CHURCH: The Work of the Church

This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

For more information on our church, please visit Grandparkway.org.

You can have a seat if you've got a Bible.

I invite you to take it and open it up to Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

We're in a series entitled The Church.

The Church.

And uh I want to talk to you this morning on this Labor Day.

I thought it would be appropriate and fitting since on Labor Day we don't work, which I love.

But uh I thought it'd be appropriate on Labor Day to talk to you about the work of the church.

The work of the church.

There's a lot of things that the church can do, and there's a lot of things that culture tells us the church should do, but there's a few things, biblically speaking, that the church must do.

And I want to talk to you about those this morning.

While you're finding Acts chapter 2, if you don't have a Bible, there's one on your row there.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

I'm on page 910.

A friend of mine and I met for lunch, a pastor here in our city.

He just finished his sabbatical.

He got like 12 weeks off for sabbatical, and I was like, wow, hello.

Uh are y'all are what's up with that?

And so he took basically three months off.

And I said, What'd you do?

That's like 12 Sundays.

He said, I went to 12 different churches.

And my first thought was, why?

But he did.

And he said he went to all these churches.

I said, What did you see?

And he just started laughing.

He goes, It's depressing.

And I said, What?

And he just began to tell me just the litany of crazy story after crazy story.

He said, One church we parked like 30 feet from the door, and they were in the parking lot, had bottles of water, and I said, Here, thanks for coming.

And he's like, I don't need a drink.

It's just right there.

I'm just walking that far.

And he said, There's a lot of things that the church does that we don't know why we do.

But there he said, But the interesting thing of the 12 churches that I've visited, only one of them really preached the Bible.

And I was like, wow.

And he said, So I come back from my sabbatical and I'm just, I'm resolved just to keep teaching the Bible.

And he said, you should feel good about what you do because you teach the Bible.

And I was like, okay, works for me.

See, there's a lot of things that the church, I mean, the culture says, well, the church should be doing this, and what about this?

But it's really just a few things if you get down to it.

The work of the church, Acts chapter 2, verse 42.

Acts 2:42

The Bible says this, and they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and a fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers.

And all 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 are being saved.

Now just think about that for just for a second.

The Lord added to their number day by day those who are being saved.

Because what we want and what you'll see is that all through the book of Acts, because we'll start here, and basically I'll read half a book of Acts to end the sermon.

Amen.

I'm just seeing if you're paying attention.

Some of y'all are like, I don't care what you do, boo.

Just dance naked, set yourself on fire.

We're going home after this.

Yes, thank you, honey.

Clearly, my wife's in this service.

Uh no, I I think that we see that we see like the consequence uh uh uh uh of the church in the book of Acts.

By the way, this is where the church began.

This is where uh up to this point it was 120 people that said, Hey, we're Christians, we believe Jesus is the Messiah.

They're kind of gathered uh and together, and the thing called Pentecost has just happened where a Freddy cat named Peter who denied Jesus and used uh he kind of swore when he denied Jesus that I don't I don't know him.

And and God comes to him and he says, Hey, after the resurrection, go tell my disciples and Peter to meet me in Jerusalem.

And he meets them and he says, Hey, you know, stay in Jerusalem and you'll receive power and the Holy Spirit comes upon you.

You'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria.

And so Peter gets to experience what Jesus said of him.

And so Acts chapter 2, he stands up and preaches this incredible sermon.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And 3,000 people accept Christ and get baptized.

And there are 120 people, and now they go from 120 to 3,120.

If you're a math person, that's about 26 times what they once were.

Can you imagine?

26 times as many people show up this Sunday in our three services, 26 times that many show up next week.

There wouldn't be no coffee left for you.

And some of you'd be like, that's it, we're going to visit a new church.

Come on, let's go.

They ain't got no coffee.

They weren't even ready for us.

What in the world?

I mean, can you imagine?

We wouldn't have that golf cart shuttle we have.

We'd have to get like flatbed hay trucks and load you up on and drive you.

I mean, can you imagine the nursery with 26 times?

We should be stuffing kids in there just here, just take another baby, just go.

And they'd be like, how was it?

It was good.

See, we here's my point.

We don't have a frame of reference for what the Bible talks about.

But here's the thing: we see the consequence, but we don't see the cause.

And I want to talk to you this morning about the cause.

It's just verse 42.

It says, and they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayers.

There's a lot of things the church could do, but there's just a few things the church must do.

And I want to talk to you that this morning as I talk about the work of the church.

The first thing the church must do, number one on the list, is teaching.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.

Notice that it's the apostles' teaching.

It's plural.

You say, what do you mean?

Teaching is never the responsibility of one person in the early church.

Teaching is about one person, but it's never by one person.

That way they don't have a cult of personality, or it's not just about that one person.

Well, that's our pastor.

And if you want to see the consequence and how far we are from the biblical model, think of just any famous pastor, which that that ought to be the oxymoron, but it's not.

Think of somebody like a famous pastor at a church and think what would happen if that person left.

I mean, just think what would happen.

Like in our city right here, Joel Osteen is a big, huge church.

If he left, what would they do to fill that building?

What would happen?

I mean, besides the Bible would start being taught, but what would happen beyond that?

I mean, what they what would they do?

I mean, it's it's kind of built on this one, you know, and so I don't know if you've noticed, but since May, we started here at least once a month.

Somebody besides myself preaches.

And by the way, keep sending me your emails.

I appreciate them.

Uh one of you, one Sunday, I I was here sitting over here with my wife and kids, and and and I think Lance was preaching, and somebody said, wrote me an email and said, Were you sick?

And I wrote back, No.

Well, why didn't you preach?

I didn't feel like it.

No, I said, no.

We started a thing where one Sunday a month, Wade or Lance uh are uh is is gonna preach because they have gifts and you need to hear from different people.

And the person wrote me back and said, But I like hearing from you.

I don't like hearing from anybody else.

And I said, Do you go to church or do you go to Neil?

And that person hadn't written me back yet.

So if you're in this service, write me back, okay?

And I'm not trying to be smarty pants, I'm just thinking, here's the thing: Way Collier has things to teach you that I can't teach you.

Lance Williams has things to teach you that I can't teach you.

Right now, up in these upper hallways, there's classrooms up there, and there's classrooms up there, and people are teaching right now in this church, and good things are being taught.

You say, Well, what's the point of that?

The point is just simple.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.

You say, Well, what was the teaching?

Look at verse 36 of chapter 2.

This is Peter.

By the way, if you've ever messed up and thought there's no way I could be forgiven, you need to hear this.

Peter was a guy that denied Jesus, and God uses him to preach one of the greatest sermons ever.

In verse 36, he's getting to the end of it, and he says, Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him, both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.

Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brothers, what shall we do?

And Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises for you and for your children and for all who are far off, and every one whom the Lord our God calls to himself.

And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, Save yourselves from this crooked generation.

So those who received his word.

Now circle those two words in your mind this morning.

Those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

They were added to the church that day about three thousand souls.

There's two things I want to say to you.

Number one, under this thing about teaching, number one, when the truth is taught, uh they received it.

When the truth is taught, they received it.

People want the truth.

Are you aware of that?

They don't mind if you say, hey, this is what I believe the truth is.

And notice that truth is capitalized.

We believe that the Bible is the truth, that this is the absolute truth.

It's not relative, it stands alone, it's not circumstantial, it's not bound by time and culture by that.

We don't believe that the Bible was true back then, but we're so sophisticated now the Bible's no longer true.

No, the Bible was true, it is true, and it will always be true.

You need to know that about this church.

If you're visiting today, we believe the Bible, but we don't believe it's a weapon, we believe it's a tool.

We're not going to beat you over the head with it and club you into submission.

Like I have a friend right now that lives with this girlfriend.

Somebody said to me the other day, they said, You got some crazy friends.

Yes.

I have some whacked-out friends.

And he calls me every once in a while and he tries to, he's like, Hey man, I want you to pray for us.

And I'm like, Well, I said, I'll pray for you.

But you do realize when you live in sin, there's a consequence for sin.

You realize that, right?

So you think what uh what's happening in our lives is a consequence of our sin?

Absolutely.

Well, I mean, what kind of God would bring consequence?

A God, yes, that's the way my friends think.

You probably don't have any friends that think that way.

But my jacked up sinful friends who read the Bible, was raised in church, by the way, and when he went off to college, just walked away from the whole thing.

And now he wants to come back and pick and choose what he likes and what he doesn't like.

And I said, Yeah, there's a consequence.

What kind of God bring a consequence?

A God that loves you enough to watch you not kill yourself.

Well, what where do you get that?

The Bible says that the wages of sin is death.

The paycheck.

You're working hard at sin.

And listen, if you love this woman or you want to live together, why don't you move out for three months, get good biblical counseling, and then marry her and move in together.

It's awesome.

It's like having a whole new boss to tell you what to do.

And my friend said, because he's sinful and doesn't know what else to say, he said, I don't want that.

I just want to live with her.

I said, So you don't want to buy the cow, you just want the milk for free.

Yeah, now you understand where I'm coming from.

No, I'm not understanding where you're coming from.

That's just selfish.

Well, I just I just disagree.

I said, Well, the Bible said, I said, let me tell you something.

What I'm telling you right now is true and it's always gonna be true.

And he goes, How do you know?

Because the Bible says of itself that heaven and earth will pass away.

You know that this earth is gonna pass away, right?

But the word of God stands forever.

I said, so there will never be a time when the Bible's not true.

So you're gonna submit to it or you're gonna fight it and pay the price.

Well, you know what, girlfriend, she cries a lot these days.

That's your fault, by the way.

Don't be judging me.

Shut up.

Don't be such a coward.

Man up, ladybug.

Actually, what your pastor said to him on the phone was listen, ginger snap, stop being such a baby.

She cries because you are leading her on the broad path to destruction.

And she wants a spiritual man who can be a spiritual leader.

Well, we just disagree.

No, I'm right, and you're wrong.

Now, you think one of two things.

Some of you may think, man, you are an arrogant, self-righteous little weasel.

No, I'm really not.

I realize what a screwed-up wreck I am, but my friend's only hope is the truth, something to teach him.

Now, when the truth is taught and Peter, he received it.

What was his word?

Have you ever asked?

Ask yourself this question.

Have you ever asked yourself what is your message to the world?

Because the Bible says when they received his word.

And by the way, his message to the world, Peter understood something we didn't understand: the evangelism, telling people about Christ, whatever you call it.

It's good news.

It's not telling them bad news about themselves.

I told my friend that day on the phone, I said, hey, here's the good news.

This God that you think is out to get you stands ready to forgive you for everything you've ever done.

Well, I mean, you act like we're living in sin, like I'm I'm a sinner.

You are a sinner.

And you're living in sin.

When you live with someone you're not married to, that is sin, and there will always be a consequence, and God brings consequence to turn your heart back to Him.

Well, I I that's just a matter of opinion.

No, it's a matter of truth.

But before I got the phone, I said, but hey, but know this.

This same God that brings consequence in order to turn you back, stands ready to forgive you at any point.

When you get just tired of trying to manage the consequence of sin.

All right, man, I knew I knew you were gonna say this.

Thank you.

I'm strangely complimented by that.

Peter says, This is my message to you.

It's not bad news about you.

How many of you in this room right now know what's wrong with you?

Raise your hand.

If you go, I got something in my life I could probably do better at, raise your hand.

Real high.

Even the visitors, leave it up.

Look around.

You're surrounded by screwed up people.

And my hand's up too.

And your pastor's a screwed up person.

You say, What do you mean?

The good news is not telling you bad things about you.

You already know bad things about you.

I know bad things about me, okay?

I know.

I know the past three days, I've just been kind of in an irregular, out-of-sort mood, and my wife's kind of like, just go get it sorted, okay?

Just, yeah, just go watch football.

My wife's so glad college football was on yesterday because she didn't have to talk to me.

Now, she's so nice, she wouldn't tell you that.

But this is what she said to me at lunch.

Hey, are there any good games coming on today and tonight?

See, that's how so.

That's why you need to be married because they run the okie doke on you.

You think that she's kind of, but she's kind of basically saying, please go somewhere and take all your manic personalities with you.

Go watch football.

Okay.

Peter said, hey, here's here's the deal, because I know what's wrong with me.

Peter says, hey, the good news is not telling you what's bad about you or what's wrong with you.

The good news to these religious people is, hey, here's what's good news about Jesus.

He said, the good news for these folks is, hey, your religious still didn't crucify Jesus.

Plus, they killed Jesus.

These are the same people.

Get the context.

Who when Jesus rode into Jerusalem, they had palm branches.

Oh, Hosanna, glory to God in the highest.

Woo, we love Jesus.

A week later, give us Barabbas.

We just killed Jesus.

They killed Jesus and then God raised him from the dead.

Uh-oh.

Can you imagine being the guys that killed Jesus?

And the word gets out.

You're at the Starbucks sipping coffee.

Hey man, Jesus got up from the dead.

You know that cat that said he would?

He rose from the dead and he's coming down the street.

Uh-oh.

I mean, can you just imagine people flipping tables over to get out of there?

Get this in your hand.

He did what he said.

And then they're like, kind of like, uh Peter gets up and starts preaching, and he's got them.

He's got them.

See, the truth, when the truth is taught, they received it.

And the good news was, hey, he wasn't crucified by you, he was crucified for you.

And they were like, What?

You mean we're not beyond the you mean he's not coming to get it?

No.

He's coming to forgive you.

Remember on the cross, he said, Oh, Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing.

Second thing I want you to notice is that there's a response.

Look in verse 37.

Excuse me.

Yeah, verse 37.

It says, Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do?

I mean, let's start reading verse 36 so we can just kind of he says, Let all the house of Israel, therefore, know for certain that God has made him both Lord in Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.

See, you gotta, if you're gonna kill somebody, know who you're killing.

They didn't know who they were killing.

They thought, we're killing this upstart, rabble-rousing, self-made prophet.

He's like David Koresh of his day.

Remember David Koresh?

People in the Bible thought about Jesus the way we thought about David Koresh.

You kooky old man, get out of here.

That's what they thought.

And now, Peter connects the dots and says, Hey, let all the house of Israel, all you Jewish religious people, therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord in Christ.

And this Jesus whom you crucified.

Now, when they heard this, see, everybody has a this in their life.

Now when they heard this, see, you became a Christian because someone talked to your this.

You realize that, don't you?

Now when they heard this, look what happened.

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do?

See, the second thing is I want you to hear this morning in his underteach under teaching is that there's a response.

See, prepare for a response.

I'm constantly amazed how people that it should be about sharing your faith.

You're not prepared for people to respond.

See, people respond to the truth.

The truth is that they're this, whatever their this is in their life.

Now, when they heard this, that thing that they kind of clicked in their guts and they went, uh-oh, oh my, what do we do?

Translation, we don't have a leg to stand on.

We're guilty.

What do we do?

Only the truth, the absolute truth of the word of God, can bring a human being to that place.

And most people don't have a response.

I remember when I first became a Christian, you know, you hear people talk about sharing their faith, and they make it sound like every time they share their faith, people accept Christ.

You know it doesn't happen that way, right?

I remember the first time I was at a campus crusade for Christ conference, and I was being mentored to decide by God named Scott, and he was like, You need to share your faith, Neon.

So I'd share my faith.

My best friend, I remember, spit beer on my shoes and told me to go to hell.

And I remember thinking, they didn't talk about this at youth camp.

All the stories that guy told didn't finish this way.

And all my friends on the parking lot were like, Yeah, we heard you got religion.

Get out of here, McClellan.

We don't care.

And I was like, Yeah, but my shoes.

Really?

And this is my best friend.

This is not like a stranger.

A year later, I'm at a conference.

I'm kind of like, I, you know, and so speaker, they had some kind of breakout thing.

My buddy goes, Hey, let's go down to the hot tub.

We're at the Anatole Hotel in Dallas.

I don't know if it's still there.

Back then it was swanky danky, okay?

So we're in the Anatole.

We slide down there, we're in the hot tub.

I'm sitting there, there's a guy over there talking.

He looks at me and says, Hey man, what are all these college kids doing here?

Is there some kind of a conference or something going on?

And that little voice in me said, Tell him.

So I started talking about the conference.

And I said, He says, So what are they doing at the conference?

Are you part of the conference?

Yeah, it's kind of a college conference where we're kind of talking, you know, about uh is Campus Crusade for Christ.

Have you heard of Campus Crusade?

Because I wanted to talk about everything but the thing.

His this.

See, his this is not Campus Crusade, it's not Bill Bright, it's not the conference.

And I'm like, uh, well, see, uh uh, and finally I just thought and I said, so well, anyway, we're talking about sharing of faith.

Has anybody ever explained to you what Christianity is all about?

And he looked at me and said, Hell no.

See, God, he he's a bad person.

He used bad language right there.

I can't talk to him.

And very clearly the Holy Spirit's like, he's gonna go to hell if you don't.

See, you've forgotten that people don't know Jesus go to hell.

And it's not a cuss word, it's a place.

And so I just waded in and I just started sharing, and the guy lit up, and he's just like, Well, what about this?

And he asked questions, and all of a sudden, answers started coming out of me, and I was like, Where'd that come from?

Because I'm looking over, my buddy Scott's over there, kind of going, get in there and talk to him.

And I'm like, Oh, well, okay.

And so we're talking, in about five, seven minutes, that guy accepts Christ.

He looked at me before, I mean, he said, He said, Man, this is incredible.

What do I do?

How do I know Jesus?

And I went, One minute.

Got out of the hot tub, walked over here to Scott.

Because, see, I wasn't prepared for a response.

I never had this happen before.

See, I just went around collecting rejection.

Here's the danger.

Now, listen to me.

Here's the danger.

If all you do is collect rejection, that's all you prepare for.

You don't know how to go past that when someone says, you know what?

When God opens up their heart and they go, Yeah, so what do I need to do?

I think that's what he said to me.

So, what do I need to do?

That's a good question.

Wait, right here.

I got back, I got over there, and the guy that decided me was real tenderhearted.

He goes, Are you an idiot or what?

Well, uh walk back over, share Christ.

I said, Here, here, here's the and just explain how you give your life to Christ.

God accepted Christ right there in the hot tub.

Peter, the Bible says, When they heard this, listen to me.

If you hear anything this morning, hear this.

Everybody has a this.

Everybody has a this.

When they heard this, and it's not the same for everybody, you can't have a one-size-fits-all, hey, let me just kind of when you when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything's a nail.

And some of you get turned off by people because you approach everybody the same way.

And Peter just tells it.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.

What was the teaching?

It was the truth of the word of God.

So whether I'm up here or Wade's up here, or Lance is up here, or who Whoever's up here, the truth of the word of God is going to be taught.

And they went from 120 people to 3,120 in just a matter of a few moments.

The second thing the Bible tells us is that they devoted themselves to, first of all, teaching.

Secondly, to fellowship.

To fellowship.

Look at verse 42.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship.

You know what just happened?

Every man in this room just turned off.

Fellowship.

That sounds like about borderline sissified right there.

Actually, it's the Greek word quanania.

Sound better?

Nope.

Let my wife get together with some little finger sandwiches and some tea and talk to some other widow women.

Look at me.

I'm going to talk to all you men.

You women just listen.

Men, if you don't learn to practice biblical fellowship, you're going to be 50, 55 years old.

You're going to live in the biggest, nicest house you've ever had, with the most technology bolted to the wall you can get, and the nicest vehicle you can drive in the driveway, and you're going to be the loneliest you've ever been.

Do you feel what just happened in here?

Some of your wives are squeezing your leg right now.

He's talking to you, Junior.

I ain't mad at you.

I mean, they're going to come out with a bigger flat screen pretty soon.

You're going to have what they got in Texas State, Cowboy Stadium, bolted on your wall.

Look at me.

Technology's not a bad thing, but it can't fill the void in your heart for connection.

That's not connection, that's entertainment.

Playing online video games, that's not connection.

You're talking through a headset with strangers in Iowa.

Are you kidding me?

That's not what God made you for.

Fellowship, you say, what do you mean?

Isn't it interesting that the first thing God does before sending them out on the world, He sends them to each other?

You say, What do you mean?

Look there in your Bible.

Look at verse 43.

And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs are being done through the apostles.

And all who believed were together, had all things in common.

And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as they had need.

Verse 46, 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.

Now, when the Bible talks about fellowship, it is the Greek word quantinea.

It's a big word.

Basically, it's just you open up your life to other people.

A couple weeks ago, some friends of ours called.

It was like, I don't know, eight o'clock at night, and they said, Hey, our son's at the bridge event, and uh he it's over at nine, and we're kind of on this side of town.

We live in Greatwood, and what do y'all do?

And I said, Y'all want to drop by?

See, I grew up in the country, and in the country, people drop by.

You city people don't drop by anymore.

And I said, You want to drop by?

And my wife was across the room and her ears went whoop.

It was like, whoop, whoop, whoop, pick up, pick up, pick up.

And I'm like, no, I'm not picking up nothing.

This is my house.

If my house is messy and you don't like it, tough.

And so I mean, my kids went in clean, sweep mode.

I started just kicking my shoes off.

Where's the cat?

Let the cat in.

Here's why.

Because I don't want people to think our pastor lives in a museum.

It's so pristine.

It's like a sea of tranquility.

Are you kidding me?

I mean, I got dogs, I got two dogs that live in the house.

And my friend that was coming over doesn't like dogs.

And so I let them dogs in.

My wife, put the dogs in the bedroom.

No, my dogs don't stay in my bedroom.

If you come to my house, you don't get to change who I am.

If you don't like it, you can leave.

I spray you with a water hose in the front yard.

You say, why are you telling us that?

When's the last time somebody dropped in on you at nine o'clock at night?

We don't do that anymore.

We're the most antisocial, but yet you're so social.

Hey, Facebook gives you the illusion of being social, but you're not social.

You type.

Are you kidding me?

You can sit in your house and do that and think, oh, I got a lot of friends.

No, you don't.

And by the way, that's not a puppy.

That's too small to be a puppy.

Thank you.

You saw the commercial, didn't you?

It's just in this social age, it's the biggest, it's the greatest hypocrisy pulled on humanity.

The social media.

Hey, there's nothing social about you sending messages to other people that you never connect with.

It's just not.

Like tonight, my wife and I having dinner with some friends of ours go to this church.

And we'll sit down at Papacitas and talk.

And I'll say to them, How's your marriage?

How are y'all doing?

What makes you want to kill him lately?

Because I like to ask bizarre questions.

By the way, if you ask my wife that, she has an answer.

You know, they're like, Does anybody ask your wife crazy questions?

Yeah, some of y'all do.

And she, we got nothing to hide.

We're just real people.

Sometimes we get frustrated with each other.

Most of the time it's great.

We have a great marriage, okay?

We work hard at that.

But yesterday I watched college football all day and into the night, and my wife was glad.

And she's just unwell, she she didn't say it, but what she communicated to me was, I just need a little break from you.

Go watch TV in our bedroom with the door closed, please.

And I'm like, please, Burr Rabbit, don't throw me in that briar patch.

I got a flat screen TV in my bedroom and a king-sized bed and a DVR.

Pause.

Go to the kitchen, get a little snack, come back, unpause.

But look at me.

As good as that is, that's not what I was made for.

I was made for connection.

And so were you.

Okay?

That's what fellowship is.

Let me say it again.

If you're not careful, men, I'm talking to you.

Women are more social than men are.

Some of you aren't, but for the most part, men, if we're not careful, when you're 50, 55, 60, maybe even 65, your peak earning years, you just start accumulating.

Look around you, ask yourself this question, men.

Do you have more toys, more stuff, better deer lease, nicer truck, better rifle, bigger TV, or do you have deeper, more meaningful friendships?

You feel that awkward silence?

Hello?

All that can't fill us and fix us.

I love what Howard Hendrick says.

He's a longtime professor at Dallas Theological Seminary.

He says this most of us don't need to know more nearly as much as we need to be known more.

We don't need a set of principles to practice nearly as much as we need another person to help us.

We need someone to believe in us, stand by us, guide us, model Christ for us.

We need another's encouragement, wisdom, example, and accountability this week.

Because I try to practice what I preach.

It's better that way.

I met with a 73-year-old pastor.

I would say he's retired, but he's not.

73, brother had a shock of white hair and a white beard and big old bushy Santa Claus eyebrows.

Kind of scared me.

Sat in my office for an hour and a half, two hours.

We were talking, and he just looked at me and he goes, Let me speak into your life, Neil.

Oh, yes, sir.

Please.

And I can expect a 73-year-old man to say nice stuff like, You're doing a good job, and gosh darn it, people like you, son.

He said some of that.

He said, You're doing a great job.

God's honored by what you do here.

But let me tell you something.

You don't fall into the trap, Neil.

I'm not saying you have.

Don't fall into the trap thinking you've done enough.

You see, because as a pastor, we think we've done enough and we can just kind of, you know, just kind of coast or whatever.

Yes, here's the phrase that I was like, uh, where's a pen?

He said, Yesterday's dying is not enough for today's need.

And I said, excuse me?

And he said, Jesus said, if anyone wants to be my disciple, let him deny himself daily and take up his cross and follow after me.

Just because you died last month doesn't mean you don't have to die today, Neil.

You got to come here and die every day.

Crazy old fool.

Won't you go somewhere else?

You 73-year-old man.

I didn't think that at all.

I thought, oh yeah.

Say something else, you crazy old man.

After he got ready to leave, he said, Let me give you my number.

Because I'd like to meet with you again.

I mean, it was like my shirt was ripped off.

I was like, Yeah, I'd like that.

Like getting into a phone booth with a gorilla.

Close the door.

Who do you have that kind of relationship with?

Because when he left, I got up my planner and opened it up, and I thought, when can I have lunch with this man again?

Why?

Because what Howard Hendrick said is true.

I need someone else's encouragement, wisdom, example, and accountability.

That's why we have teaching happens here on Wednesday nights, on Tuesday morning, which by the way starts this week.

Tuesday morning, our ladies' Bible study kicks off.

Amy Ewing is going to be teaching that.

Wednesday night, we have a full slate of classes from 6.30 to 8.

Well, we also, that's where teaching happens, but connection, fellowship happens in our community groups.

And so if you look on the connection center, you see a blue book.

Looks kind of like this.

Has a listing of the different class, different community groups where they meet.

Somebody that's smarter than me put this together and printed it out.

That goes to this church.

But anyway, has a picture of like right there.

New group, Wade and Sally Collier, where they meet, a map to their house.

It says day, what day they meet, what time they meet, child care, no child care.

Apparently Wade and Sally don't like kids.

But anyway.

This Pat and Marlene Kelly, they meet on the first and third Sundays from seven to nine, child care.

No, they don't like kids either.

Next.

There's the Winemans, Dennis and Sonia Wineman.

They meet on the first and third Sundays from five to seven child care.

No, nobody in church likes kids.

I'm just kidding.

Because there's some that they my point is that the Coopers, Gary and Desiree, they have child care.

They got a big old sprawling house out in the country.

You can go out in the backyard and dig a hole or whatever, go upstairs, whatever.

It's a different listing of all the people.

There's 13 groups in here, 13 community groups with all the information.

You say, What do you mean?

Because some of you have never sat down in a room full of people.

And the good thing, the reason we put their pictures in there is so you can see them.

And you can see them here at church and kind of go, Yeah, that's Dave and Need Rush right there.

And corner them and just talk to them.

Because here's why.

A person's community group is going to take on the personality of that person.

Okay?

And so you can just kind of see, but I jive with them.

Some of the groups are for empty nesters.

Somebody asked me, what do the empty nesters do?

And they get together, they get it set around and price RVs and talk about their kids.

I said, by the way, the empty nesters don't sit around and wonder what the 20-somethings group is doing or the young couples group is doing.

They've already raised their kids.

And by the way, when you 30-year-olds talk about how hard it is to raise kids around 55-year-olds who've already raised them, you shouldn't do that.

You should be asking them questions, not telling them how hard it is.

But they don't like it when I say that.

But I say it anyway.

It's kind of like preaching to you.

Sometimes I say things you don't like, right?

Don't be so quick with that.

Fellowship.

That's what it is.

Let me ask you a question.

Does the pace of your life, does the pace of your life allow you to meaningfully connect with anybody outside your family?

Third thing, they devoted themselves to.

The Bible says they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, the breaking of bread, the breaking of bread.

Now there's a lot of debate about this.

What does this refer to?

It refers to what?

I think it refers to both.

The debate is, is he talking about communion, the Lord's Supper?

Is he talking about meal sharing, just literally eating together?

Right here, I think he's talking about communion.

Because in verse 41, you had 3,000 people that accepted Christ and were baptized.

And one of the things the early church did was they recognized and they lived in obedience to the ordinances of the church.

There was baptism and then there was communion.

Baptism is a symbol of our conversion to Christ.

Communion is a symbol of our relationship, of our ongoing communion with Christ.

But they also, if you read down past verse 42, you get in about verse 45, or excuse me, verse 46, and day by day they attended the temple together and breaking bread in their homes and received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the favor of all people.

That's what he's talking about.

We call it just eating, but in the Bible it was more about meal sharing.

Just having people in your home and being in other people's home and they ate together.

And this is kind of a generational thing.

Again, like this generation talks about they're so socially savvy and they're so whatever.

No, you're not.

I remember as a kid, my parents, and we weren't really church people.

We'd have people to our house and they would drink beer and play dominoes till midnight.

They're like, well, that's not socialization.

Sure it was.

And I remember as a kid, they'd been there laughing and cutting up and talking, and I would think, what are those old people?

Don't they need to go to bed?

And they play cards.

I mean, every weekend.

I mean, Friday and Saturday night, there were different people at the kitchen table.

And here's my point.

My lost family and lost friends are better at that than we are.

And it's hard.

See, see, people in the New Testament looked at the church in Acts and they said, Wow, man, I wish somebody loved me like that.

Final thing they devoted themselves to.

Because the Bible just says, and the prayer.

And the prayer.

And you say, Well, of course they prayed.

They're the church.

It's one thing to notice that they prayed.

It's quite another to notice what they prayed.

So if you would, as I close this morning, would you just turn over to Acts chapter 4?

Acts 4 · chapter mention

You still with me?

Acts chapter 4, verse 23.

Acts 4:23

And let me give you the context.

Peter and John, after chapter 2, they go into chapter 3 and they're going up to the temple to pray.

And there's a guy there begging, and Peter and John say to him, Silver and gold we don't have, but what we have, we give unto you in the name of Jesus, rise and walk.

And the man was healed in that moment.

His ankles and legs were strengthened.

He jumped up, and the Pharisees, the religious people of the day, freaked out, You can't do that.

It's on the Sabbath.

And so they just got sent to the police station.

And they had to get a little shakedown from the Pharisees.

And they just got released.

And chapter 4, verse 23 says, Now when they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them.

And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, Sovereign Lord, do you see how hard this is?

Make these people stop persecuting us.

We're supposed to be blessed, and every day's Friday and payday, and we're getting the short end of the stick here.

Look at me.

When most of you find yourself in a context where the miraculous could happen, you ask God to get you out of there.

That's where the good stuff happens.

Look what they said.

They said, Sovereign Lord.

I mean, can you suffer persecution and still believe that God is sovereign?

Sovereign Lord who made heaven and earth and the sea and everything in them.

They start by saying, We're talking to the big king, God of the universe.

Sovereign Lord who made the heaven and everything and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of your servant, excuse me, the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, Why do the Gentiles rage and the people plot in vain?

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his anointed.

For truly in this city they were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with Gentiles and the people of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan and predestine to take place.

And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken.

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continue to speak the word of God with boldness.

See, when I say that they devoted themselves to prayer, some of you are kind of like, oh, and we're done.

They didn't pray like we pray.

They said, Hey, God, look and see what these people want to do to us and do that in us.

So that when they do it to us, that you come out.

And they began by saying, Oh, sovereign God, maker of heaven and earth, you made the sea and everything in it.

What are these people going to do to us?

Their prayer was kind of like a history lesson.

They were counting to God, this is who you are, and this is what you did.

Now, now finally, let's get to us.

This is what we need you to do.

We need you not to get us out of this.

No, no, no, no, no.

Enable us to speak the word of God more boldly.

Why?

Look at me, beloved, and we're done.

Look at me.

Because everybody has a this.

And they got to hear this.

And your boldness is gonna put their this on your tongue this week at work.

And you can just speak it out.

And it's not condemnation.

Oh, you tramp, you hussy, you're sleeping around, blah, blah, blah.

Why do you think my friend that lives with his girlfriend, he calls me once a week at least?

Hey man, what's going on?

You know, here at the religion factory working full time, turning the handle, making religion.

What are you doing?

Oh man, me and my girlfriend, we're kind of at a rough patch.

You always had a rough patch.

Have you noticed that?

Oh man, don't be hating on me now.

I'm not hating on you.

Why is it rough?

Well, whenever we're intimate, she cries.

Ooh.

I don't want the thought of you being intimate makes me throw up in my mouth.

I mean, can you help me?

She cries because her soul is in mourning.

Because you're a pathetic leader.

You've led her into sin, not into righteousness.

Man, we've had this conversation before.

And you keep sinning.

And I love you.

But that is you're this.

Let me just close by asking you this question.

Because, see, there's a lot of things that church growth and all this stuff, and whiz-bang, whoopee, we're gonna do all that.

And there's a lot of things the church could do, but there's only a few things we must do.

What do you think would happen if we did these things as a church?

If we devoted ourselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.

Well, I just want to close by reading a few verses.

Is that okay?

You don't have to turn.

I'll just kind of read through the rest of the book of Acts.

Uh, not all of it.

Good news.

Uh Acts chapter 4, verse 4.

Acts 4:4

But many of those who had heard the message believed, and the number of men came to be about 5,000.

We were at 3,120.

Now we're at 5,000.

Acts chapter 5, verse 14.

Acts 5:14

And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women were constantly added to their number.

Acts chapter 6, verse 7.

Acts 6:7

The word of God kept on spreading.

See, how does the word of God spread unless you're teaching the word of God?

That's your charisma, that's your content.

It's not your creativity, it's the word of God.

The word of God kept on spreading.

And the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem.

And a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith.

Can you imagine the preachers getting saved?

That's a good thing, don't you think?

Acts chapter 9, verse 31.

Acts 9:31

So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

It continued to increase.

Acts chapter 11, verses 21 to 24, and the hand of the Lord was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord.

Acts 11:21–24

The news about them reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas off to Antioch.

And then when he arrived to witness the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord, for he was a good man and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.

And considerable numbers were brought to the Lord.

Acts chapter 14, verse 1.

Acts 14:1

In Iconium, they entered the synagogue of the Jews together and spoke in such a manner that a large number of people believed, both of the Jews and of the Greeks.

When it says both of the Jews of the Greeks, the religious and the intellectual, both of them, Christianity is not intellectual suicide.

Some people, their this is intellect, and some of you speak that language fluently, and you have to do it from a God-informed perspective and worldview.

That's why I'm excited that on Wednesday nights, starting this Wednesday night, right up here in this classroom, uh Al Williams and uh and one of the other men in our church is gonna lead a study.

It's a Tim Keller, uh Tim Keller study where Tim they videoed it.

Tim Keller is a pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan.

And he sits down with six or seven people that are unbelievers.

And Keller says, behind that unbelief is faith in something.

And I want to get to that.

And some of you need to get better at having like what I call dialogical apologetics.

And you're like, what, what, what?

Is there like a cream for that or an ointment?

What?

Basically, just talking to people about spiritual things in an informed way.

Just engaging them.

The Bible says that both Jews and Greeks were coming to Christ.

Acts 16, verse 5.

Acts 16:5

We're just about done.

You still with me?

See, because we just you just start walking through the book of Acts, and it gets bigger and better and better and better and bigger, and it just grows.

Acts 16, verse 5.

Acts 16:5

So the churches were being strengthened in the faith and were increasing in number daily.

Acts chapter 17, verse 12.

Acts 17:12

Therefore, many of them believed, along with a number of prominent Greek men and women.

It's not just, oh, let's get the low-hanging fruit.

They said, hey, we got these prominent men and women that are coming to faith in Christ.

This is what I'm saying, church.

This is why on this Labor Day Sunday, I'm saying, let's be about the work of the church.

Let's work hard to be ourselves, as defined in Scripture, and not preferred by the culture.

Because if you're not careful, you capitulate to this world and this culture so much that you no longer have anything to say to them.

Because we've kind of said felt needs, your preference, what makes you comfortable?

What do the 20-somethings want?

Okay, what are the 30 somethings want?

What are the 40-somethings?

What do the 70-somethings want?

Deep inside every one of you, what you want is a truth.

And the truth of God's word is that the work of the church, the one thing that the church must do is teach the word of God as the word of God.

And stop apologizing for it.

Secondly, the church must devote themselves to one another in intentional, connecting relationships.

The Bible calls it fellowship.

The church must maintain the ordinances of the church, baptism and the Lord's Supper primarily.

And fourthly, we must be a place of prayer.

Would you join me this week in just praying that when you pray for our church, pray for those things that we would teach and we would we would connect in fellowship together, and we'd be about, you know, the communion and conversion, and we'd be about being a people that pray.

God don't deliver us.

God involve us in changing our city.

That's the prayer I pray.

Would you pray that with me?

Stand to your feet if you would.

Tomorrow you will rest from your labor.

Because your God rested.

And sometimes the most Christ like thing you can do is nothing.

Depart now and practice doing nothing.

Because your God has provided everything.

And He's done so joyfully.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.

You're dismissed.