The Church Part 1 Mimosa AM Sermon 9.4.11

God’s Design for the Church
Many preachers break out with the same sermon each year when they talk about the Church – this subject is so worn out that many people tune out.
There was one college professor that went around lecturing to the US and used the same talk at each location. His chauffer told him that he heard it so many times that he could give the talk.
The man said – Well enough – you give the talk at the next location.
The professor dressed up like the chauffer and sat in the audience. The real chauffer did so well that the professor sitting in the audience was very impressed. The man was spot on.
Then when it was over to the real chauffer’s horror the Q and A session started. He hadn’t thought about how he would handle questions.
One man came to the mike and said, How do you propose reconciling the equation of e=mc squared to the photoelectric effect.
The man laughed and just threw back his head and said that is so simple I will have my chauffer in the audience answer your question.
Well I hope that this is not some dull worn out lecture for you to listen to.
Several years ago there was an article in a magazine by a woman who told of her father having returned from the war. He, like many men, wanted to buy tools for his workshop, and one of the tools he wanted was a drill press. But tools like that were scarce and expensive. He couldn’t afford to buy one, so he built his own and used some unusual parts to build it:
• an old washing machine motor,
• a Model A Ford transmission,
• a car jack,
• a motorcycle kick-starter
• and a burned out drill chuck.
She said that he used it for more than 50 years and... it still works.
Now I don’t know HOW that soldier put all of that together… but I was intrigued by the fact that this man knew WHAT he wanted and he knew how to build it. He wanted a drill press, but he didn’t build it out of parts you and I would have expected him to use. He used the materials he had on hand. He used common, unimpressive, used equipment.
Now I’m fairly certain it wasn’t pretty… but it worked.
In fact it worked so well… it’s still working. Years ago, God knew what He wanted He wanted to build a church.
And God (being God) could have built that church out of any materials He wanted. Think about How God built His Church. He knew what he wanted:
He had a PURPOSE for the Church
He knew Who we wanted to make the church up of:
He had PEOPLE for that Church – God took the people that had been marginalized by the world, and had been discarded and used them for His Church. God didn’t take the wisest or most powerful of the 1st century world to build His church but took regular people from Galilee to start this movement.
A Good Ad agency would have told God to make sure He did it right!
They would have done a demographic study to find and target a specific age group.
They would have managed the message so that it would appeal to that target audience.
And they would have told God to make sure this new church had…
• The best music program and song leaders
• The best youth program
• The best ministries for young adults/ senior adults
Then there would be billboards to buy, flyers to pass out.
And they’d want to build an impressive gymnasium so they could have an athletic outreach to the community. And of course, there would need to be a building program so they could have a state of the art Worship Center and Sunday School space.
Now, (for the most part) most of that stuff is ok I guess. There are many good churches who do those very things are very successful for the Kingdom of Christ.
But – we all know God didn’t do it that way.
No, God didn’t follow the advice of a powerful Ad Agency or Church Consultant Group. In fact He built His church out of common, ordinary, unimpressive materials.
It shouldn’t have worked… but it did!!
And it still works!!!
But why? Why did it work?
What was it about what took place on Pentecost that gave the church such powerful growth and success?
Well, 1st - God was in it.
If your remember Gamaliel’s advice to the Sanhedrin when they brought Peter and John before them.
Gamaliel gave this advice in Acts 5
Speaking of the Church he said:
Acts 5: 38-39
38 "So in the present case, I say to you, stay away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or action is of men, it will be overthrown ; 39 but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them; or else you may even be found fighting against God."
If God is in it there is nothing that we can do stop it. For the Church to be successful God must be involved.
Acts 2:47b tells us “…And THE LORD ADDED to the church daily such as should be saved.”
Many good churches can tend to overlook this.
I mean we create our programs, we stage our events, we schedule Gospel Meetings, VBS programs.
We just finished our VBS this summer and our Gospel meeting and they were both great things that needs to be done.
We should seize every opportunity we can to bring people to Christ.
When Peter saw the crowd had gathered at Pentecost he seized that opportunity and began to preach to them.
Just like Peter, we should always seize every opportunity we can to reach people for Jesus.
But after having seized all those opportunities, we tend to ask ourselves…
“What more can WE do to reach the lost?”
Now that’s a legitimate question.
But it CAN overlook a more BASIC question:
“Where’s God in all this?”
When I read Acts 2:47 and it said “the Lord added to the church daily” my mind drifted back to a story in the Old Testament.
In Genesis 6:22 we’re told: “Noah did everything just as God commanded him.”
Noah did his part. He built the ark, He prepared stalls for the animals.
He brought in food to feed them and his family.
And as he worked, he preached to anybody who’d listen
BUT THEN we’re told:
“Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, male and female, CAME TO NOAH and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah.” Genesis 7:8-9
The animals… CAME to Noah?
He didn’t go out and get them?
Well, that’s what it says.
But if Noah didn’t go out and get the animals… how did they end up coming to him???
God brought them to him.
THE LORD added to the ark… such as should be saved.
When the animals came to Noah he seized that opportunity and put them on the ark
Now this is the point to understand.
1. Noah did his part – he prepared for the ones God would bring.
2. God did His part – He brought the ones who were ready to be saved.
3. Then Noah seized the opportunity to lead them to salvation.
In the same way, that’s how the church will grow best
1. We need to do our part – we need to prepare for those God will bring
2. BUT then we need to depend upon God to do His part… bringing others to us.
Now – that being said - the question is… what should we do to do OUR part?
The answer is found in verse 42
We find there that the first thing they did was focus on the Apostle’s teaching
Acts 2:42 tells us “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching…”
Not MY teaching.
Not the teaching of a prominent person or commentary, or book.
But those resources should never be their MAJOR focus.
The principal foundation for the teachings of any good teacher or preacher MUST BE the Apostolic teachings.
Now where am I going to get Apostolic teachings from?
The Bible… and specifically the New Testament.
Why would focusing on the “Apostles’ teaching” be so important?
Well, if I focus on any other authority for the foundation of what I say from this pulpit, I run the risk of leading astray the people God brings to us.
But another aspect of Christian worship is the public reading of Scripture.
The Apostle’s teachings went into the Bible – the Bible is a sacred document , it is the powerful word of God.
Paul tells Timothy the following:
1 Timothy 4: 13-16
13 Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching. 14 Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you, which was bestowed on you through prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the presbytery. 15 Take pains with these things ; be absorbed in them, so that your progress will be evident to all. 16 Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching ; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you.
Paul gives Timothy some specific commands that we need to heed to.
He tells him not to neglect the public reading of Scripture.
What is the best way we could follow this command today?
How could we best read the Scripture publically ?
How about in worship assemblies.
Here is another area that I think the church is starting to slip in some ways. WE no longer put emphasis in the public reading of Scripture.
If I had my druthers we would have readings every Sunday from the Old Testament and the New Testament
We know that the earliest Church would read entire Epistles from Paul or another apostle.
Reading the Scripture was so important to them.
We see that Paul gives Timothy a command to read it publically.
Where does faith come from? It comes from the Word of God.
The words for worship in the New Testament are two fold
One is Proskeneou – which means literally to kiss the ground
The other is Latrea – which means the work of the people
That gives us some idea that worship is to be reverent – before God with penitent hearts,
It also tells us that worship should be congregational – every chance we get to make our worship more congregational – we should
Every time we can get more men involved with prayers, presiding over the Table, reading Scripture publically, and even making worship responsoral.
This may go beyond many of your comfort zones but much of worship in the synagogue and the early church was responsoral and the reason was to get the church involved in the worship
The book of Timothy is written in this format – Paul would state in Timothy – this is a true and trustworthy statement – and the response was Christ came to save all sinners –
That was something we know for a fact the early church did.
We may learn something from them – how powerful would it be if the entire congregation recited Scripture together – Go back in time to the early days of the Restoration movement – go back to the Early Church and you would see just that –
Congregational recitation of Scripture together – God’s people saying God’s word together –
We must fight the cultural slide to make worship entertainment – or preacher centered – Worship needs to become the work of the people.
One of the main reasons we don’t have choirs or praise teams is that we believe singing should be the work of the people the entire congregation.
Let us get back to that as part of our deep roots.
The 2nd thing we can do is devote ourselves to “fellowship”
Acts 2:42 says the early church “… devoted themselves to… fellowship”.
It doesn’t matter how good a church’s programs and events may be, if the people don’t get along with each other - if we don’t create an atmosphere where people enjoy themselves & feel welcome – newcomers won’t stay.
The advantage here is – you folks take that seriously.
From the moment people step thru our doors, visitors (& members) are made to feel welcome.
Acts 2:44 says “All the believers were together and had everything in common.”
And verse 46 tells us “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”
Church wasn’t just something they did on Sunday morning.
Being with other Christians wasn’t just something they did once in a while.
They were almost always TOGETHER.
Other Christians were the center of their lives.
In their spare time they preferred to be with their Christian friends.
But even more than that… they were there for each other.
Acts 2:45says they went so far as to “(sell) their possessions and goods, (so they could give) to anyone as he had need.”
So the early church devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching and to fellowship. But it also says “They devoted themselves to the breaking of bread.” Acts 2:42
They felt communion was important.
In Acts 20:7 tells us “On the first day of the week we came together to break bread.”
On Sunday (the 1st day of the week) the church gathered specifically to have Lord’s Supper.
It doesn’t say they got together to hear a sermon (tho’ they did hear one from Paul).
It doesn’t say they got together to sing some songs (tho’ they might have).
They came together for the principal purpose of taking communion.
There are churches these days where that isn’t true.
There are churches where the Lord’s Supper has been shouldered to the side.
They either don’t want newcomers to take part in their special activity, or they feel that doing it in worship interrupts the “flow of worship”. And so they relegate it to a Sunday Night or Wednesday night so that it won’t interfere with their “seeker sensitive” worship services.
That’s truly sad.
Many modern churches don’t feel it is that critical.
They have more important things to do.
But the early church felt Communion was so important they met EACH SUNDAY to partake.
But why?
Why would the Lord’s Supper be so critical to “doing their part” to prepare for the ones God would bring to them for salvation?
Well, Paul wrote: “… whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” 1 Corinthians 11:26
Every Sunday that someone comes thru those doors – they are confronted by the most important fact of our faith…
Jesus died for us!
There might be some mistakes in the bulletin… but Jesus died for us.
The song service might not move us … but Jesus died for us.
The sermon might not be a great sermon… but Jesus died for us.
Jesus died for us, and we proclaim that every time we take of communion.
Donald A. Nash told the story of Robert Tinsky. Tinsky was raised a Jew. But he became dissatisfied spiritually, so he visited a Christian Church for the first time, seeking some religious truth.
He was astounded by the observance of the Lord’s Supper. He didn’t understand it.
He asked some young people seated near him what it meant, and they told him the gospel story as portrayed in the loaf and cup.
He was amazed that there was a God who loved mankind enough to give His Son to die for us and at the wisdom that originated such a living memorial.
As a result he became a Christian and a eventually a faithful preacher of the gospel
The question is to us tonight is that when someone comes in our fellowship do they understand what is going on in the Lord’s Supper.
Are we just speeding through it in our worship? I would propose to you tonight that we don’t emphasize the Supper enough.
We should stop everything – Read the Scripture of institution, explain what is going on in the Supper.
Preach the Cross of Christ and then partake of the Supper.
Our actions speak louder than words – If we go through the motions of communion, we don’t take it serious it tells everyone exactly what we think.
I have heard people the visit us that take the communion periodically say, that at least they take it serious when they do take it.
That to me is like a dagger when I hear that – I would say good point on taking it serious but you stand outside of Scripture and history of Christianity if you don take it weekly.
We should almost rather die than miss weekly communion. In the early Church deacons would be sent out to give communion to the people that missed it that very day.
This is in the ancient world without methods of quick travel. Now that tells you that they took it serious.
I know yall can tell that this is my pet topic but I am really afraid that Churches are not taking communion serious.
So the early church devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread… but it was the last item listed in verse 42 that caught my attention. And it caught my attention because I felt maybe I haven’t done enough of this.
It says “They devoted themselves… to prayer…”
Now it’s not that I don’t pray.
And it’s not that I don’t pray a great deal.
It’s just that I’m pretty sure I don’t pray enough like they prayed.
Too often Christians simply focus on praying for the sick and hurting.
We often do that during our prayer time in worship.
And that’s GOOD praying – we ought to do that!
But I’ve become convinced that it’s the BEST praying we could pray
Paul wrote: “Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, WORDS MAY BE GIVEN ME so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel” Ephesians 6:19
He wanted them to pray so that he might be given the words to seize every opportunity to bring people to Christ.
Again he wrote to the church at Colossae:
“And pray for us, too, that GOD MAY OPEN A DOOR for our message, so that we may proclaim the mystery of Christ, for which I am in chains.” Colossians 4:3
He wanted the church to pray for him that God would open a door so he could seize every opportunity to talk to others about Jesus.
Max Lucado told of a church in Scotland back in the 1940’s that was struggling to keep the doors open.
A couple of its members were two older ladies who were invalids and couldn’t get out for worship any longer.
But these ladies refused to allow their infirmities to get in the way of serving their God.
They became convinced that their community needed Jesus desperately and they were going to do something about it. They were going to pray.
They determined to make their house a house of prayer.
Around the clock they prayed for God do something powerful.
Then one day, one of the ladies became convinced that God wanted a revivalist by the name of Campbell to come and hold meetings at their church.
They talked to their preacher and he contacted Campbell… but Campbell was unavailable. He was booked up.
The women refused to give up in their prayers however… and it wasn’t long before – oddly enough – some of Campbell’s other revivals became cancelled and he decided to accept the invitation of that small church.
He arrived and held 5 weeks of meetings.
The Revival was so well received that hundreds showed up each night. And lives were so changed that many of the local taverns had to close up because they lacked patrons.
One might think it was because of the powerful preaching of a renowned revivalist.
But in reality it was because of the faithfulness of two invalid older ladies who dedicated themselves to prayer.