What is balance? Balance is a tricky thing. The last couple months I have watched Victoria learn the concept of balance when it comes to a bicycle. It was a tricky at first for her. She was constantly leaning to one side. One training wheel was well worn, and the other looked brand new. Slowly but surely she learned not to lean too far one way or the other. About a week ago, I took off the training wheels and she is doing well without them. She learned a valuable lesson: balance.
At pastors’ retreat two weeks ago, Dr. James Diehl shared with us the concept of balance. He shared a verse with us that I had never really noticed before. Proverbs 25:16 says, “If you have found honey, eat only enough for you, lest you have your fill of it and vomit it.” Balance. Honey is one of my favorites, but like anything too much of it is detrimental. Balance is key to our diet. One reason many of these fad diets out there don’t work is because they lack balance. I believe the key to losing weight is a well-balanced diet and exercise. Balance is key.
We get out of balance when we focus on one thing to the neglect of other things. Last week we talked about stewardship of our time. There is a balance in our time. We balance our job, family, and other activities. To overdo one of those areas to the neglect of another is to throw our life out of balance. Excessive work will bring about the neglect of our family. To overdo it on family time will likely have a negative effect our employment.
This week, we are talking about the stewardship of the Church’s calling. Again we must look for some semblance of balance. Churches get off track when they overemphasize one aspect of our calling. We can also get off track by neglecting some aspect of our calling. The measuring stick is the early Church. Turn with me to Acts 2 and 4.
Read Acts 2:42-47 and 4:32-37.
There is a lot in these two passages. Some may say, “How can we possibly measure up to what the early Church did?” The key is in separating the essentials from the non-essentials and in reaching a balance. The early Church was a W.E.L.L. balanced church. If you think of the world “well” as an acrostic, you visualize WELL spelled vertically. In these passages, we find four principles of the WELL-balanced Church.
The first aspect is the “W” which is…
Worshipping
A WELL-balanced Church worships. Worship is a verb. It is action. In verses 2:46 and 47, we find that the early Church worshipped. Verse 46 says, “And day by day, attending the temple together…” and verse 47 says that they praised God. That is worship.
They worshipped in both public and private. They met in the Temple of Jerusalem to worship on a daily basis. They also met in various homes and worshipped.
Verse 46 says that they had “glad and generous hearts.” It is impossible to truly worship God and be in a grouchy mood. The New Testament scholar William Barclay wrote, “A gloomy Christian is a contradiction in terms.” Worship brings us into the presence of God, and when we are in the presence of God, we cannot be gloomy. A “gloomy Christian” would be an oxymoron. Worship that is real is vibrant and joyous. Worship points our thoughts toward God. There is a song that goes, “We have come into His house and gathered in His name to worship Him.” When we sing that, it is difficult not to have a smile on your face. We don’t sing it, (sadly) “We have come into His house and gathered in His name to worship Him.”
The other thing that they did was to worship daily. They went to the temple every day. Worship is more than just a Sunday morning occurrence. We are to worship God on a daily basis. That doesn’t mean that we necessarily have a church service every day, but we are to worship God in all that we do. Pastor Warren Wiersbe, who is one of my favorite authors, says, “Their Christian faith was a day-to-day reality, not a once-a-week routine. Why? Because the risen Christ was a living reality to them, and His resurrection power was at work in their lives through the Spirit.” Jesus was so real in the lives of the early Church that they couldn’t help but worship on a daily basis. Is our worship a day-to-day reality or a once-a-week routine? How is it in your life? Is Jesus a reality every single day in your life? Or, is it a matter of going through a routine on Sunday mornings?
What about balance? Balance in worship is a matter of how we do it. We also need to balance worship against the other functions of the Church. The main focus of balance in worship is methodology, or how we conduct worship. There are some who think that worship from the time of the New Testament until the 1970s or 80s was basically the same. That is not true. Worship style changed.
I have heard people criticize the use of drums in a church service, because they are a “bar instrument.” This same person praised the use of the “sacred organ” in the church. What they failed to realize is that the organ was originally a barroom instrument. That’s being out of balance.
It is also lost on many people that the sacred hymns of Charles Wesley were set to the popular tunes of the day that were sung in the bars. As John and Charles Wesley would seek to minister to the men working in the mines of England, Charles would write lyrics and set them to the tunes of popular bar songs. As the miners would exit the mine, they would hear familiar tunes. Naturally curious they would come closer to investigate, and then John Wesley would present them with the gospel. England experienced a great revival as a result of the work of John and Charles Wesley.
Balance in worship means that we find a balance between the sacred hymns of the past and the sacred contemporary music of our day. A WELL-balanced Church worships in a balanced way.
The second aspect of the WELL-balanced Church is the “E” which stands for…
Evangelizing
Just prior to these events in Acts, right before Jesus ascended to Heaven, Jesus commanded his disciples, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” That is the Great Commission. That is our mission.
We see the early Church engaged in the task of evangelism in verse 43 of chapter two and verse 33 of chapter four. Verse 43 talks about the signs and wonders done by the apostles. Verse 33 says, “And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all.”
When we look at that verse, we have to remember what happened right before that. In chapter 3, Peter and John went to the Temple and healed a man, which caused quite a commotion among the people. They then wound up in front of the religious council. Chapter 4, verse 18 says, “So they [the religious leaders] called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.” They had been ordered to keep their mouths shut about this Jesus, but that didn’t stop them from testifying to the resurrection of Jesus.
Where are we when it comes to evangelism? Churches aren’t growing in America anymore. A recent survey indicated that only 20% of American churches are growing. To that we might say, “Well that’s not too bad.” When the figures were analyzed further, it was discovered that less than 5% of churches were growing as a result of reaching the previously unchurched segments of our society. That means that the other 15% are growing as a result of church hoppers.
If each of us has a fish aquarium, there are two ways we can get more fish in our aquarium. We can either go out and fish for our own, or we can steal fish from someone else’s aquarium.
If we are to have a church grow, there are two ways we can do that. We can either go out and fish, or we can steal from some other church. I don’t know about you, but I think the best way is to go out and fish in uncharted waters for fish that aren’t already in an aquarium. The Great Commission doesn’t tell us to go and steal people from other churches.
What were they telling others? They were telling others about the resurrection of Jesus. The great Nazarene scholar Ralph Earle said, “For it was Christ’s resurrection which validated His sacrifice for sin.” If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then everything that they were doing was totally useless. The power of Christ is in the resurrection. If Jesus had remained in the grave, then everything up to that point was meaningless.
Jesus should the center of our evangelism. That is a non-negotiable issue. So, where does balance come in?
Like in worship, balance comes in play when we discuss methodology. Forms of evangelism that worked in the past, don’t work now. How many of you like door-to-door salesman? The profession of being a door-to-door salesman is dying, if it isn’t already dead. People don’t want to be bothered in their castle by a total stranger. What about direct mailing? I must confess, when we bought our house, we got a couple mailings from various churches. My first instinct was to pitch it. I only looked at them out of curiosity. People dislike junk mail. What about the telephone? Telephone calls are less effective than mailings. With the national “do not call” list some 50 million American households signed up for it. What does that tell you about people’s attitude toward unsolicited phone calls? They don’t like them. Why would we want to engage in practices that, at best, people ignore or, at worst, they dislike? We must be willing to reach people where they are. That means building friendships and investing time in them. Some years ago, a church invested loads of money in a door-to-door evangelism program. After two years and a bunch of money, the net result was one new person in church. After all that time and money only one person was in church. Why? The reason is because someone in the church became his friend. The Good News of salvation is spread through friendships.
The third aspect of a WELL-balanced Church is…
Learning
The first words of our passage today were, “And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching.” They were biblically grounded. The teaching of the apostles became the basis on which the New Testament was founded. The Apostle Matthew wrote the Gospel of Matthew. The Apostle John wrote the Gospel of John, 1-3 John, and the Revelation. The Apostle Peter wrote 1 & 2 Peter. The Apostle Paul wrote Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Timothy, Titus and Philemon. James and Jude were earthly half-brothers of Jesus who became believers and were accepted as apostles. A man named John Mark who was a close associate of Peter wrote the Gospel of Mark. It is suspected that Peter provided John Mark with much of his material about the life of Jesus. The author of the Gospel of Luke and Acts was a man named Luke, who was a close associate of the Apostle Paul. So, we can follow through with devoting ourselves to the apostles’ teaching by studying our Bible.
We, as a Church and individually as Christians, must have a commitment to the Word of God. William Barclay said, “We should count it a wasted day when we do not learn something new and when we have not penetrated more deeply into the wisdom and grace of God.” To neglect God’s Word is as hazardous as neglecting eating.
Balance comes into play in learning in the sense that we don’t distort the scriptures. We don’t take it out of context or read into it more than what is really there. For example, our passage today could easily me misunderstood. It talks about how the early Church sold their possessions and gave to the needy. It also says that they had everything in common, meaning they shared with those who had need. Some have contended that this is biblical endorsement of communism. The thing is that this was a completely voluntary system. No one was coerced into it. No one was forced to sell anything, and no one was forced to give anything. This was a voluntary system. It resulted from spontaneous acts of love. They saw needs and did what was necessary to meet those needs.
Our duty in learning then is not to unplug our brains. There are certain passages of scripture that talk about wearing jewelry. Some have taken that to the extreme of not wearing watches or wedding rings. We must study carefully to determine what is being said and why.
The Bible is not theology textbook. Men under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit wrote it. It addressed specific issues at specific times. Our job is to apply it to our lives in a way that will glorify God.
The fourth aspect of a WELL-balance Church is…
Loving
Their love was demonstrated in their desire to help the needy. They took what they had and helped out as best they could. Love was overarching all of that. The Apostle Paul called love the greatest thing. Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if have love for one another.” When we love each other and others, people see what being a Christian is all about. Loving others points people to God.
It’s not natural for us to love others. Our sinful nature is bent on looking out for number one. When Jesus invades our life, we begin to look out for others. This is what the Apostle James meant when he said that faith without works is dead. If you don’t truly love others, I doubt that Jesus has done anything real in your life.
That doesn’t mean you have to go and sell your house or car and give the money away. Now, if God impresses on your heart that you should do that, then you had better do it.
We have been the recipients of the greatest gesture of love in the history of the world. We had the opportunity for salvation through Jesus. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” We are to be stewards of God’s love and share it with the world.
Love is the mark of a true Christian. The Apostle Paul wrote, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” That is how our lives and our church should look.
When we look at balance and love, we have to look at how we express our love. As a dad, I love my kids and I don’t want to see them get hurt. There comes a time, though, when I have to allow them to experience pain in order for them to learn about life. One dad told me one time how he handled this. They heated their home with a wood-burning stove. They had two little boys. In order to show the boys the danger of the stove, the dad built a little fire in the stove. It was smaller than was necessary to heat the house, but it was enough to make the stove hot to the touch. He had the boys come up and touch the stove to show them that it was hot. Since the fire was much smaller than a normal fire the boys weren’t burned. Had he neglected to teach them that lesson, they could have been seriously injured.
Love doesn’t mean we are always bailing people out. It means that we point them to God and help them in life.
So a WELL-balanced Church worships, evangelizes, learns, and loves. Is that all? No. A WELL-balanced Church will surround all four aspects with prayer. The early Church devoted themselves to prayer. Prayer is such a broad subject. Dr. Jack Eyestone, who is a District Superintendent in the Church of the Nazarene, says that prayer is the heart of what we do as a Church. He says, “Prayer is the work.” The early Church was a praying Church. At every turn in the Book of Acts they were praying. In chapters 1 and 2, they were gathered in prayer in the Upper Room. In chapter 4, after Peter and John were told not to speak about Jesus, the Church gathered and prayed for boldness. Later, when Peter was thrown in prison, the Church prayed for his release. The list goes on and on. In his letters, the Apostle Paul told his readers that he was praying for them, and he asked them to pray for him.
Our worship, evangelism, learning and loving must be saturated in prayer. Prayer is the fuel that makes the Church go. We wouldn’t think of driving a car without gas. We shouldn’t think of operating a Church without prayer.
What was the result of all this? The last half of 2:47 says, “And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” Who did the adding? The Lord did the adding. The great Nazarene missionary Harmon Schmelzebach said, “God gets the job done; we just handle the paper work.”
If we are a WELL-balanced Church God will give us the increase. We have to make the commitment to do it. It wasn’t just the leaders of the Church who were rowing the boat. Everyone was doing their part. Likewise, this Church cannot succeed with everyone doing their part. Will you commit with me to do your part in helping this Church accomplish its mission.
