It Takes a Church [A]

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Transcript:

If you haven’t gotten there yet, we’re in Acts chapter 2 this morning. I mentioned that it surprised me. I mean, I was assured by people here, we feel like we know how the vote’s going to go.

We’re going to call you. It still surprised me when you called me. It surprises me every time a church says, yeah, we want you, because I know me.

I know myself. And I know that people look at pastors and people look at church leaders and think they’ve got everything together. I remember growing up and looking at the pastor thinking he was almost superhuman.

I know me, and that’s not me. I’m just an ordinary person. I really, I look at myself, and despite the fact that I wish it was, I wish something different, I look at myself and I realize I’m really not all that special. And it’s amazing to me still, even after all these years, that God would call me into ministry, that God would keep me in ministry.

I know most of you know something about my past. A few years ago, I found myself pastoring a church, and suddenly, without warning, abandoned by my wife, and left to raise two. I mean, Madeline wasn’t even a year old yet. Left to raise two little kids as a single father.

There are people much better equipped for this job who don’t have the constraints on their time that I had, and yet God kept me in ministry. Most people are shocked to find this out because you just kind of have to learn to put it aside in ministry, but I’m really kind of a shy person. My family’s looking at me going, no, you’re not.

That’s because I’ve known them my whole life. I really am kind of a shy person. I’m terrified of imposing myself on somebody, terrified of using the phone, some things like that.

I’m kind of a shy person. You know, getting up and speaking in front of a group doesn’t bother me, but sometimes I get to talking to somebody one-on-one, and the words just sort of get mangled up. There are better people that God could have called for a job like this, who are not so shy, who are naturally outgoing, who don’t have to push themselves to do that.

I had a speech impediment growing up. There were several letters of the alphabet I could not pronounce until around the time I hit junior high school. And sometimes my speech still isn’t all that clear.

It took a lot of work to get through that. Surely there are better people that God could have called to preach the word. And I could go down through the list of all the things I know about me and all the reasons I’m not qualified for this job, all the reasons why there are better people, and certainly there are people that on paper are better qualified to serve God in this capacity.

I don’t know why he chose me, but he did. And the reason I tell you that this morning is because I think we all think for whatever God calls us to do, God, there’s somebody better that you could call to do this job. there’s somebody better you could call to serve in this way there’s somebody better to teach Sunday school there’s somebody better to work in the nursery there’s somebody better to go visit people at the hospital there’s somebody better to go knock doors there’s somebody better whatever the ministry is that God might have called you to do I’m going to tell you there’s somebody better than you to do that ministry and I don’t say that to be mean because I’m the first to say it about me there’s always somebody better qualified or who looks better on paper.

And yet God calls us to accomplish a ministry. I’m here to tell you, if God can use me, and He has, and I pray that He still will. I pray that I do a great job for you and with you.

If God can use me and can still use me to pastor a church, God can use you to do anything He wants you to do. As churches, we look at this and say, well, we’re too small, we’re too poor, we’re too old. I’ve heard all sorts of reasons and excuses why a particular church can’t do a particular task that they feel God is calling them to do.

God can use anybody and any group of people that he chooses to, to do the task that he called them to do. We’re going to look this morning, and then I’ll come back and finish it tonight, because I already feel I’m running short of time, and that really is okay. We’re going to come back and finish this tonight, but we’re going to look at the early church in Jerusalem, and how God used them to accomplish incredible things for them.

You realize that we read through the book of Acts, and we see these people and the incredible things they did, and we look at Peter, for example, and we look at James, and we look at John, and we look at Paul later on and think, oh, if you’re like me or like I was growing up, we think they’re these superhuman characters. I mean, they’re practically halfway between man and God. They’re just sort of somewhere here in the middle.

They’re above us. These were regular men. These were regular people who God used.

and when you look at it and you realize all these miracles all this work, all this evangelism, all this discipleship all the work of carrying the gospel forward that took place in the book of Acts when you stop and look at it you realize it started with a church of about 11 men as the core group and then a few hundred others who were sort of around them but really it started with Jesus training up 11 men to carry the gospel and to make disciples these men were not particularly well educated they weren’t Paul later on we read about him he was pretty well educated Jesus went down to the docks and found most of these guys they weren’t particularly wealthy they made their living as fishermen they weren’t particularly influential it’s not like everybody knew who they were and wanted to follow them Jesus took 11 regular people and trained them up and sent them out to carry the gospel and to make disciples and we see that God used ordinary people.

He took ordinary people and He put them together as a church and He did extraordinary things with them. Now we’re going to start in verse 37. Peter has just preached his sermon at Pentecost. He’s explained to the Pharisees and the scribes and everyone else who’s gathered there in Jerusalem.

It’s a time when Jews from all over the world gathered in Jerusalem to worship. And all of these people are there and some of them are ridiculing Peter and James and John and the others for their belief in the resurrection. Well, Peter launches into a sermon.

The other men are preaching and explaining, and a crowd is gathering because people are hearing the gospel preached in their own language. From people who did not know their language. That’s something that does not happen every day.

It would be as if we gathered in people just from all over the world, and they came in here today, And I began to preach, and they began to hear the message of the gospel in Chinese. I know three words in Chinese. And they all come out with an oaky accent, so I’m not going to tell them to you this morning.

But I know three words in Chinese, and none of them are particularly useful in preaching the gospel. But I began to preach, and they began to hear in Chinese, in a language they understood. or in German, or in Polish, or in Swahili.

You name the language. And they began to hear languages that Peter and James and John would not have known how to speak. And a crowd gathered, and Peter stands up and delivers one of the most eloquent sermons in the history of Christianity, where he lays it all out for them.

He goes back to the Old Testament scriptures and said, Jesus is the one that the prophets have been speaking about for hundreds and hundreds of years. He refers back to what David wrote a thousand years before. He refers back to what the prophet Joel wrote some 600 years before.

The one that you’ve been looking for all this time is Jesus Christ. And by the way, God sent him to be the Messiah. God sent him to be the Savior, the one who would deal with the problem of your sins, and you took him and with sinful hands you killed him. but never fear because this same Jesus God raised him up from the dead.

Now Peter said it much more eloquently than I am today. I’m giving you a brief synopsis of it. And in verse 37 their response is one of absolute conviction.

It says, Now when they heard this they were pricked in their heart and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Now it loses a little something in my reading of it. But when it says they were pricked in their heart, They were cut.

They were hurt. Sometimes somebody will say something. Sometimes Charlie and I will harass each other.

And once or twice I’ve looked at her and said, Do you want the knife back or shall I keep it? Just joking. But sometimes, folks, words can cut you to the heart.

Sometimes words can hit you right here where you live. And this realization, ladies and gentlemen, that they had taken the Son of God, that they had taken the one who was sent to die for them, the one who was sent to be the Messiah that they’d been promised and were looking for, that they had taken him and they had killed him. And yes, it was God’s plan, but they had killed him because they hated him.

They were hit with that with conviction. They were convicted. They were nailed right in their spirit of what they had done.

And they cried out, what must we do? And that’s the incredible thing about conviction. Conviction will not allow you to stand still.

When the Holy Spirit convicts us, it will not allow us to stand still. Growing up, I used to ask my mother, why is this friend of mine acting this way? Why is this person doing this?

Why is this person? And it got to where I could answer the. .

. She’s looking right at me. It got to where I could answer, I could give her answer before she did.

It’s just conviction. They’re under conviction. I got so sick of hearing, they’re under conviction.

But she was right. Because conviction will drive you to God, or it will drive you away from God. It will cause you to either repent or it will cause you to rebel, but the conviction of the Holy Spirit will not allow you to stand still.

And so when he preached this message that you’ve taken the Son of God and you’ve killed him out of your own hatred, they were pricked in their hearts. And they couldn’t just say, no, we’ll think about that a little bit. They said, what must we do?

Then 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 this verse is taken out of context a lot to try to teach the idea that you have to be baptized in order to be saved. And at some point later on in the future, I’ll come back and try to give you a better, more thorough explanation of why that’s not the case. But this morning, in the limited time we have, I will tell you that baptism is not, from the rest of the scriptures that I read and understand, baptism is not something that saves you.

But in their day, the idea of baptism meant publicly identifying with Jesus Christ and meant following Him. In their day and age, in the place where they lived, where being a Christian could cost you your life, we didn’t have the problem of people saying, well, I’m part way in, part way out. I’m in today, but we’ll see what tomorrow holds.

You were either all in or you weren’t. You counted the cost very carefully before you decided, I’m going to identify myself with Jesus Christ. And when the conviction came upon you that you repented, that you said, you know what, God has been right about my sin all this time, and I have been wrong about my sin, and I need to agree with God, and I need to get the sin forgiven, and I need to trust Christ for my sin. When you go through that repentance, the idea that you would not follow him in baptism was completely foreign to them.

I waited several months. I was five years old when I trusted Christ as my Savior, and didn’t really understand the concept of baptism. Kids who were a little older than me in church had told me that it was so you didn’t get dirt on you in heaven.

I don’t know where they got that. I don’t know where they got that, but I was scared of the water, and quite frankly, keeping dirt off of me in heaven was not a good enough excuse to be put underwater. It took a few months before I fully understood what baptism was for.

But ladies and gentlemen, their idea in their day was, you trust Christ, and you’re immediately going to go out and be baptized. You’re going to go out and immediately identify yourself with Jesus Christ. So it’s not that baptism causes salvation. It’s that the idea of repentance and baptism were so linked in their minds that they couldn’t separate them.

So the important thing is here, he tells them in response to this message you’ve just heard, repent, trust Christ as your Savior, agree with God about your sins, and ask Christ to forgive you. Trust Christ as the one to have died in your place. He said, and you will receive the remission of sins and the gift of the Holy Ghost. He says, 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.

They believed, those who were in attendance that day, believed that they were going to be saved because of their family history. We’re descended from Abraham, we’re Jews, we’re the chosen people, so naturally we’re in. But Peter says here, the promise of this remission of sins is not just for you.

This promise is for everyone. He says this promise is for you and for your children, meaning posterity, generations to come. But it’s also to those who are far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

You know what? That included the Gentiles as well. That included most, if not all of us.

If you’re not of Jewish descent, you’re a Gentile. And thank God, he said, it’s a gift that’s for as many as God shall call. even those who are far off, even those who are strangers, even those who are foreigners from this covenant that God has made with the Jewish people.

He said this promise, this forgiveness of sins, is available to you and to your children and to everyone who will just repent. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation. And then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.

So what has taken place here when it says they gladly received his word? What’s his word? His word was a message of salvation.

His word was a message that Jesus Christ came to die for our sins. He came to die for my sins, for your sins. He came to die in our place because we couldn’t earn our way back into God’s good graces.

We couldn’t earn our way to salvation. We couldn’t earn our way to heaven. There’s no amount of good that we can do that could undo the wrong that we’ve done.

And so God sent Jesus Christ to die for our sins, and now forgiveness is offered if we’ll simply believe the promises of God, if we’ll believe that we needed a Savior, and Jesus Christ is the only one who could do it. And we’ll ask God’s forgiveness on that basis. Those who gladly received that message came forward and were baptized.

They made a public profession. They not only said in their hearts, I believe, but they told the world, I believe. That’s what baptism is.

It’s a picture of identifying with Jesus Christ. I believe and I will follow him. And it says that same day were added unto them about 3,000 souls. 3,000 people were added to the church that day.

Can you imagine? Can you imagine if 3,000 people were added to this church today? I don’t know what we would do.

That’s about half the population of Seminole, correct? We don’t have room for all of those people in here. We don’t have not even seating room issues.

How are we going to care for all those people? How are we going to teach and train and disciple all those people? How are we going to keep track of all those people?

I mean, it’s a great problem to have. It’s a problem I wish we had. But that’s an incredible influx of people.

And it started because 11 men stood up and allowed God to use them. They spoke the truth and allowed God to use them. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and prayers.

Now, it says they. And we would look at that and say, well, they who were the church already. Yeah, I’ve always read that and thought the disciples, the apostles, they continued steadfastly.

Reading that again, it’s talking about those who gladly received the word. They came in and they were brought into the church. Now, please understand when I say brought into the church, I don’t mean a building.

They didn’t have a church building back then. They were brought into the fellowship, into the community of the church. They were made part of the church and the work and the ministry, and they were trained and they were taught.

starting from these 11 men and working out, and it says, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine. Now, why is that important? It’s important because it matters what a church believes.

It matters that we’re true to the scriptures. It matters that we’re true to the faith once delivered to the saints. They didn’t come in in the early church and say, well, we’re just going to believe whatever we want to believe, teach whatever you want to teach.

It really doesn’t matter. We need to be able to unite around some basic principles of doctrine. Some basic biblical teaching has to be the basis for our fellowship.

Now there are some things that Christians, that Bible-believing Christians can and do disagree on. There are some things that even as Baptists we can and do disagree on. But we need to be united around some basic ideas, some examples of what I’m talking about.

I’ve never been in a church before where there weren’t about seven different opinions on what order things are going to happen in in the end times. And that may be the case here. I don’t know.

I haven’t gotten to pick your brains about that. I know what I understand the scriptures to teach, but I’m also open to the fact I don’t, there’s a lot in Revelation, there’s a lot in Daniel that I don’t understand, and I’m open to be shown from the scriptures. When I went in view of a call to Fayetteville years ago, they asked me where I stood on the end times, and I told them, and I did not mean this as a cop-out in any way, shape, or form, I told him I was pro-millennial. Whatever God’s going to do, I’m in favor of.

However he’s going to work it out, whatever order that happens, I’m in favor of. Whatever God wants to do. And we can discuss and debate, is it pre-millennial, is it post-millennial, is it amillennial?

We can debate those things and still be brothers and sisters in Christ. But there are some things that we’d better be in agreement on. How does one get to heaven? I’d say that’s a pretty important one.

That’s the kind of issue where the church needs to speak with one voice. Is Jesus Christ the way, the truth, and the life where no man comes unto the Father but by him? Or is he one of many ways?

My Bible says he’s the only way. And we’d better be in agreement on that. There were some things that the apostles taught that weren’t, it’s not that it was their opinion.

I mean, who are the apostles? They’re just 11 ordinary men. These are the things that they were taught from Jesus Christ and then they passed on to others.

they continued steadfastly in teaching the truth of God’s word. They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and of prayers. There was prayer, there was fellowship together.

And it says, 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 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. Now, I’ve got in front of me about six points about the job of the church and things that we’re supposed to do. I may just come back and visit that tonight.

Because I want to share a few things with you just out of this passage that I have recently come to focus on. As I said, this started, this whole thing started with 11 men who allowed themselves to be used of God. It started with 11 men.

Nowadays, the thought is you’ve got to have hundreds of people to start a movement. You’ve got to have hundreds of people to do anything worthwhile. This started with 11 men who allowed themselves to be used of God.

And what I see is that they went forward and they did what God called them to do. They did what God called them to do. They were faithful to stand up and open their mouths.

And God provided the words. God even provided new languages. Folks, there’s nothing God can’t do.

But God provided the words. God provided new languages. they were faithful to open their mouths, and God made something miraculous happen.

And then people were added to the church. And then they began to train them. They began to disciple them.

They began to teach them so that these new people could continue steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship and in prayers. And then we see later on in verse 46, they continuing daily with one accord in the temple. They still continued to come together and worship at the temple, but it says they went from house to house.

They taught house to house. They made disciples house to house. They did ministry house to house.

I’m not saying sell the building and let’s all go house to house. But what I’m saying is this is not a ministry that was done only by 11 men in church leadership. This is a ministry where the people got involved and God used every one of them to do what he called them to do.

I want to share a couple of stories with you. Brother Forrest and I were talking before church a little bit about getting people involved in ministry. and there is a tendency to say, well, that’s what we hire the pastor for.

I don’t think that’s the case here because I talked with the search committee before I came and I think they were specifically not interested in that idea. But the point I’ve always tried to make at any church where I’ve been is if the pastor is solely responsible for all the ministry that gets done, there’s only so much that can get done. There’s only a little bit that can get done.

If it falls to the responsibility of the pastor and the deacons even, there’s still a very limited amount of ministry that can take place. But God has called all of his people to be involved in the ministry. And folks, I will tell you that it doesn’t even have to necessarily be directed from the top down.

And by that I mean from the pastor down. Sometimes we’ll say, well, whatever, this is something we talk about, sometimes we’ll say, well, whatever your idea is, and the pastor comes in and brings programs, and this is what we’re going to do, and everybody follows along and does that. And that’s fine.

But where I’ve seen the most ministry happen, where I’ve seen God really work in the people, and God really work in the church, is where we step back and say, we’re going to train everybody to do ministry. And you go do the ministry you’ve been called to do. You go, as it says here in the book of Acts, house to house.

You go do the ministry that God’s called you to do. And I may not know what that ministry is supposed to be. God gives you the marching orders.

The Holy Spirit tells you where to go. And we go do ministry. To give you some examples, a couple years ago in Fayetteville, I started a training program called Disciple Way that I had been trained in.

And it was a seven-part series where we’re trained on the disciplines of the Christian faith and how to make disciples who will make disciples who will make disciples. The idea that every one of us is involved in this job that God has given us of making disciples. We started with the series on Bible study.

Not that we were going to meet together and have Bible studies, but we were going to meet together and learn how to study the Bible for ourselves. And I prayed and prayed that God would use this to really get the people excited about ministry. And the way this was, it was supposed to be like a seven-week series through how to study the Bible.

That’s what the people who wrote the curriculum and trained me in it told me. Well, I told them after a year, we’re still working on Bible study because we’re going to go at the speed we need to and make sure we get it. If people have questions, I’m not here to buzz through lessons, but to make sure we teach people how to do things.

As we started working on this series of training, how do we study God’s Word? Within a week or two, one of the ladies had come to me and said she’d gotten excited she’d led her neighbor to Christ, and she was now taking her through this study. Now, the thought is, well, I haven’t trained her in the whole thing.

Doesn’t matter. She just takes her through what we’ve already done, and we progress each week. And she was training someone else in how to study their Bible and follow Christ. Ladies and gentlemen, I didn’t tell her to go do that.

I didn’t tell her, you need to go talk to this neighbor next door, and you need to go lead them to Christ, and then you need to teach them, train them how to study their Bible. She got excited about ministry and realized she could play a part in God’s work. And she started reaching her friends and neighbors and leading people to Christ, And she’s leading Bible study groups now.

There’s another lady who went through some of our discipleship training. 75 years old. Very sweet lady.

She’s been through a series of difficult circumstances that I would say, oh my goodness, how are you focused on anything outside of your personal life? And yet she made the decision that God was leading her to go work with the homeless. how do you fit that in with all the trouble you’ve got going on but God called her she got excited about ministry through through what we were doing through the training she decided God had called her to go work with the homeless she now goes out several days a week into the park where homeless people hang out during the day and she takes some food and leads them through Bible study and ministers to them I didn’t tell her to do that the church works best when we start getting the vision of realizing that God can use each of us, and we begin to take what we’ve come together and learned, and we go house to house.

And again, what I mean by that is where you get excited about ministry and don’t have to wait for what’s the next program we’re going to do, what does the pastor say we should do, what has God told you to do? And realize you can go do it and get excited about what God’s called you to do, and take that ministry house to house. And the job of the pastor is to do that as well, but to train you and help you and equip you in any way, shape, or form possible.

Because again, if this work had been limited to what the 11 men could accomplish, it’s not going to be much. If the work we do together as a church is limited to either what I do or what I encourage or twist your arm to do or whatever it is, it’s not going to be that much. But when we let the Holy Spirit lead us and we begin to go out of these four walls and go house to house, and each of you, whatever God calls you to do in ministry, go do that.

I’ve heard of people starting sewing ministries. I’ve heard of people starting arts and crafts ministries where they get people together and they do paintings and they talk to them about the Lord. You may have an idea that God’s placed on your heart for ministry that I’m not creative enough to have thought of in a thousand years.

But the idea is to come together and learn and be equipped and then take the message of the gospel out with us, house to house, and let God use us as he sees fit. Now we’ll come back tonight, and I hope you’ll be back tonight, and I’ll talk to you about some of the jobs of the church, some of the things that God has left the church as a whole, all of us here to do together. We’ll talk about that from this passage.

But this morning, I really just want to leave you with that one point of beginning to consider, what is it that God’s called you to do? I want you to realize that God can use you in ministry. You could probably make a list on paper today if you wanted to.

Of all the reasons why you couldn’t do the thing that God’s called you to do. All the reasons you’re not qualified, I’m not educated enough, I’m too tired, whatever. You know what, we all come, I’m sorry, I’m tongue tied, but I’m excited, and that’s why.

We all come up with reasons why we’re not qualified to do the things God’s called us to do. Yet we realize that God can empower any of us, God can use any of and God desires to use all of us. And the church functions best. This church or any church functions best when we follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit and do the things that God’s called us to do.

So what I’ll leave you with this morning, I’m sure you all pray for the church. I’m sure there are some of you in here who pray for the church every day. Many of you have talked to me about a desire to see the church grow and rebuild and bring more people in.

What I would challenge you to do and what I would ask you to do with me is to join with me in praying every day that God would begin to prepare us for what he chooses to do in and through us. I shared with Brother Terry just in the passing comment a couple weeks ago when I was here. My understanding of my philosophy of ministry is that if we build the people, if we work on building the people, God will build the church.

Because I’ve seen God bring people into the church that we never did anything to go get that particular person. that God was equipping and preparing people in the church to minister, and somehow he brings it all together. So I would ask that you join with me in praying that God would begin to prepare us as individuals, as a church, that God would prepare our hearts for what he plans to do in us and through us to reach Seminole.