WELL Church Pentecost, 2020 Acts 2: 42ff
Good Morning, today we continue our study on Acts 2:42-47 (NKJV)
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.
Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles.
Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. So, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.
Verse 42 is really a key verse here in Acts chapter 2. Verse 42 and they, the disciples and the 120 plus the 3,000 devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching
fellowship breaking to the bread and to prayer. (this is a video teaching) Now Sunday morning we are going to look at we are going to look at these ideas more in depth, but right now it is going to be just a shorter teaching
I want us to think about what is the church and how did God design the church to work and what did God designed the church to do? These thoughts are not new with me, and I would have no idea what pastor came up with these ideas or what layperson did but came up with the idea of the word WELL.
Do we have a WELL Church? Do we have a healthy Church? I find it interesting right now within our day with the COVID that the church is not being able to gather. Some churches have, some have not. Here at Calvary Reformed we have been doing the drive-in for quite a while.
I want to ask today though is our church WELL, are we a healthy church?
There was an atheist back in the 1700s who wanted to get rid of Christianity, and he said the best way to get rid of Christianity would be to get rid of Sunday's. Sundays, the time that we as Christians have an opportunity to gather to worship.
Hear again the words from verse 42, they devoted
themselves to the Apostles teaching, to the fellowship the breaking of the bread and to prayer.
First part that we see here with the idea of the word WELL ---"W” do we have a well church--- a healthy church? The 1st church was a worshiping body together. They met together daily ---daily they were together in worship. Daily they were breaking bread, daily they were in the temple and worship----daily. I am blessed I come to church almost every day of the week. I am able to be at church and do Bible study, to have prayer time. There others in the area who like to stop in to church for prayer time.
My question is--- do we as a church --do we gather
to be in worship to be a worshiping church and to realize life does not focus on me life does not focus nor on you.
Friends, life has to focus on the Triune God, and we are called to be a worshiping body together.
We are also called to be an evangelizing church. Evangelizing--- big word that simply means are we sharing our faith with others!! Are we sharing our faith in what God has done? Are we sharing those experiences that we have in our life with Jesus Christ with other people? And as we share his word the Lord will add new believers to our body.
I always find this amazing the stat, that a church
Calvary's age typically only has about one new believer per year for all our members, while new Church starts almost have one new believer per one person in the church!!! I wonder why is that?? Part of it is the fact that the longer we have been a Christian, the less we tend to share our faith and we are less excited about the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives.
Friends I think we need to get back to--- we need to
get back to our early faith and be as excited that as this
fly is to bite me (fly kept trying to bite me during the taping of this teaching). We need to get back and be that excited about our faith with Jesus Christ and be an evangelizing---- to be a church---- be a people that are willing to share our faith with other people.
We are called to be a worshiping church, to be an evangelizing church, to be a learning church as the early Christians (and we are called to) devoting themselves to be in study. They were listening to the Apostles teaching, they were looking back into the Torah, into the Psalms, see where Christ was prophesied about, and how Christ fulfilled all those prophecies.
Do you and I actually get into God's Word? I wonder if we would look at our life, and daily if we would add up how much time we spend watching TV or listening to the radio, or playing on Facebook, being on
Twitter or any of those social media programs ---versus how much do time do we open up God's Word?
How much time do we study? How much time are we looking at His call within our lives? Are we a learning church friends--- here at Calvary? We have the opportunity with Right Now Media, we have that opportunity to do so many different studies. I encourage you to be in study---- like the early church….
And the 1st Church was a:
- worshiping Church
- it was a evangelizing church sharing their faith
- it was a learning church, they were studying with each other
- but it was also a loving Church!!
WELL: they were gathering, daily they were sharing what they had they were providing for the needs for each other.
WELL
Worshiping/ evangelizing sharing our faith / Learning about what God has to say to us what scripture has to say to us / and loving each other.
I know I have hammered this point home the
last four or five weeks six weeks--- about our call is to have our hearts up to God and our hands out to others. Our call is to love God first with our heart soul mind and strength. That is part of worship. And then our call is to love our neighbors as we love ourselves---- that deals with the evangelism--- that deals with the learning scripture--- that also deals with being a loving community. May you walk in a loving faith community and may you love each other, in the name of the Father Son the Holy Spirit. May the Lord bless you and keep you, may He lift up His grace upon you may He grant you grace and peace Amen.
