Balance is really important in our lives:
• When we first learn to walk, the biggest hurdle we face is not usually that we don’t have enough strength; it’s that we have to figure out how to stay balanced
• On our cars, it’s important to keep our tires balanced. Anyone who has ever tried to drive at high speeds with a tire that’s out of balance knows that the whole car can shake violently.
• Right now we’re in the middle of football season, and it seems like every week we listen to football coaches who talk about the need to have balance – a balance among their offense, defense, and special teams, and, on offense, a balance between the run and the pass.
• Most of us make sure we balance our checkbooks each month – except that I am aware of a few bankers here in our congregation that seem to figure that’s not necessary.
This week I heard about a couple who was having a lot of conflict over balancing the checkbook. Tired of having to balance his wife’s checkbook, the husband made a deal with her; he would look at it, but only after she had spent a few hours trying to wrestle it into shape. The following night, after spending hours poring over stubs and figures, the wife said proudly, ’I’ve done it! I made it balance!’
Impressed, her husband came over to take a look. ’Let’s see... mortgage 550.00, electricity 70.50, phone 35.00.’ His brow wrinkled as he read the last entry. ’It says here ESP, $615. What the heck is that?’ ’Oh,’ she said, ’That means, Error Some Place!’
• Even God is a God of balance
God was missing for six days. Eventually, Michael, the archangel, found Him resting on the seventh day. he inquired of God. "Where have you been?" God sighed a deep sigh of satisfaction, and proudly pointed downwards through the clouds, "Look, Michael. Look what I’ve made."
Archangel Michael looked puzzled, and said, "What is it?"
"It’s a planet," replied God, "and I’ve put Life on it. I’m going to call it Earth and it’s going to be a great place of balance."
"Balance?" inquired Michael, "I’m still confused."
God explained, pointing to different parts of earth. "For example, northern Europe will be a place of great opportunity and wealth, while southern Europe is going to be poor. Over there I’ve placed a continent of white people, and over there is a continent of black people. Balance in all things," God continued pointing to different countries. "This one will be extremely hot, while this one will be very cold and covered in ice."
The Archangel, impressed by God’s work, then pointed to a land area and said "What’s that one?" "Ah," said God "That’s Washington State, the most glorious place on earth. There are beautiful mountains, rivers and streams, lakes, forests, hills and plains. The people from Washington State are going to be handsome, modest, intelligent, and humorous, and they are going to be found traveling the world. They will be extremely sociable, hardworking, high achieving, and they will be known throughout the world as diplomats, and carriers of peace."
Michael gasped in wonder and admiration, but then asked, "But what about balance, God? You said there would be balance." God smiled, "There is another Washington... Wait until you see the idiots I put there."
Balance is also important for us as a body of believers – both in our individual lives and in our corporate body. And I think that was one of the attributes of the early church that allowed it to be great.
This is the sixth week in a row now that we’ve started our message with this first sentence from Thom Rainer’s book. Let’s see if you can remember it before Dave puts it up on the screen:
“It is a sin to be good if God has called us to be great.”
So far, we’ve looked at several keys to becoming a great church:
• Sometimes we have to wait on God. But while we wait, we continue to pray, study Gods’ Word and carry out the work God has already called us to do.
• We need to plug into the power of the Holy Spirit. We need to make sure that our lives are fertile so that God can fill us with His Spirit.
• We need to keep our focus on the resurrection. Our entire faith rests on that historical event.
• We need to live a lifestyle of repentance. We need to replace our own heart and mind with God’s.
And this morning, as I’m sure you’ve already figured out, we’re going to focus on the idea of balance.
Read Acts 2:42-47
In today’s culture, it’s interesting to ask people, and especially pastors, what their church is like. And the usual response might be something like this:
• “We’re a teaching church”
• “We’re a church full of friendly people and great fellowship”
• “We’re a church that is really involved in the community serving the needs of other people.”
• “We’re a worshipping church.”
• “We’re a soul-winning church.”
And there is certainly nothing wrong with any of those. But it seems to me that the reason for the greatness of the early church is that they did all those things. They were very balanced in their approach to leading people into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and then helping them to mature and grow in that relationship. And that balanced approach was not just an accident. It didn’t just happen. That’s readily apparent when we look at the first few words of verse 42:
They devoted themselves to…
Or as the NASB more accurately translates this phrase:
And they were continually devoting themselves to…
The Greek word translated “devoted” in this passage is a word that means to persevere, to be loyal to or to regularly spend one’s time at. So the things that the people were doing were not just some casual activities. They were practices and disciplines that they were totally committed to and continued to participate in on a regular basis. And if we want to be a great church, we need people who are willing to be devoted. I think we’d all agree with that. But the question is, what are the things we are to be devoted to? And how do we strike that balance in our lives as individual believers and as a church?
In this passage there are five purposes that the early church devoted themselves to:
A GREAT CHURCH IS DEVOTED TO:
• MATURITY
The first thing that the early church devoted themselves to was the apostles’ teaching. We’ve already seen from Peter’s first sermon that the apostles’ teaching definitely included an exposition of the Old Testament Scriptures. But it was a new understanding of those Scriptures in light of the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus, which gave them new meaning and richness.
We also know from other passages that it also included the teachings of Jesus. Remember, that at this time, none of what later became our New Testament had been written, so the teachings of Jesus were passed on orally by those who had actually been with Jesus and heard the words he spoke.
In other words the people devoted themselves to correct doctrine. We don’t use that word too much today because it seems too rigid and demanding. But every great church has a foundation of solid doctrine based on the Word of God. It is the never-changing word of God that becomes the anchor that keeps us from drifting and following after the latest fads and trends. Here’s how Paul described the importance of solid doctrine:
It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.
Ephesians 4:11-14 (NIV)
If we’re going to be a great church, then we need to be devoted to right doctrine so that we can become mature and not be tossed back and forth or blown here and there by the latest trends. Fortunately, for all of us here today we have God’s Word, in written form, that we can hear, read, study, memorize and meditate on in order to become mature believers. But that takes some devotion on our part. Each one of us needs to devote ourselves to spending time in God’s Word on a daily basis. It’s not enough to just come here on Sunday morning and listen to a sermon and think that’s going to be enough spiritual nourishment for the week.
We certainly don’t take that approach to eating. We eat every day – several times a day – because we need that nourishment to be healthy physically. And if we want to be healthy spiritually, we need to make sure we’re taking in God’s Word on a regular basis.
• MELDING
The next thing that the early church was devoted to was fellowship. They melded together with each other. And I’m not just talking pot-luck dinners.
In verse 42, there are three phrases that are all tied together grammatically:
…and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
In other words, fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayer were all elements that were part of the process of the members of the body growing together.
Verses 44 and 46 go on to further describe the fellowship:
All the believers were together and had everything in common.
Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,
When we look at everything that is in those verses, we get a picture of a body of people who were devoted to each other because they had a lot in common. They ate meals together, they prayed together, they spent time together.
Whenever we think of the word “fellowship”, we tend to think of people who have some kind of common bond sharing their lives with each other in some fashion. Sometimes that bond might be our jobs – we have a form of fellowship with those we work with. Sometimes the bond is a family relationship. Sometimes the bond might be some hobby or something we like to do. For instance, in my own life, I can think of all kinds of fellowship I have. I have fellowship with my wife, my kids and other family members. I have fellowship with other basketball and volleyball officials. I have fellowship with other pastors, especially those who like to play golf. But the one thing that all those forms of fellowship share is that the common bond that is the basis for the fellowship is only temporary.
But one of things that made the early church a great church is that they had a common bond that was far deeper than any of those temporal bonds that we might share with other in our lives. Paul described that common bond in his letter to the church at Ephesus:
There is one body and one Spirit - just as you were called to one hope when you were called- one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Ephesians 4:4-6 (NIV)
In that passage, Paul describes seven eternal attributes that form the common bond that we share with other believers. We don’t have time to go into detail this morning on those attributes, but I think it’s quite obvious with even a casual reading that all of those things are eternal and unchanging. [Read the seven “ones”] Because of that, those things that we have in common with other believers provide us with the opportunity to have fellowship with other members of the body that has much more depth and meaning than any of our other relationships.
But just because we share those attributes doesn’t mean that real fellowship just happens automatically. The kind of fellowship that was experienced in the early church only occurred because the people were devoted to be authentic, genuine and transparent and because they truly valued the lives of others. In other words, they avoided the two killers of real fellowship – pride and selfishness.
If we want to be a great church, we need to be devoted to the kind of deep, abiding fellowship that goes beneath the surface. We need to be willing to be honest with others – to share our struggles, our hurts, our shortcomings. And in order for us to feel free to do that, we need make sure that we’re not judgmental. We need to make this body a place that is safe for hurting people to come and to find others who will come along side them and encourage them and help them through those tough times.
If we can grow into a body with that kind of genuine fellowship, I’m convinced that we’ll have people knocking down the doors to get into this place.
• MINISTRY
The early church ministered to the needs of those who were in need. Notice verse 45:
Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.
The church does not just exist for itself. If it did, then there would be no reason for God to leave us here on this earth after we accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. But God intends for His people to be salt and light here on this earth. And in order to do that we have to reach outside these walls and get involved in meeting the needs of the community around us.
Obviously, our ultimate goal is to meet spiritual needs. We’ll talk a little bit more about that in a moment. But often, in order to meet those spiritual needs, we first have to take care of the physical and emotional needs of people. Jesus certainly did that in His ministry. Think about how many times Jesus healed someone before he dealt with their spiritual needs. Other times, He had to deal with emotional needs before He could address spiritual issues. The woman at the well in John 4 is a great example of that kind of encounter.
James, the half-brother of Jesus had often watched Jesus minister in that way. So when he wrote his epistle, it’s no wonder he stressed the importance of meeting the physical needs of those around us:
Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
James 2:15-17 (NIV)
True faith is always evidenced by the way we live our lives. And James makes it really clear that one measure of our faith is the way we treat those around us that have needs that we have the ability to address.
As I’ve shared with you before, I think this is the one area where our church is the most out of balance. Frankly, we haven’t been as outwardly focused as we need to be. So we’re making a conscious effort to focus on better serving the needs of the people in our community. One of the things you’ll notice in our proposed budget for the coming year is that we’ve devoted additional resources to ministering to the needs of families in our community.
And as we make efforts to meet the needs of our community, we don’t just do that as the means to the greater end of being able to meet their spiritual needs. We do it because God has always called His people to have a positive impact on their communities. If we’re going to be a great church, then the people around us need to know that we care about them and that we’ll do whatever we can to serve as many of their needs as we can.
• MAGNIFICATION
The early church was a worshipping church. In verse 47, we read that they were praising God. The verb “praising” is in the present tense and by now you’ve all become such good Greek scholars that you know that indicates a continuing action. So we could translate that phrase “they were continually praising God.” In other words, worship wasn’t just something they did on Sunday mornings; their worship was a lifestyle of continually giving thanks and praise to God for His work in their lives.
The Apostle Paul also wrote about the importance of continually magnifying God:
Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Ephesians 5:19, 20 (NIV)
Sometimes we tend to equate worship with singing. And singing can certainly be an important part of our worship. Paul pointed out the importance of using different kinds of songs as a means to praise God. But the focus in these verses isn’t so much on the types of music, or even on music in general. The key principle is that we are always to be giving thanks to God for everything. You might want to underline the words always and everything in those verses.
A great church is a body that is devoted to continually giving thanks to God for everything in our lives. It is recognizing and acknowledging that God is the source of everything we have and then magnifying and giving praise to Him for that. Some of that does happen on Sunday mornings. And we do use music to help us praise God for who He is and what He is doing in our lives.
But singing, even singing about God, is not automatically worship, regardless of the type of music we use. It’s only when we “make music in our heart to the Lord” that our singing truly becomes worship. The key principle here is that it is done to the Lord. True worship isn’t about me – it’s about God. It’s not about singing music that I like or music that makes me feel good. It’s about singing in a way that recognizes God for who He is and which exalts and magnifies Him.
But, as I’ve said, the kind of worship that made the early church great extended far beyond Sunday mornings. It is a lifestyle that continually focuses on God and gives credit to Him for who He is and what He is doing in our lives and in the lives of others.
• MULTIPLICATION
The last sentence of verse 47 is really exciting:
And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Here is even more evidence that the early church was reaching outside the walls of the Temple courts and the homes where they were meeting. Every day, God was bringing new people into the body. You’ll notice here that it was God, not the members of the body, who was adding to the body each day. We have to recognize just how dependent that we are upon God. Ultimately, He’s the only one who can draw people unto Himself. But, amazingly, the way God has chosen to do that is to work through His followers – ordinary people like you and me.
We’ve already seen how when God empowered a group of a little over 100 of Jesus’ followers to be witnesses for Him through the power of the Holy Spirit, the number of believers was multiplied to over 3,000 people in just one day! And then, through that same witness, new people continued to be added day after day.
And even though much of the focus seems to be on the preaching of Peter, which was no doubt essential, it seems to me that we fail to answer the question of why all those people were there to listen to him in the first place. To be real honest, the Scriptures don’t give us a real clear answer to that question. But the only logical explanation seems to be that the people were so amazed by the work that God was doing that they invited their family members, friends, and anyone else they could find. They were so excited about the truth of the resurrection and what that meant for them that they couldn’t help but tell others.
A great church is full of people who are excited about telling others about what Jesus did for them and how God is working in their lives. You don’t have to be a Bible scholar to do that. I’m convinced that everyone here who has made a decision to trust Jesus Christ as your Forgiver and your Master, knows enough about how to do that to share it with someone else. And I know that all of us are capable of sharing with others what God is doing in our lives and in the life of this church body and inviting others to come and share in that.
If we want to be a church that is great, then we need to be devoted to balancing the five purposes that we’ve looked at this morning:
• We need to be devoted to maturity that comes from correct doctrine based on the Word of God
• We need to be devoted to melding ourselves together through real fellowship that comes from our common bonds in Christ and from our willingness to sacrifice pride and selfishness.
• We need to be devoted to ministry, We need to do all that we can to meet the needs of the community in which we live.
• We need to be devoted to magnifying God, not just on Sunday mornings, but by constantly giving thanks to God for who He is and what He is doing.
• We need to be devoted to multiplication. We need to be excited about what God has done for us through Jesus and how He is working in our lives and then we need to share that with others around us.
I’m convinced that as our church gets more and more balanced in those five areas, that it will be a body that people want to be a part of. God will use a church like that to draw many people to Himself and it will be a place where the Lord will add to our number day after day those who are being saved. So let’s be devoted to balancing these five purposes right here at Thornydale Family Church.
“It is a sin to be good if God has called us to be great.”
