Getting serious about God

In fact, turn with me in your Bibles to Acts chapter two.

Testing.

All right.

So I'm gonna use the hand mic, I guess.

All right.

I'm telling you, y'all shook me.

I've got I had some things that I wanted to share.

Man, Rick, thank you.

Had no idea about me being three stages.

But that is very true.

Very, very true.

But what does it mean to a shepherd when he's shepherding a flock?

What is the greatest compliment a shepherd can get?

And I've gotten many all the years I've been here.

But one of those compliments is I had a little girl named Sarah, Todd McGuire's daughter, one day give me this after church.

Look at that bald-headed fanatic behind that cross.

The Lord gives me power.

And you know, I keep that in my Bible.

And every Sunday I look at that and I ask the Lord to give me power when I preach.

And then this little note has been so precious.

And I kept it in my Bible.

And I read it every Sunday morning in my quiet time getting ready to preach.

Dear Pastor Danny.

Now this is a little girl.

Okay?

Dear Pastor Danny, I'm so happy that we are in church.

Man, is that not a blessing when a child says, I'm so happy that I'm in church.

Take note, parents.

Take note.

I'm so happy when I'm in church.

I have missed church so much.

I love church so much.

I love church and Jesus too.

You are the best pastor ever.

I like that too.

You are funny, loving, and caring.

I love you so much.

I love that Jesus is my Savior.

And I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Remember, you are the pastor ever.

I have to say I love you so much.

Love Emma.

Now, folks, I appreciate you telling me you love me.

But when kids are sitting there in the chairs and listening to me preach and write that or draw that while I'm preaching, don't tell me they're not paying attention.

What a blessing.

What a blessing.

Well, I asked the Lord, what can I preach?

And he said, there's only one thing to preach, and he gave me this a couple of weeks ago in Rich's in Rick's sermon series on David.

Boy, was that not fantastic.

Was that not fantastic?

When David, my unbelievable blood brother, really, Benji's dad, and by the way, those Mary, Eric, and Stephanie grew up with Benji and Brady and David and Christy.

I mean, we spent vacations together every weekend and church and fellowship.

David Wilson was went with me fisting two and three times a week and plus build a great business called SERPRO.

But with that, I thought that's the kind of love that the church of Christ ought to have.

That kind of love.

And that's what we wanted to build this New Testament church on.

And when we started this church ten years ago, I had traveled years all over the world preaching but country and different churches, Rick and I decided if God ever let me start another church, we were going to try to build it as close to the New Testament as we could.

And we have.

Everything we've done stands on the five principles that I'm going to give you this morning.

And it comes from Acts chapter 2, verses 41 through 47.

Acts 2:41–47

Then they gladly received his word, and they were baptized.

And the same day they were added unto them about three thousand souls.

And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in breaking of bread and in prayers.

And then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.

And all that were believed and were together, and all had things in common.

And they sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men, as every man had need.

And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.

Wow.

I don't know about you, but just recently we've been seeing a stirring going on in this church.

And I just believe that God is ready to send revival to the land.

And when I say to the church, I'm not just talking about CCW.

I'm talking about as a church of whole, especially in America.

God knows we need it.

Getting serious about God.

And that's the message I want to leave with CCW.

That was the message that birthed this church.

David and Christy and me and Susan, we had a heart.

We wanted to get serious about God.

And we knew we were coming into our fourth quarter of life and ministry, and we knew that we wanted to do it God's way, not man's way.

And we have.

This transition.

Keith, Rick, that we've done.

I'm convinced it's the way to do it.

It's been phenomenal.

And I look forward to maybe helping other churches do that.

But what I see here about getting serious about God, and you know what?

There's an estimated half a billion professing Christians in the world today.

But the church would not be existed today if there had not been a few disciples that were determined after much prayer and after the anointing and being with Christ Himself.

And hey, the birth of the New Testament church in Acts, if they had not been faithful.

They were not once a month Christians.

You say, but they were living in different times.

Oh, yeah, those times were a lot harder.

Persecution, you think it's bad now.

It was a lot more severe then.

But they had something in common, and I'm going to leave with you five things they had in common.

Number one, they took church seriously.

Can I get an amen?

Today in America, we have churches because of COVID that still aren't meeting.

God help us.

This group of men, hey, and women and people that were getting saved every day, they met.

Now look at how they met.

They met daily in the temple of God and from house to house.

Daily.

Not once a week, daily.

Wow.

The hunger they had.

Thank God for what we just heard.

Some of the most beautiful worship.

And that was one thing that drew them to the temple and from house to house was they wanted to worship God.

They had had a hunger for God.

Folks, you come to church because you have a hunger for God.

You don't come to be, hey, to make it a social thing.

Now it becomes a social thing because you get to fellowship with your family.

But you come because you have a hunger for God.

He says, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together.

And you know why we come together?

Hebrews 10, 24 and 25 says, it's because we are to consider one another and we are to comfort one another.

We are to urge one another to, hey, to love each other and to do good works for the, hey, cause of Christ and God's vision and God's heart.

And I thought about that.

That's it.

We want a place that people want to, they get so excited.

You know what?

What would bless my heart is when I see you get as excited, hey, coming through those doors, and a lot of you do.

So I want to commend you, and I know you're here because of that, but I'd like to see you get as excited as you do, hey, for an Alabama or Auburn ball game, basketball, base, whatever it is.

I'd like to see, I've been at games with people that I go to church with regularly, and during the ball game, they get so excited I turn to myself and I ask myself, who is that?

Hello.

Because they come to church and they don't understand it.

I don't get it.

But they took church seriously.

Listen to what God's word says.

Where two or three, hey, are gathered together in my presence and in my name, hey, and agree, it shall be done.

Do you realize, listen to me?

Somebody asked, told me the other day, well, I can just have church anywhere I want to.

No, you can't.

You can't.

You got to have two or three.

Hello, hello.

You can't have church by yourself.

You can worship and have an intimate relationship by yourself with God.

But you've got to be, hey, you've got to be with believers.

You've got to be with believers.

And listen to what he says.

I never had seen this before, Rick, but in Matthew 18, he is given a special blessing of his presence.

Of his presence when you come together as a church family, he says, I'm going to be there and I'm going to bless you.

Man, that's good, preacher.

You miss out on God's presence and blessing in a special way when you miss church.

Oh, what truth.

I was thinking when he says this, taking God seriously requires regular involvement with other Christians, experiencing the unique aspect of his presence, hearing the word to God together, encouraging one another together.

Wow, that's awesome.

You don't know how you encourage me every week when you walk through these doors and hug my neck and Rick's neck as you're coming and as you're leaving.

And now we're good, we brought, we're bringing back the love feast.

We're gonna leave here and go over and have fellowship meal together.

Oh, that's what the body's all about.

Turn to your neighbor and say, I love church.

Get excited about church.

Well, there was a second thing that they took very seriously.

I had a lot of stuff that I was gonna say under each point, but I'm just gonna share my heart about it.

They took fellowship seriously.

Now let me say something about fellowship.

Cornell, there's a big difference in friendship and fellowship.

I know you gotta be friends to fellowship, but I want you to know something.

And I thought about this.

We are more than a common interest-based social club.

A lot of churches are nothing more than common interest-based social clubs.

How do you know that, preacher?

I've been in them, Rick's been in them.

You know what you told me?

I don't even know if you remember the first time you visited with us.

You were going out and you said, This is the most welcoming and loving church you've seen.

And this is right after he had taken over as the new D O M.

That's what it's all about, folks.

You care about people.

And let me tell you about this fellowship.

The Bible says, for by one spirit we're all baptized into one body, 1 Corinthians 12, 13.

You got to go to 1 Corinthians 12.

I was gonna take you there, but I'm I I got it in here, so I'm just gonna tell you about it.

You know what he's saying?

He's saying, hey, the body, the body's got hands, the body's got fingers, the body's got eyes, the body's got ears, the body's got a head, the body's got feet, the body's got legs and toes.

And he goes on and he says, every part of that body is important to God, and even the ones that you and me as men would think are the least important, maybe like a little pinky, are as important or more so to God.

What does that mean?

It means that every one of us here right now are important to God for the body of Christ.

God doesn't make any junk.

Now he comes close sometimes, but he doesn't make any junk.

Never.

You are important.

You're sitting there, you say, I can't sing, I can't preach, I can't, I can't, I can't know.

Don't say I can't, say I can.

For every one of you that pick up a chair and set up and take down, and there's a lot that goes on when you use a multi-purpose.

You are just as important as me right now preaching.

You are just as important and and more important if you're up there taking care of the babies.

Amen.

Wow.

Their fellowship.

Here's what I wrote down.

We're family.

You know why we're family?

We are birthed children by God Himself.

Whoa! We are birthed children by God Himself.

He's our daddy, Romans 8.

He's our father.

And then here's something else.

We are blood relatives.

Turn to your neighbor and say, we're blood relatives.

Yeah, you didn't realize you're that kin, did you?

Oh, yes, in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace.

We're blood relatives, folks.

We really are.

Hey, the cross made it so.

We have all been baptized into that one body, and we all are important.

And here's what I wrote down.

Hey, because the New Testament believers right here in Acts 2 understood the need to value each other and hey, and to sacrifice personal needs for the sake of the whole.

As isolated, I wrote this to me, self-reliant, self-promoting individuals, they would have been destroyed in a heartbeat.

But because they were cooperative, one body, loving each other, when the persecution came, they were scattered abroad and went everywhere, preaching the word and starting churches.

Amen.

So, here it is.

As a believer, you this is a good one line or two, Adams.

As a believer, you may survive apart from the church.

Okay?

As a believer, you may survive apart from the church.

But you will not thrive without the church.

You've got, hey, hey, if you're the finger and you're out there by yourself, what you gotta do?

What good is that?

You're all one part, and you have the head with a purpose.

We have a purpose, and that is to go into this arena and reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ and to plant churches like we planted this one.

And look at what God's done and how many people have been saved and getting saved every week.

To God be the glory.

Where there's no vision, and that word vision there literally means God's word, God's purpose, God's direction.

Hey, God's will for you and the church.

He said, where there's no vision, the people perish, but he that keepeth the word, happy as he.

You know why?

Because the vision's fulfilled.

This vision, we are literally watching.

I saw this 10 years ago, and now here it is.

And are you ready for this?

Everything, everything because of you, the church, the fellowship, everything you're looking at right here.

We just paid off, hey, we just paid off the parking lot.

Everything is paid for.

Can I get an amen?

Everything.

They took fellowship serious.

About to embark on small groups.

Again, we started there a long time ago, but we just weren't ready.

Now we're ready.

And I mean, so excited.

They went house to house.

And when you read and look at verses 45, they believed together and had all things common, verse 44, and sold the possessions and goods and parted them to all men.

Do you really they they sold whatever they needed to sell if they didn't have it within their possession to help meet the needs of the people?

Why do you think we do everything we do?

Easter egg extravaganza.

Uh the and around uh what fall festival.

I know I've got it so ingrained as as trunk of treat.

We did that for 30 years.

But uh hey, hey, fall festival.

We had over a thousand with cold weather and rain.

Can you imagine what's gonna be here?

How many pre-registered did we have for fall festival?

About 400.

So you're getting real close to 400 now, still three more weeks.

So, and we ended up over a thousand with bad weather.

Why do we do that?

Why do we, and it cost them nothing?

Because we are being a blessing to our community because that's who we are.

That's the church.

The ice cream truck.

For years we were noted for, oh, that's the ice cream church.

I didn't care.

Yeah, come to church, we'll give you free ice cream.

They were serious about church, they were serious about fellowship number three.

They took prayer seriously.

The New Testament church was conceived in the womb of prayer.

After 10 days of united prayer in the upper room, everyone present was look at verse 4 says that they were filled with the Holy Spirit of God.

What happened next?

They launched a church that's still impacting the world 2,000 years later.

But it all started in a prayer meeting.

I love the prayer time that we do here every Wednesday, this past Wednesday.

And last week, Rick did such a fabulous job preaching, and he listed everything we've been praying for and the prayers that have been answered.

People have been healed, cancer's been healed.

I mean, over and over.

Listen to me.

Listen to me, folks.

This is exciting.

Apart from prayer, nothing important happens.

Can I get an amen?

How much do we pray?

What makes you a stranger in prayer time?

Somebody said it's hard.

And I used to say that until I've realized this last year in my life, knowing what's going on, transitions going on.

And I have I have learned to pray.

I mean, I'm constantly all day long praying with the Lord.

I'm in a constant, I'm praying, I go down the list.

Many of you, when you ask me to pray, I pray with you right then usually.

But I think about that, I go home, write it down, but I I've got a pretty good memory.

So I put it right here and I'm driving, I'm praying for you.

I'm just constantly, I asked God this past year to put me and teach me how to be in an attitude of prayer all the time.

And it's made a huge difference in my personal life.

And by the way, when somebody asks you to pray for something, you say, I will.

Pray for them right then.

Pray for them right then.

You say, Well, I don't know.

Don't be ashamed.

Hey, I I pray in restaurants, I pray everywhere.

I even pray with somebody in the bathroom.

Pray on the pickleball court.

For every game, for play.

You ought to watch some of those guys.

We get ready to play, and I say, Do you mind if we have prayer before we play or pray before we play?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let's pray.

It's amazing, folks.

Prayer changes things.

Jesus said, Are you ready for this in Matthew 11, 28 and 30?

You know it.

He said, Come unto me all you that labor in heavy laden, I'll give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, learn of me.

Hey, because when you're heavy laden, I'll give you rest.

But look, I I kind of rewrote that in a personal way.

Jesus said, if you're tired, worn out, ever been there?

Worn out.

How about burned out?

Burned out on religion.

Come to me, or burned out on anything, come to me.

Then he says, I'll show you how to take a hey, a real rest.

Hey, how many here would like to have a real rest?

I mean a real one.

You say, what's a real rest?

When you don't worry about anything.

Now, how many would like to have a real rest?

But let me tell what I'm learning.

You can have that real rest.

If you're in that attitude of prayer.

Casting all your cares upon him because he cares for you.

1 Peter 5, 7.

Call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.

Do you believe that or not?

Say, I believe that, preacher.

If you believe it, but there's a key there, hey, call unto me.

You have not because you ask not.

James 4.2.

The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

And then where two or three are gathered in our presence, as we said, in church, that's why we come to church.

We can pray together and feel his power, his presence, and his movement, and you see wonders, signs and wonders, and then get ready for this.

Are you ready for this?

And then they added to the church daily.

Can I get an amen?

Why?

Because they were serious about church.

They were serious about their fellowship.

See, when you're serious about somebody else's needs, hello, instead of your own needs.

Let me tell what I'm learning.

My needs then do not seem to consume me because I'm thinking about somebody else.

I'm praying for somebody else.

Do you know Paul never prayed for his needs?

Isn't that astonishing?

The man who wrote most of the New Testament.

He was always praying for the church's needs.

Wow.

So they took prayer seriously.

Number four, they took the word of God seriously.

Verse 12.

Excuse me, Hebrews 4.12 is one of my favorite verses, but verse 42, look at what they continued steadfastly in the apostles' teaching.

But the Hebrews 4.12 says, For the word of God is quick, powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing even to the soul and spirit.

You know what I love about the word of God?

First of all, it's powerful, but it's also, and by the way, he says in Luke 4.32, his word is with power, but he says it's penetrating power.

But when he says quick, you know what that means?

The word quick means it's alive.

Turn to your neighbor and say, the book's alive.

The Bible's alive.

It's not an ordinary book.

It's God's book and it's alive.

It's got penetrating power.

It's got clean, in fact, I wrote it, it's got cleansing power.

It's got converting power.

It's got comforting power.

Now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the word of grace which is able to build you up.

Oh, hallelujah.

The B-I-B-L-E, that's a book for me.

Amen.

It brightens my life, it instructs my life, it builds my life.

Hey, hey, it liberates me from sin and Satan, and it's everlasting.

Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven.

Psalms 119, 89.

Wow.

The word of God.

They spent time.

We spend more time in our working out and doing other things than we do in the Word.

The average Christian recent statistics spends less than 10 minutes a day in the Word.

That's bad.

Actually, there's the positive side we're seeing in some of the trends now in the church is that people are starting to spend more time praying, but still less time in the Word.

Can I say something?

You can't have one without the other.

We give ourselves continually to prayer.

Now watch.

Don't miss this.

We give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.

Acts 6.4.

Amen.

In fact, I pray the Word.

I pray the scriptures that I memorize.

They took God's word seriously.

They took fellowship seriously.

They took going to church seriously.

They took the word of God seriously.

And then number five, they took worship and praise seriously.

I thought I'd get an amen from Benji on that one.

In Luke 24, 53, they continued continuously in the temple praising and worshiping God.

Wow.

I thought about that too.

I really did.

How much time do we spend worshiping God?

A lot of us come to church and we become spectators.

But let me tell you what God taught me, and this is awesome.

In Psalms 100, I call it the praise chapter.

Okay, five short verses.

David was understanding for the first time, I think, or in his time, of what worship really meant.

And see, we we had the wrong, wrong idea of what worship is.

We were worshiping this morning because it starts out make a noise.

Make a noise.

Now that doesn't mean you have to act like I do.

I'm crazy.

No, that's not what it means.

Susan worships all the time.

She'll sit there.

She may raise her hand, she's crying.

She's not like a Comanche Indian like I am.

But that's who I am.

But what he's saying there is, God, when you're worshiping God, you can't just be silent.

I don't mean it that you have to say, I love you, God.

No, that's not what I'm saying.

But there's got to be a rumbling inside or yearning.

Last week when the Holy Spirit walked in those doors, and I knew it the moment that's when I came up and asked Rick to let me have the mic.

I'm telling you what, I was sitting there and my hands, and I felt it a while ago too, with the words, my hands went up.

You know what I was doing?

I wasn't trying to impress anybody with my hands up, even though he says in Psalms 134, verse 2, lift your hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord.

Psalms 134:2

So I was just being biblical.

But no, that's not what I was doing.

You know what I was doing?

God was so on my heart, and I was so in tune and wanting him, his presence so bad.

I was just reaching my hands up saying, God, grab them, grab them, grab them, come, come down, come down.

He said, Well, that's crazy.

Yes, but he loves it.

How do you know that?

Matthew 10, 32 and 33.

Listen to what he says.

This is him, this is in red writing.

He's talking.

Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I confess before my father, which is in heaven.

But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I deny before my father, which is in heaven.

That's good.

Yes, it is.

So next time you just be quiet.

I'm not gonna be quiet.

Hey, I got the king hepat! I can't help but speak the things that I've seen and heard, folks.

Acts 420.

Listen to me.

Worship ought to do something to you.

You don't come here to be a spectator, you come here to be a participator.

Can I get an amen?

That's a good line, too.

And I didn't even write that one down.

Write that down for me.

Hey, do you understand?

I love church.

I love church.

My kids were brought up.

They were they were drug addicts.

Mary said, wait a minute.

Yeah.

You know why they were addicts?

I drug them to church every time.

It wasn't a question.

Benji understands that.

David and Christy drugged them to church every time.

I mean, we lived in church.

Back in the old days, you were in church four and five times a week, right, Greg?

In fact, they used to call me a legalist.

Oh, Preacher Danny wants us to be in church.

Then I got to thinking about it, and the more I studied scripture, they did it every day too.

Maybe we are missing something.

They love church.

They love fellowship.

Oh, love each other.

Care about your neighbor.

Care about people.

That was the greatest compliment Rick gave me.

Both Rick's.

That I love people and I love to pour into people.

That has been my whole life.

Even when I was brought up by myself, my parents, dad worked all the time, mama was an alcoholic.

I still, even at a young age, I love to be around people.

On vacation, I'd invite the whole church to go.

I just love people.

And I love you.

And thank you for these past ten years of being ten of the most precious ministry years of my 40 plus years in ministry.

Thank you.

Thank you for making me Pastor Emeritus.

That means more to me than you'll ever know.

And by the way, I'm still, I'm not, this is my church.

I'm going to be one of your best outreach ministers, missions of CCW.

I guarantee it.

This is this is my church.

This is my tithe.

This is where.

And when we're in town and I'm not preaching anywhere, but now Rick and and and uh he it's funny because he said, I need you to, I got some plans for you.

I said, okay.

Okay, Keith.

I told him if, you know, I can help, if I need to fill in a pulpit or really help with the pulpit committee and stuff, all that, all the stuff that I do, and I've done for 40 plus years.

I want to be a blessing.

I want to use my talent, especially pouring into young pastors.

I want to be, I want to be a I'd be a good pastor coach.

They come to our cabin, our ministry we build it up there, and we can minister to them, build them up.

That's what I want to do.

That's my plans.

And then evangelism.

We got the whole month of May already lined up.

Can we give God a hand for that, alright?

So would you pray for us?

Here's what I want you to pray: two things.

One, God keep me healthy, us healthy.

And two, God open the doors.

That's all I ask.

Keep us healthy and open the doors.

And I know he will do that.

I know he will do that.

So you may be here this morning.

Let me ask you something.

Do you love church?

And I know what you're thinking.

Well, I'm here.

You know I love church.

Well, yeah, but do you love church because there's a consuming desire to be here because you love him?

That's the key.

Because you know what?

If I can get you to fall in love with Jesus and let him totally consume you, I won't worry about you being in church.

You'll be knocking the doors down.

Amen.

Every head bow, every eye tell.