Ordinary (Pastor Greg Hudson, 02/10/24)

Dear God, we thank you for this Sabbath, for this time that we can gather together.

Thank you for all the blessings that you have poured out upon us.

Thank you for that refining fire that changes us, that makes us ready to do your will as

we just heard so beautifully sung.

Be with us today.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

Thank you for singing.

That was beautiful.

And for coming to join us and playing as well.

So I imagine that this week somebody, maybe you, one day this past week the alarm went

off, you got up, you had some breakfast.

What did you have?

Some cornflakes, a pancake?

I don't know.

What did you have for breakfast?

You went to work, you did the thing you do most days, maybe you had an appointment,

you came home, you ate supper, you probably watched some TV, you went to bed.

And then the next day the alarm went off and you did pretty much a very similar thing because

the day was ordinary.

It was an ordinary day and many times our ordinary days are similar from day to day,

from week to week.

You went the next day, you woke up and you did it all over again.

That's how many of our days go.

Now advertisers, they want us to want something different, to want something new.

They like to use words like new and improved or bigger and better because if we see something

as improved, if we see it's better, then maybe we'll be enticed to purchase that new item.

They can tell us that the pizza is going to have more toppings.

In fact, we're going to put cheese right into the crust and maybe we'll want to buy that

pizza because it's got cheese in the crust.

What about everybody's favorite Oreos?

Not only a regular Oreo isn't enough, you've got to have double stuffed Oreos and triple

stuffed Oreos and frosted Oreos and all these different things because it's better.

And if it's better, then you will want it.

Then something as simple as shaving.

I see some in here who don't shave very often, but others shave sometimes and two razors

on your blade is not enough.

Two blades on your razor is not enough.

What about three?

What about four?

Let's go crazy.

How about five or six razors that's going to entice you to buy that new thing because

they want us to be extreme because sometimes ordinary seems boring.

We could say even in our religious moments, even in our Sabbath morning, sometimes, I'm

sure not here, but sometimes people get upset that they don't play their favorite song.

I didn't like the music today.

I didn't like the sermon today.

It wasn't the topic that I thought we needed to hear.

Sometimes if we're not moved, if we don't cry about the topic, if our heart isn't moved,

then we don't feel it and we think nothing special has happened, nothing special has

taken place because ordinary seems boring.

Now in the Bible, let's be clear, there are some extreme stories that take place.

You can think of, we talked about Elisha, who was the guy right before him?

Elijah, yeah, that was his name.

One of his most well-known stories is that there's a time of drought, there's no rain,

he gathers everybody on Mount Carmel, and there's this contest, this competition that

takes place, and as Elijah is praying, boom, fire falls from heaven and it burns up the

sacrifice and it burns up the wood and it burns up the stone and it even, it burns up

everything, and the people cry out, the Lord, he is God, the Lord, he is God.

Now that was an extreme story.

That was an exciting day in religious history right there.

We could go forward from there a few years and there's three young Hebrews in exile living

in Babylon and one day the king sets up a giant statue and when the music plays, everybody

is supposed to do what?

Everybody is supposed to bow down and the guitar and the piano begin, the music starts,

all the instruments that are listed, and everybody bows down except for three people.

There's three people that are still standing and so they give them a second chance, these

three Hebrew worthies, they play the music again, everybody bows down except for the

three and so they throw them into the fiery furnace.

This is an extreme day in religious history and just a few moments later, King Nebuchadnezzar

peers into that blazing hot fiery furnace and he says, wait a second, didn't we throw

three people in there?

Why is it one, two, three, four?

Why do I see four people in there and one of them looks like the son of God?

That was an extreme moment in religious history.

Or two weeks ago when I was here in Acts chapter two, we talked about those followers of Jesus

who were gathered together and suddenly on the day of Pentecost that Holy Spirit was

poured out and they spoke in other languages and the crowd was gathered and there was wind

and there was fire and the place shook.

That was an extreme moment.

But we have to remember that yes, there are extreme times in the Bible, but that is not

the norm.

That is not what usually happens because before Mount Carmel, before the fire fell from heaven,

Elijah had spent three and a half years during the drought by a brook, by himself, off in

wilderness places communing with God.

Before those three Hebrews were willing to stand when everybody else knelt, just the

chapter before, Daniel chapter two, when Nebuchadnezzar had a dream about a statue, they had spent

nights, a night in prayer, praying that God would reveal a dream.

Before they stood, before the extreme, they had spent time in prayer and before the Holy

Spirit was poured out, Jesus had told those followers, those disciples to wait or to tarry

and they had spent, does anybody remember how many days?

Ten days they had spent from when Jesus ascended until that day of Pentecost.

They had spent ten days in prayer.

Before the extreme, there were many days of ordinary.

But our question for today is, what is next?

What comes after those extreme times?

Because yes, we're doing a study on the book of Acts and there are lots of miracles in

the book of Acts, but those miracles are not by everyone.

They are not happening all the time.

Before those extreme events, there are days and days of ordinary.

And our question is, can we find God, can we see God in those ordinary days?

Sometimes we need to forget that we're looking for the next best thing and see if we can

see God at work in the small, good, ordinary, everyday thing.

So we're going to pick up the story in Acts chapter two, verse 41.

Just as a reminder for those who may not have been here the last time, as Peter stood up

on the day of Pentecost and was preaching in other languages, he was directing people

to the crucified Savior and the people interrupted the sermon and they said, wait, be quiet,

just tell us what to do.

And Peter said, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus.

And last time, brother Riley was in this tank back here and was baptized, praise the Lord.

But what happened on this day when they said, repent and be baptized?

Verse 41, it said, then those who gladly received his word were baptized.

And that day, about 3000 souls were added to them, 3000 people baptized at one time.

What must that have been like?

We had a baptism.

We had one baptism, but imagine if we had 3000.

Imagine if next week when we came to church, there were 3000 people trying to get in here.

They were parked on the road, they were parked at the depot, they were streaming up the hill

to get to this place.

One, we wouldn't have enough room for them.

Amen.

Two, can you imagine how long that nominating committee would take to work through 3000

new people and try to find places of service for that many people?

And we can say amen.

We could say that would be amazing, but you know, that would mean a lot of changes.

And that's a lot of people.

And somebody might sit in my seat and do we really want 3000 people?

Yes, we do.

But that's sometimes our thought process.

Do we really want that many?

Because that is a lot of changes happening.

But we see in Acts that they take those ordinary, everyday Christians doing their every ordinary

day Christian walk, and they were able to get everyone active and involved in this message

of Jesus, and it changed the world.

It changed the world.

We're going to look at a verse.

We're going to spend most of our time talking about this one verse, Acts 2, verse 42, the

Acts 2:42

very next verse.

So 3000 people were added to them.

And it says they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship, in the

breaking of bread, and in prayer.

So that was kind of what that early church, that was what they were all about.

As suddenly they went from 120 people in the upper room to now there's 3120 people.

This is what they did.

They continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine, fellowship, and the breaking of

bread and prayers.

Now some versions of the Bible, instead of saying continued steadfastly, it says they

were devoted to.

They were devoted to those things.

So a question for you today is what are you devoted to today?

Are you devoted to a football team, maybe one that's playing tomorrow?

You know, those fans.

What is fan short for?

Fanatics.

So they're devoted to a sports team.

Are you devoted to your family?

I certainly hope so.

Are you devoted to your job?

We gotta have a job.

We gotta have a career.

We have to have a way to provide for our family.

But there was someone just in the last month or so who is perhaps one of the greatest to

ever do this particular job.

And he retired.

Nick Saban is a football coach for the Alabama University, University of Alabama, and he

won national championships.

He won conference championships.

He won game after game after game.

And way too often he beat Tennessee, which is my team.

And he retired about a month ago.

And do you know that it was about two days later that they hired somebody else?

Even the person who's one of the best ever is replaceable.

So don't think for a minute that if you were to leave your job, if you were to start a

different job, if you were to get sick and not be able to work, don't think that you're

not replaceable at your job.

They're gonna find somebody else.

So yes, do your best at your work, but don't be consumed by your work.

Because we need to be devoted to something, but we need to be devoted to what is most

important.

So back to this verse, Acts 2, 42.

It says, they continued steadfastly and it lists four different things.

And we're gonna talk about these four different things.

They continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine or the apostles teaching.

So we see that this early church, these people who were following Jesus, it was a learning

church.

It wasn't just about the excitement of that day of Pentecost.

They were devoted to doctrine, to what the apostles were teaching.

Now we have the apostles teaching, it's called the New Testament.

Those were the people who were doing the teaching and then a little bit later they wrote down

some of those teachings.

And so we have that.

In fact, this is what they said, turn over to 1 John, way back towards Revelation.

There's 1, 2, and 3 John.

This was written by the disciple, John, had a brother named James.

And notice how he begins this short little letter of 1 John.

He also wrote the Gospel of John and Revelation.

He said, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with

our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled concerning the word of

life.

This is like all of the senses are being used here.

We're seeing him, we're hearing him, we're actually touching him.

We're spending time, we're sitting around campfires, we're walking down dusty roads,

we're sitting on the mountainside as he's teaching to the multitudes.

We have seen this and it says the word of life, the life was manifested and we have

seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and

was manifested or was revealed to us.

And he goes on a little bit more and says that which we have seen and heard, he keeps

bringing that up.

We are eye witnesses to this.

We have seen it, we've heard it and we declare to you that you also, here's a purpose, that

you may have fellowship with us.

And not just with us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus

Christ.

These things we write that your joy may be full.

This is the Apostles doctrine, this is the Apostles teaching.

It's the words of Scripture that we have.

They were eye witnesses to these things and they were written down so that we could have

knowledge about it too.

Then I want to turn over to 2 Timothy because it's a classic verse about the importance

of these teachings.

2 Timothy chapter 3, 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16.

2 Timothy 3 · chapter mention 2 Timothy 3:16

It says all Scripture, all of these words, all of these teachings is given by inspiration

of God and is profitable.

It's valuable, it's important, it's profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction.

We don't like that one as much, we don't usually like being corrected or being straightened

out.

For instruction in righteousness.

We like that.

That the man of God, that the people of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every

good work.

We have the Apostles doctrine, we have the Apostles teaching.

So a question for you is, is Bible reading a part of your ordinary life?

Is it a part of your routine, is it a part of your daily journey?

I remember doing it but I don't remember why I started doing it.

I was a student at Ozark Adventist Academy and for some reason, and this is what I don't

remember, for some reason I decided I wanted to start reading my Bible every day.

I'd grown up in the church, hadn't gone different directions too much but I wanted to start

reading my Bible.

I don't remember why I started but I remember if you've been at an academy at certain times

of night they have lights out so all the lights are supposed to be out, everybody's supposed

to be in bed.

And so my roommate would be in his bed and I remember turning on the light in the closet

and I would crack the door just a little bit so there was one sliver of light that shined

out of the closet and I would sit there with that sliver of light across my Bible and I

remember I would read two pages.

I would read this page and this page and I would look for something, at least one verse,

one thing that I could underline.

And so that's kind of what for me as a teenager that's kind of where I decided that you know

what this Bible is important to me.

Now I'm going to be transparent here and there's been lots of days, too many days when I haven't

read the Bible whether by a sliver of light or by the full light of the room.

There's been too many days when the next day I'm like oh I didn't read my Bible yesterday

or last week or whatever it was.

There's been too many days where that's happened.

But that's where the Bible became most important to me, more important to me, that I wanted

it to be part of my ordinary life.

And so in that early church they were devoted to, they continued steadfastly in the Apostles

doctrine.

That was the first thing.

And then it says fellowship, fellowship.

Now that word fellowship is a Greek word called koinonia and that just means common.

That means ordinary.

That means you know taking care of each other in everyday situations, a common life.

In fact you can read the next few verses there.

It says, then fear came upon every soul and many signs and wonders were done through the

Apostles.

Now that's not ordinary but look at the next.

Now all who believed were together and had all things in common and they sold their possessions

and goods and divided them among all as anyone had need.

Now we have to clarify especially in our day and age today that this is not talking about

communism or socialism or anything like that.

This is talking about people taking care of each other.

This is about people caring about someone else.

Someone has said that the church, the motto can be we take care of each other in good

times and bad times.

Now they say there's studies that have been done that if someone comes to a church, joins

in a church, becomes a member of a church that if they don't begin to make some connections

they're not going to last very long.

At least it's more difficult for them to last.

The studies say about seven is the number that's needed.

Seven different connections, seven different people that you can share with, that you can

talk to.

Do you know seven people in this room?

That's what it says, continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread

from house to house.

They ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with

all people.

They were taking care of each other.

Now I've never seen these in real life but this is a redwood or a sequoia.

If you go to California, has anybody seen those in real life?

Several of you have.

But these are the biggest living things that exist.

They can range up to over 300 feet tall.

I think about 340 feet tall is the biggest.

About 40 feet around.

So imagine a trunk like the size of this room that we're in.

That's how big the trunk of that tree is and it goes up 300 feet.

I've never seen them.

I would like to someday.

Now you could imagine, you could wonder that with a tree this tall, what must that root

be like?

How far down, how deep does that root go?

That's my question too, brother.

But those roots actually do not go down deep.

The sequoia roots actually only go about four feet or eight feet.

You know which direction they go?

They go out, they spread.

And those types of trees do not grow, just one tree, but they grow in groves.

And so there's lots of those trees together.

And so those roots that aren't going deep, they're intertwining with each other.

And so that when the strong wind blows off the Pacific Ocean, those trees are going to

rock as big as they are, but they're not going to fall.

When those earthquakes happen in California, those trees are going to shake, but they're

not going to fall because they are supporting each other.

They're holding each other up.

Those roots are intertwined and those trees stand tall because they grow together.

If you were to look it up in the New Testament, there's about 50 different verses which have

something to do with one another.

One another verses, there's about 50 different ones.

Love one another, help one another, support one another, pray for one another.

And that's what that early church was doing.

They were taking care of each other in their ordinary life.

And so in our church, are we dedicated, devoted to God's Word?

Are we spending time in fellowship?

Just a few minutes, some of you may be looking at your clock, we're going to have a fellowship

dinner.

That's one aspect of that.

But then notice how the verse goes on.

It says, and in the breaking of bread.

Now I think this actually has two different meanings.

One is the breaking of bread that we refer to as the Lord's Supper, the communion service.

And actually in two weeks, right here during our church service, we're going to celebrate

the Lord's Supper together.

We're going to break the bread that represents the body of Christ.

But I think this also echoes that word right before that, that fellowship.

Because we read it just a moment ago.

It says in verse 46, I don't know if I put it on there again.

No, I didn't.

But verse 46, it says, continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread

from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart.

They were doing this every day.

They were going from house to house.

So I think it was the Lord's Supper, but I also think it was eating together.

Because there's few things that are as intimate as eating with someone else.

If you have someone come to your door and knock, maybe they're trying to give you something

from the church down the block.

Maybe they are trying to get you to vote for a certain person.

Maybe they're trying to sell you a vacuum cleaner.

There's a good chance that those people are going to stand right on the porch.

And that's as far as they're going to get.

If there's somebody you know, maybe you want to buy that vacuum cleaner, you're going to

invite them into your living room.

And you'll sit down and they'll pour dirt on your floor and do whatever else needs to

take place.

But that's your living room.

But if there's somebody that you really know and you care about and you love, family members,

friends, they're going to come a little bit further.

They're going to come into your kitchen and they're going to sit down at your table, even

if there's dirty dishes in the sink.

Because you know each other, you care about each other.

And to have that meal together, to eat together, that's an intimate thing.

That is a bonding experience.

And so whether it's a potluck or whether it's eating at somebody's homes, there is fellowship

that is taking place that is part of our ordinary life.

And so one more word here.

They continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine, fellowship, in the breaking of bread,

and in prayers.

Prayers.

Now, again, full transparency, I love reading the Bible.

I love to read and I love reading the Bible.

But praying, that's a little more challenging for me.

That's one that I have to think about, that I have to plan, that I have to work out.

Prayer is powerful.

Prayer is talking to God as to a friend.

Prayer is tapping into all the resources of heaven.

But is it part of your ordinary life?

It's much easier for me to read some chapters from the Bible than to spend time in prayer.

That's a fault of mine.

But guess what?

When the disciples, they came to Jesus and they said, Lord, teach us to pray.

It's something that we can learn.

It's something that we can do.

It's something, maybe you're like me, sometimes you get in a prayer rut.

Have you ever been in a prayer rut where you find yourself saying the same thing in prayer

and it's just your routine and it just flows out?

You know you're in a rut when you're laying down to go to sleep and you say your good

night prayer but you end up saying thank you for this food but you're in bed and there's

no food there and you're like, wait, something is not right here.

I have a friend who was a former assistant dean of mine and he's now a pastor out in

the Northwest and he tells the story.

He took somebody to Taco Bell.

He took a young person to Taco Bell.

They got their food.

They sat down and they bowed their heads.

And Troy said amen and he was waiting for his friend to finish praying before he started

eating and he's still waiting and his friend still has his head bowed.

He's still waiting.

Finally amen.

And he's like, okay, before I dig into this burrito, what was that about?

Are you that worried about this food?

And his friend said, you know what, I realize that God knows I'm thankful for my food.

So in order to be more intentional about his prayer life, whenever he sits down to pray

or whenever he sits down to eat and bows his head in prayer, he's not praying for the food.

He's praying for the people he knows that are going through challenges or the people

on his prayer list or the people who have said, pray for me.

And it takes a little longer and maybe the food gets cold, but that was a way for him

to be more intentional about his prayer life.

What can you do to be more intentional?

How can you live an ordinary Christian life and how can you see God in the routine?

Because yes, sometimes God works through the extreme.

Sometimes there's miracles, but that's not most of the time.

There's something I thought of this morning to add.

We're going to start on our Wednesday night prayer meetings.

We finished our reading of The Great Controversy.

We're going to start reading a little book called Revive Us Again.

It's about how to pray, how to study the Bible, how to ask God to be filled with the Holy

Spirit.

If you would like one of these books, talk to me.

We got some extra for you.

If you want to come out at 630 on Wednesday, we're going to be diving into that together.

So what does that mean in our everyday life?

I wanted to add a little bit here to this particular sermon.

I think it was my very first board meeting here.

The board said, hey, we want to develop, we've been talking about this a while, we want to

develop a mission statement or a vision statement.

And believe it or not, that was like three months ago.

So time flies when you're having fun.

And so in December and the first of January, we put together a little survey that many

of you did.

There was a paper version, an online version.

And Brother Kevin kind of put all that together.

And then in January, the elders got together and we read through those survey answers.

And it was about what is the purpose of this church?

And we read verses like Acts 2 42 of how they devoted themselves to the apostles doctrine

and fellowship and breaking of bread and prayers.

And we looked at the Great Commission and the Great Commandment and several other passages.

And as we were distilling through those surveys, there were kind of three things that came

up.

One was Christ, that a lot of the answers had to do.

We wanted to live our life like Jesus.

We wanted to reflect Jesus.

Another one was about children and families.

This church over and over were wanting to reach out to families, wanted to support families.

And so we had a big group of young people up here this morning.

And so that's awesome.

And that's what we want to see happen and develop.

And then the final thing was community.

We want to reach our community.

So Christ, kids, and community.

Those three things kind of came over and over.

And so that day, the elders, we kind of put together a draft and we passed it on to the

church board.

The church board tweaked a few phrases, a few words.

And then a week or two ago at our church business meeting, we voted that.

And so you may or may not have noticed that in your bulletin, there it is.

I had a friend who said, yeah, we did this at our church.

He's a member several years ago.

Nobody remembers what it is.

Nobody knows.

Doesn't mean anything.

So this is a direction that we want to go.

So let's read this together.

Can we read the mission statement together?

Can you guys see that?

If you can't see it, pull out your bulletin.

We're going to read this together.

So that means when I start, you guys join me, OK?

The mission of the Ringgold Seventh-day Adventist Church is to reflect the love of Jesus through

a spirit-filled life which seeks to serve and lead others closer to God.

So that's what we are hoping that we're doing.

Through all of our ministries, through all of our actions, through knocking on somebody's

door this afternoon, we're hoping to reflect the love of Jesus as we allow God's Spirit

to lead in our life.

And we want to serve other people, and we want to lead other people closer to Jesus.

And then the second statement is a vision statement.

So a vision is something you're looking off to.

It's in the future.

And so that's why it's future tense there.

And some of these things we could already say we are, but others, maybe we still got

some work to do.

And so let's read this one together.

The Ringgold Seventh-day Adventist Church will be a biblical, spirit-led, faith-filled,

family-focused, and growing fellowship.

We're going to keep talking about these things, because this is not something we're going

to put on the back shelf and in five years they're like, didn't we do something?

What was that?

So I hope that you'll read these.

I hope that you'll memorize them.

I haven't memorized them yet, but I will very soon.

But that's what we want this church to be about, because I think that incorporates all

of these things in Acts 2-42.

They continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of

bread and in prayers, though it's part of the ordinary life.

And what happened?

Well, notice Acts 2-47.

The Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

It wasn't through just the miracles.

It wasn't through the lightning and the noise and the building shaking, but it was through

3,000 people who were devoted to the Word and to supporting one another and to praying

together and to lifting each other up and caring about other people as they individually

drew closer to Jesus Christ, their Lord and Savior, who died for their sins.

And that's what we want to happen right here in Ringgold.

That the Lord will add to this church those who are being saved.

As we support each other, as we pray with and for each other, as we devote ourselves

to the Bibles, we devote ourselves to prayer, we want to see God at work in our own life,

in our church family, and in our community.

How many want to see God at work in you?

Let's bow our heads.

Dear God, thank you for your Spirit working in our life.

Thank you for your guidance working in this church.

May we be strengthened, may we follow you, and may others know about your love.

In your name we pray, amen.