YOU DO THE MATH
Acts 2:42-47
S: Church
C: Purpose of the Community
Th: A People with Purpose
Pr: SPIRITUAL REPRODUCTION IS THE NATURAL OUTCOME OF A PEOPLE WITH RIGHT PRIORITIES.
Type: Inductive
The ____ priority…
I. DEVOTION
II. WORSHIP [AWE]
III. UNITY
IV. GRACE [GENEROSITY]
V. JOY
PA: How is the change to be observed?
• Understand the mission [mind].
• Feel as Jesus did [heart].
• Live and speak the good news [hand].
Version: ESV
RMBC 05 February 06 AM
INTRODUCTION:
Who will be rooting for Pittsburgh?
Who will be rooting for Seattle?
How many wonder what the hype is all about?
I do believe, if you look hard enough, that something so temporal and unimportant as football can have a larger, and even eternal significance.
For example…
ILL Church: THE FIRST CHURCH OF FOOTBALL
In a never-ending effort to attract the unchurched, some churches have considered translating their unfamiliar terminology into familiar football phrases. For example:
FIRST QUARTER:
What most people put into the offering plate so it looks like they are giving.
HALFTIME:
Usually during the offertory when at least 14 people decide they need to use the restroom.
ILLEGAL MOTION:
Leaving before the benediction.
PASS INTERFERENCE:
A parent moving between two teens in the pew to halt the flow of notes back and forth during the sermon.
TACKLE:
Asking that "new couple" to sing in the choir, work in the nursery, serve on a committee, join a Bible study, and teach the middle schoolers before they get away.
OUR STUDY:
Since the beginning of the year, we have been using Acts 2.42-47 as our backdrop for our theme of the year, which is…
1. We are to be a people with purpose (Acts 2.42-47).
Collectively, as a people, as a church, we are to recognize that we possess purpose.
Not only do we possess it, we are to act on it.
Consider once again this text in Acts 2…
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
I have never been in a church that does not consider itself a friendly church.
But I have been to some that were not friendly.
They probably thought they were open, but they were definitely more closed than open.
Churches often try to be open by having welcoming sayings.
I checked the phone books yesterday to see what local places were saying.
The first place said, “A warm welcome awaits you” (that was ours).
Another place said, “Open hearted, Open minded.”
And another church said, “Preparing You for Success in Life.”
In another area of the country, two churches were obviously competing with one another.
The first church’s slogan was, “Where everybody is somebody, and Jesus Christ is Lord.”
In response to that, the second church wrote, “Where Jesus Christ is everything and everyone else is a nobody.”
Well, though there is something of right thinking in the latter when we compare our person with God’s, I am hopeful someone discovered the lack of effectiveness in stating it that way publicly.
Generally speaking, as churches, we do not think through what we are doing to reach people.
It doesn’t mean we don’t think about how we are doing church.
We will speak of and study methods and techniques, but when we do so, we usually speak in terms of what we want or how we want things to be.
We all do this.
Everyone of us.
This is why I continue to be excited about our working with Natural Church Development.
It is pointing us toward being a healthy, reproducing church, if we are willing to go there.
ILL Church: where are you going?
Someone said that if you were to ask the average church member the question, “Where is your church going?” they would say something like, “Going, why we’re not going anywhere. We’ve been at the corner of First and Main for forty years!”
Well, we know we should be going somewhere as a church.
And we will, when…
2. We have our priorities right.
That passage in Acts we just read is about a church that has its priorities right.
The Christian faith was a day-to-day reality, not a once-a-week routine.
The risen Christ was a living reality.
The Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead was actively at work in the believers there.
Resurrection power was at work.
Do you understand we are to have that same kind of reality today?
This was not something just for the first-century church.
These priorities, which are given to us in verse 42, were for all time!
We are to be a devoted people.
We are to be a devoted people to God.
We are to be devoted to learning and growing in our faith.
We are to be devoted to being a true and authentic community where loving God and loving one another is continually done and observed.
We are to be devoted to Jesus, remembering that He is the center of our worship; He is the center of all we are and all we do.
We are to be devoted to prayer, understanding that we are in constant submission to His Person, His ways, and His will for us.
When we are truly devoted to these priorities, a great thing happens to us…
3. We respond to God with awe.
Why?
Because we know that He is at work.
When we are devoted to Him, He will work in us and through others.
And we will worship.
We will become God-centered.
He will be the heart of our worship.
It is our constant task in this life of faith to move from being self-centered to being God-centered.
And when we allow God to get deep inside of us, He will transform us.
We will change.
We will truly be concerned for each other.
For when we truly allow God deep inside of us, to root out that which is bad, sinful and flawed, it will fill back up with love for others.
And, as a result…
4. We develop a community of unity.
We will be there for each other.
We will supply the needs of one another.
We will be there to pray, to bring food, to give rides, to share, to fill in gaps – whatever it takes to make sure that nothing is lacking.
We will be generous.
In so doing…
5. We become a place of grace.
Note the words that are used to describe this first-century church…
They had glad and generous hearts.
They had favor with people.
These are words of grace.
When God really gets a hold of us, what we want doesn’t matter.
What matters is how we can serve.
What matters is how we can be an effective community.
What matters is the kingdom of God.
When we get like that, then…
6. We are known for our joy.
When God has His way in our midst, it is no time for drudgery.
In fact, it can not happen.
For where God is, there is joy – indescribable joy!
And it brings favor by those who watch.
For we become a different kind of people, a people that truly searching people want to be.
ILL Joy: Does it show?
In the 1850s, some people discovered a tremendous amount of gold in a riverbed in Montana. But, because they didn’t have any tools and some members of their team were sick, they realized that they had to go back to town for some supplies and to rest up.
Before they left, they decided to make a pact to not tell anyone where the gold was. Then they went to the city for a couple weeks.
Early on the appointed morning, they all got up to leave the town and head back to the riverbed. But as they did, over fifty of the townspeople walked out of town with them.
And they began asking each other, “Did you tell them about the gold?”
“No, did you?”
So after this went back and forth a little while, they finally asked the people why they were coming along.
And here is what they said, “We are coming because we knew you found gold by the smiles on your faces.”
So, what happens when we hit the gold of God’s love in our lives?
What is the result?
It is simply this…
7. RESULT: Babies come!
It is time for you to do the math!
And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Note the example of this first-century church, for…
SPIRITUAL REPRODUCTION IS THE NATURAL OUTCOME OF A PEOPLE WITH RIGHT PRIORITIES
I know that is a mouthful.
But when we pay attention to and are devoted to the right priorities, God works!
God adds to the church.
And don’t ever think that God is not interested in doing so!
He is always interested in adding.
He always desires to bless.
But it is not done by technique.
It is done by drawing on God’s resources.
APPLICATION:
So how do we get there?
What has to happen to see God adding in our midst?
ILL Evangelism: saving Barbies [Brian Bill]
There are missionaries in Mexico that had a daughter named Geneva who was really into Barbies. Apparently she engaged in long conversations with them as she walked around the house. Searching for common ground with his little girl, her dad suggested that she teach her Barbies about Jesus. Geneva then went back to her room for a few minutes, gathered all her Barbies in a circle around her and told them that they needed to believe in Jesus in order to go to heaven.
A few minutes later, she came out of her room and proudly announced that all of her Barbies were now believers. The dad asked her how it happened that they all become Christians so quickly. With a big grin on her face, Geneva said, “It was easy. I just sat on each of them until they said yes!”
While this method sure sounds effective, there is probably better ways to connect with how God wants us to accomplish our purpose.
So, how do we accomplish our purpose?
First…
1. We must understand our mission (Matthew 28.19-20; Acts 1.8).
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.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.
You have heard me speak of the Great Commission before.
This is not new territory for us, but just as a matter of reminder, there is one command in this verse.
The rest is a description of how the command is to be done.
What is that command?
If you said “making disciples,” you are correct.
Each one of us has a responsibility to move people further in their understanding of Jesus, so that they can be a true and faithful follower of Him.
But we recognize that some do not yet know Him.
We have a responsibility to move them closer to that decision.
If a person does know the Lord, we are to guide them toward a deeper faith and relationship with Him.
This is our mission.
It is also our mission to be witnesses for Jesus wherever He puts us.
We are to testify to the joy the Lord has brought us.
With a dependency on and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are to give evidence of the difference Jesus has made in us.
We are to understand our mission.
We are to get this into our heads.
We must be absolutely convinced in our mind about our responsibility.
But it does not stop there.
Don’t leave it there!
It must move from our mind and into our hearts.
For…
2. We must feel what Jesus feels (Matthew 9.35-38).
And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."
Until it gets into our hearts that people are dying everyday without God and without hope, we will not see God adding to our number.
Do we feel as Jesus did over the lost?
Do we have pity?
Do we have compassion?
Do we weep?
We will never move forward to being a healthy church until we know what it is have a broken heart.
And not just any broken heart, but a heart that is broken over the same things that break our dear Lord’s heart.
You see, it is not in His heart that any perish.
He longs for all to belong to His kingdom.
So we pray…
And we don’t pray to get out of doing anything.
We pray because the task is so big.
It is the Lord’s work.
And the need for laborers is so large.
ILL Harvest: Personal
From personal experience, there is no greater time than harvest time.
And there is no greater joy!
As many you know, I worked on farms as a teenager, and one particular farmer I worked for grew cabbage.
When it was harvest time, it was an all-out effort.
You were up at sunrise, and you harvested and packaged cabbage all day, until sunset.
There was tremendous exertion, intensity, and urgency.
And it had to be done…quickly…or the cabbage would rot out in the field.
There would be great loss.
But when you worked together, there was such joy and satisfaction.
The same is true for us.
The harvest is before us.
For when Jesus told the disciples to pray for laborers, He then sent them.
For it had to go from their mind, to their heart, and then to their hands.
You see…
3. We must live and speak the good news (Romans 10.13-15; II Corinthians 5.20).
For "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." But how are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!"
Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
He has chosen us to carry the message.
We are His ambassadors, sent to speak words of peace.
We are an official agent of the King, carrying His authority – speaking for Him.
It is a beautiful message we have been given.
It sets us free.
It pardons us.
It is a living and powerful message.
But if the Lord is to add to our number, it must be lived and spoken.
It must get past our understanding, and move to our heart.
But it can’t stay there either.
It must go from our heart to our hands and lips.
Mind – hearts – hands…
ILL Grace: High School Football Player Scores Touchdown of the Year
Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly called it the "Play of the Year." A local newspaper called it "the touchdown heard around the world." Sports shows everywhere told the story.
Jake Porter, 17, a member of the Northwest High football team in McDermott, Ohio, was born with “chromosomal fragile X syndrome,” a common cause of mental retardation. He couldn’t read. He could barely write his name. But he loved football, and he faithfully attended every practice.
Northwest coach Dave Frantz wanted to do something special for Jake. So before a game against Waverly High in the fall of 2002, Frantz called his friend Derek Dewitt, the head coach at Waverly. Frantz suggested that both teams allow Jake to run one play at the end of the game, assuming the game wasn’t on the line. Jake would get the ball and take a knee, and the game would end.
So, with Waverly leading 42-0 and five seconds left in the game, Frantz called a timeout. Jake trotted out to the huddle, and the two coaches met at midfield.
Sports Illustrated’s Reilly picks up the story:
Fans could see there was a disagreement. Dewitt was shaking his head and waving his arms.
After a ref stepped in, play resumed and Jake got the ball. He started to kneel down, as he’d practiced all week. Teammates stopped him and told him to run, but Jake started going in the wrong direction. The back judge rerouted him toward the line of scrimmage.
Suddenly, the Waverly defense parted like peasants for the king and urged him to go on his grinning sprint to the end zone. Imagine having 21 teammates on the field. In the stands mothers cried and fathers roared. Players on both sidelines held their helmets to the sky and whooped.
Apparently when the coaches met before the big play, Frantz had reminded Dewitt of the plan, that Jake would simply take a knee. But Dewitt wasn’t satisfied. He said, "No, I want him to score." Frantz objected, but Dewitt insisted.
Dewitt called his defense over and said, "They’re going to give the ball to number 45. Do not touch him! Open up a hole and let him score! Understand?"
Jake had the run of his life, scoring the touchdown heard round the world, on the Play of the Year. All because of Dewitt’s unselfish decision: "I want him to score."
Like coach Dewitt, God has high purposes for each of us. God wants us not just to get the ball and touch a knee to the ground. He wants us to score a touchdown.
Sources: Sports Illustrated (11-18-02), The Herald-Dispatch, Huntington, W.Va. (11-10-02)
Now before you go on and say, “That’s a nice story.”
“How beautiful!”
“How touching!”
Before you say any of that, realize that each one of us is like Jake, #45.
When it comes to the touchdown of salvation, we would never score on our own.
We are unable.
We are too weak.
There are too many things in our way.
We needed someone to open the way before us and lead us through.
So…
Appreciate the grace you have received today.
Appreciate the grace that kept you grinning all the way down to the goal line.
And now lead others to do the same.
BENEDICTION: [Counselors are ]
Get our purpose in your mind…and understand the mission, for we are to be witnesses of what God has done for us and in us, we have people to move toward Christlikeness.
Get our purpose in your heart…and let us dare to have the same kind of heart that Jesus has for people that are lost; let us pray to have His heart, and even let our hearts be broken as His is.
Get our purpose in your hands…in other words, let us not be ashamed to live and to speak the good news, for how will anyone know if we don’t live it – how will anyone know if we don’t say it?
Now…May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.
Amen.
RESOURCES:
Books:
Barclay, William. The Acts of the Apostles. Revised ed. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977.
Bruce, F. F. Commentary on the Book of the Acts The New International Commentary on the New Testament, ed. F. F. Bruce. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1975.
MacArthur, John, Jr. Acts 1-12 The MacArthur New Testament Commentary. Chicago: Moody Press, 1994.
Stott, John R. W. The Spirit, the Church, and the World. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1990.
Wiersbe, Warren. The Bible Exposition Commentary. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1989.
SermonCentral:
Bill, Brian “Telling Others the Gospel”
Hamby, John “Joining the Harvest”
Hoke, J. David “A Great Church is an Evangelistic Church”
Kane, Jim “The Purpose of Worship Is…?”
