change of mind that repentance means.

An unrepentant man is not going to express faith in Christ. An unrepentant man is not going to humble himself to the extent to say, I do need a Savior. I believe the very fact that we realize our need for a Savior, the very fact that we realize our need for salvation, is an act of repentance. Because if we’re not repentant, we’re not going to care.

I didn’t mean to start anything. If there are some of you who are in the Lordship Salvation Camp or the other camp, I don’t hate anybody. I’m not going to argue with anybody.

I’m just saying I see a middle ground in there where God does offer grace because we need it, because we can’t clean up our lives in order to come to him. That’s the whole point of salvation. But at the same point, he says, now you’re saved, act like it.

That’s where I think the lordship part comes in. But he says, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. And ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you and to your children and to all that are far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, save yourselves from this untoward generation. Okay, now here’s where we need to focus on what it says, because it says that they had gladly received his word. What was his word?

It wasn’t just that he was teaching a Bible lesson. He was preaching what God said that they needed to repent, that they needed a savior, that Jesus Christ was the only one who could make peace between them and God. That was the message that day.

And for the Bible then to say those that gladly received his word, we’re talking about people who came to the point of conversion and there was faith expressed in Jesus Christ for the first time. Now why that’s important is this morning in Sunday school as we talked about the church, we talked about the idea of a regenerate church. That for church membership, you’ve got to be saved first. And that’s not to say we don’t love people who aren’t saved.

You know what? If this church was, if these pews were full of people who had never trusted Christ before as their Savior, I would be thrilled as I think everyone else in here would be too. And you know what?

We would not love them any less than we love each other. I firmly believe that. And yet it’s not the same as being a member of the church.

We have a bad concept of membership, church membership in America, where we think it’s kind of a country club setting and all these privileges come with it. Guys, there are far more responsibilities that come with church membership. And we’re talking about covenanting together and making a commitment together to work together and to serve together.

And when we say you can’t be a member of the church if you’re not a believer, it’s not to say you can’t be a part of the fellowship, you can’t be a part of the community here. But membership in the church is believers who banded together and said, now we’re going to hold each other accountable and we’re going to go to work. And so he says, those that gladly received the word were baptized, And the same were added unto them about 3,000 souls.

So we see as they’re becoming a part of the church, first there’s a profession of faith, there’s a conversion experience, and then there’s baptism that follows that as a testimony, a public testimony of what Jesus Christ had done. And I gave the example this morning that nowadays, unfortunately, churches seem to just baptize people willy-nilly and don’t really check, oh, you love Jesus? Okay, come on, let’s dunk you in the water.

We really should be asking some questions about their eternity, their understanding of the gospel. But there’s no commitment. There’s no accountability that comes with baptism, with church membership, and it shouldn’t be that way.

I think that’s why so many churches are spiritually shallow, because they become a country club where just, come on, we’ll baptize you, and it doesn’t matter. In their day and age, baptism was serious business. You were identifying yourself as a part of a group that was out of favor with society, and at many points out of favor with the government, and could very easily cost you your life.

There are some places in the world today where baptism could cost you your life. So it wasn’t just a rite of passage, well, I’m 12 years old now, I need to be baptized because everybody else in my family was. No, you’re identifying that I have trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior.

He’s my Savior, and He’s my Lord, and I’m going to follow Him. This was kind of like a scarlet letter to the outside world. This was a sign of a real commitment.

And so they were coming in to be part of the church. And you’ll notice it doesn’t say they were baptized and they were added to the church, 3,000 souls, and then they never heard from 2,900 of them again. Most of them weren’t there the next Sunday.

No, it says in verse 42, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers. So they continued to teach and to be taught what Jesus and the apostles were teaching. That’s important.

We need to be doing the same thing today. I’m not saying we’re not. I believe we are.

But churches need to still today be teaching, following, continuing in the apostles’ doctrine. The same thing that Jesus taught and that his apostles taught. And if we’re innovating and inventing new things that are not part of the apostles’ doctrine, you know what?

They may make for good opinion for us to discuss out in the foyer or for us to discuss at the table over lunch, but they’re not doctrine. And they have no business in the pulpit. We need to be focused on the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship.

Church was a commitment for them. The church was a way of life. It wasn’t, okay, it’s a Sunday morning thing and I’m going.

And then have no connection the rest of the week. Guys, as a church, got to be part of each other’s lives. Our commitment to our brothers and sisters in the church has got to be a seven days a week thing.

I’m not saying everybody needs to be in each other’s business 24-7. I’m not saying we need to go over and inspect each other’s houses and make sure you’re sweeping behind the refrigerator, that kind of thing. you don’t do that but we should know what’s going on with each other there should be fellowship here if we can leave from from this church or any other and there not be some pain associated with it then we never really had fellowship I’ve given this illustration so many times I don’t know about here but you can take two pieces of knitted what do you call it fabric or cloth after it’s knitted and you can knit those together I’m I really should know what I’m talking about before or at least I know what I’m talking about, but I should know the terminology.

I didn’t know what a tin horn was this morning, but you can knit two pieces of knitted material together, and then they become as one. Well, the only way I’m told then to separate them is to pull them apart or to cut them or do damage to one or both of them. And fellowship is a lot like that.

I believe the Bible talks about us being knit together in the church. Folks, we are supposed to be bonded to one another. And if I can just leave from this place tonight, I’m not going anywhere, I mean, other than home, I’m not, it’s not my last Sunday or anything as far as I know, but if I could just leave from this place tonight forever and not feel bad about it, then I’ve never had fellowship.

Even for a good reason, if God, if God led you to another church to serve in some capacity and you were gone from here and it didn’t, you didn’t miss each other, there was no struggle about it, then there never was fellowship. Folks, we’re supposed to be bonded together in the church. We’re supposed to have fellowship with one another, real relationships.

And in breaking of bread, they continued with the ordinances of the church. The last supper here, or the communion, I think, is what the Lord’s Supper, excuse me, is what’s being discussed here. And in prayers, and fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles, and all that believed were together and had all things common, and sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men, as every man had need.

And not that this has to do with the message too much, but I feel the need every time I mention this passage to explain this is not communism. Nobody was being made to redistribute their stuff at the point of a gun. It was voluntary charity here.

But they were taking care of one another and each other’s needs. 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 saved.

Doesn’t that sound like a great description? Or we said this this way. Doesn’t that sound like a description of a great church?

Don’t you wish every church could be like that? I’m sure it wasn’t perfect. It was made up of imperfect people.

But those are exactly the things that we should be doing. And that’s not to say shame on you. I’m just saying every church.

Those are the things that we should be doing. We should be able to bring somebody into the church, especially a new believer, especially if we’re doing our job about each one, bring one to Christ and the salvation he offers. Each one should be able to bring one into the church safe in the knowledge that that person is going to be discipled, that that person is going to be taught the truth, but that person is going to be given godly examples to follow that are going to strengthen them.

Because one of the hardest times for us in our Christian life is right after we come to Christ. And there’s the joy and there’s the euphoria for a little bit, and then the real world starts to knock us around. I think it’s because Satan wants to destroy the joy of the baby Christian. See if he can pluck something out by the roots.

The church absolutely is necessary to nurture new believers. And you know what? Don’t just limit it to new believers.

it’s absolutely necessary for us to nurture each other no matter how long we’ve been believers. Brother Dacus, how long have you been a Christian? Since I was born.

Okay. Well, you don’t have to give us the number of years, then. Brother Dacus has been a Christian for a day or two.

I’ve been a believer for 23 years. Many in this room have been born-again believers for that long or longer. We still have as much need for the church and for one another as somebody who is a newborn babe in Christ. because some of the struggles may change.

We may get past old hurdles and come up to new ones. The Christian life never seems to get any easier. I thought surely by this point in my Christian life, I would have some things figured out and be doing a lot better in some things, but it just doesn’t get any easier.

And we need to be together and we need the teaching of the truth. We need the godly example, the challenging and the encouragement. And we need to be bringing people into that.

And so many people see the church is someplace where we go and God takes attendance and he checks us off the list and then we leave. And it has no relevance to their lives. You know what?

It’s almost hard for me to blame some people my age and maybe even older who’ve grown up in church and now are out of it because they see no relevance. If that’s all church is, then why would we want to do that? The church is supposed to be so much more.

The church is supposed to be a place where people are real and we teach the truth and we encourage each other in our struggles. We challenge each other on the things that we need to change. And where God works in and through us to mold us into what we’re supposed to be.

And we see these kinds of things going on. Continuing steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine. Fellowship, breaking of bread, prayers.

Guys, where else are we going to get that out in the world? And I still say that for all of the demographic studies that show churches all across America are shrinking. And say more and more people are turning away from the church.

and more and more people view Christianity as irrelevant. I still say the church is the best hope for this or any other country. And not because we’re so great and people need to come be just like us, but because we serve a great Savior and because this is one of the very few places people are going to come and learn about that Savior and learn what it means to follow Him.

So each one should bring one to the church. These people were bringing 3,000. We should manage to bring one.

Each one should bring one to the church and the truth it teaches. But before we go and tell the world how important the church is, before we go and tell other believers how important the church is, we better act like we believe it ourselves. And third of all this evening, and I’ll try to get through this one a little faster because I’ve already gotten ahead of myself a little bit on the point.

Each one should bring one to Christ and the salvation he offers. Each one should bring one to the church and the truth it teaches. And then each one should bring one to maturity in Christ and the desire to serve him.

Turn with me to 2 Timothy 1, if you would, please. 2 Timothy 1. This idea of bringing someone to maturity in Christ and a desire to serve Him is making disciples.

It’s discipleship. I spent a lot of time the last few years talking about making disciples. And part of that was as part of our goal for the work in Norman.

Part of that was trying to take the church in Fayetteville to the next level. And discipleship seems like such a daunting word. Well, how on earth do I make disciples?

I mean, Jesus seemed to have been pretty good at it, and he made really 11 in his three years. And yet there are these discipleship gurus that seem to think that our churches should be reaching thousands and thousands. How is that possible?

Discipleship, disciple making is hard, hard work. But what it is is so simple. After a lot of study into the scriptures and to what people were talking about with disciple making, my understanding of discipleship is simply that we take someone from where they are in terms of their relationship to Christ. And that can be even before they’re saved.

They have a relationship to Christ even if it’s as a total stranger. But taking them from where they are and moving them closer to where they need to be, which is maturity in Christ. And part of that process can be working with somebody we know who’s not even a believer and sharing with them and talking with them and setting a good example for them and trying to bring them to a place where now their relationship with Christ is as one of his people. Some of that can be taking someone who is already a Christian and helping to bring them along to where we are.

Making disciples doesn’t mean that we have to be perfect, that we have to be as complete in Chris