The Vital Signs of a Healthy Church

One of the most discouraging times of the year for me now is going to the doctor's office for that medical checklist.

I remember not too long ago being a teenager, and I had nothing to check off of that super long list.

But now that I'm a little bit older, I have to check.

Yes, I've had surgery.

Yes, I have back pain.

Yes, I've had stress.

I have a history now.

And what took me like two minutes and just passed it back now takes me like 10 minutes to fill out that checklist.

When we find the church in Acts chapter 2, it's the birth of the early church.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And in that moment of the church's history, there was nothing to check off the list.

No spiritual sickness.

What we are going to be examining today is the church in its purest form.

And sometimes you'll hear people say, we need to return to the early church.

Have you heard that in groups?

We need to return to the early church.

And I think that that's a really good heart.

That cliche has some goodness behind it.

I think what people mean by that is, let's get past all the fluff, let's get past all the extra stuff, and let's return to the early church practices.

But if you've read the New Testament, once that church got some history, they discovered they had some spiritual sicknesses as well.

Remember, the early church at Galatia slipped into legalism.

The early church at Corinth was really messed up.

The early church in Corinth had spiritual pride.

The Spirit gave them gifts of teaching and administration and leadership, and it caused them to be prideful.

The church in Corinth was divided.

Remember, they had their favoritism and leadership.

I follow Paul, I follow Apollos, I follow Cephas.

They were messy.

The church in Thyatira, one of the churches that was written in the seven letters to the churches of Revelation, they were permitting false teaching to slip into the assembly.

So, man, give it a little bit of time, and all churches have to return to the medicine of God's word.

And let me just challenge y'all.

If God were to bless us and Lord willing, we were to plant a church one day, I pray that initially, with the birth of that church, with the launch of that church, there would be a season where there's nothing to check.

No division, no pride, no false teaching, but give it a little bit of time, a little bit of history, there's gonna be some things to check.

River Oak has existed for over 20 years.

In fact, we're nearing 30.

And we continuously have to return to our measures of health.

We need to check our vital signs.

And we actually have four stated measures of whether or not we're being healthy as a church.

And to those of you kind of sitting in the top middle there, actually, as you exit this morning through those doors on the wall, what you'll see written on the wall is our measures as a church.

It's listed as four questions.

Here they are.

Am I following completely?

Am I changing continuously?

Am I living generously?

Am I multiplying disciples?

What we're gonna do this morning is evaluate ourselves with the church in its purest form.

We're gonna look at Acts chapter 2, the birth of the church, and we're gonna take these four questions, layer it over Acts chapter 2, and at the end we should be able to sincerely think are we a healthy church right now as River Oak?

Acts 2 · chapter mention Acts 2 · chapter mention

Are y'all ready?

Okay, here's the first vital sign.

Am I following completely?

The setting for Acts chapter two is actually a very joy-filled setting.

It was a festival.

It's one of their spring festivals.

Uh the the weather at this time would have been the best, which means maximum travelers.

Uh, for the Pentecost festival, people would travel across the whole ancient globe to come to Jerusalem to seek God, to seek Yahweh.

There are many festivals in the Jewish calendar, but I want to highlight three for you this morning.

You might be familiar with some of these.

Have you ever heard of Passover?

Through the Passover feast, the Jewish people remembered that through sacrifice, God delivered them from slavery to Egypt.

Here's another festival for you.

Uh, the feast of first fruits.

So the first fruits of the harvest, they would offer that to God, and it was a celebration.

It was a remembrance of uh their entrance into the promised land.

And then this festival that was happening in this setting uh was called the Feast of Weeks.

And it was a reminder for them of when Moses came down from the mountain and delivered the law, teaching us how to live the abundant life.

Uh it's also known as Pentecost, that's what many of you have heard it as.

And Pentecost literally means 50th, and it's because Pentecost is 50 days after the feast of the first fruits.

So that's the setting.

And on this particular Pentecost, a miracle happened.

The believers of Jesus Christ who witnessed his resurrection, they're all gathered in an upper room.

And there's the Bible literally tells us there's 120 of them.

And they're having a simple prayer service.

Nothing weird's going on.

Uh, they're normal people just like us.

I love how the book of James says Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.

They didn't have halos around their head.

Uh, those medieval paintings are wrong.

Okay?

They look like you and me.

If you had a picture of them, they would look like us.

They're all gathered together.

Think about this.

They're praying to the same Jesus we were just singing to a moment ago.

And he sends his spirit.

He sends his spirit, and like a flame, they are all filled with power, and they exit into the Jerusalem streets during this festival, and they begin to speak in various tongues as the spirit empowered them.

And all these guests and visitors from other lands and nations were sh they were shocked, they were stunned because they were hearing the mighty works of God in their own language.

The Spirit enabled that.

And then Peter, who not long ago failed, he denied Christ, but Jesus gave him a second chance.

He said, Peter, I've appointed you to feed my sheep.

You're gonna be a preacher.

Peter sees this moment, stands up, addresses the crowd, and says, Listen, these people are not drunk, because some of them were making fun of them.

They said, they're filled with new wine.

The text literally says, these people are not drunk as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.

That literally means it was 9 a.m.

Y'all's service.

It was 9 a.m.

He's like, they're not drunk, they're filled with the supernatural spirit.

This is a fulfillment of prophecies in the Old Testament.

A day was going to come when God was not just gonna fill a building or temple with his spirit.

God was going to send his spirit to fill his people.

Peter said, This is that day that Jesus that we all witnessed was crucified by the hands of lawless men, which you allowed, has been raised from the dead.

And then he concluded his message with the promise that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

We have entered into a new era, the church era.

All of the Old Testament prophecies were fulfilled in Christ.

And then from that day until now, anyone, anyone, anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

And then what happens next is the most impactful event in human history.

I mean, barring like the resurrection.

No joke, you are sitting in this room because of what happens next.

Look at verse 41 with me.

So those who received his word were baptized.

Now, how many times have you read that verse, kind of glossed over it, and it didn't really feel like a big deal?

This is a huge deal.

Jewish people trusted in Jesus alone as their savior, their Messiah, and by their own will, 3,000 of them were baptized.

For the Jewish people, baptism was a rite, it was often reserved for Gentile converts because it showed stepping away from one's past and washing away any defilement as a symbol.

I want you to catch this.

These Jewish people were essentially saying, I am following Jesus completely.

I am no longer trusting in the blood of bulls and goats.

I'm trusting in the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ in my place.

I am no longer relying on man as my representative.

I'm not going to a high priest.

I'm going to trust in Jesus alone as my high priest to reconcile me to God.

And just last week, as a church family, we witnessed 36 people take this step of public baptism.

And I will never take that for granted.

I'll never take that for granted.

Some churches will see 36 people baptized in a whole year.

And this was just last Sunday for us.

Praise be to God for that.

It's all Him.

It's all Him.

When I'm meeting with people to talk about baptism, one illustration that I really like is actually my wedding ring.

If I were to take off my wedding ring right now, am I still married?

I hope so.

Yeah.

Yes, I am.

Yes, I am.

Because this isn't what made me married.

What made me married is when I said invisible vows to my wife, Jordan, and committed that by signing it on paper.

I devoted my life to her.

I was fully committed to Jordan.

Now, because I am married and because I love my wife, I am proud to show the world I belong to Jordan.

And in a very similar way, baptism doesn't save you.

You weren't saved the moment you got baptized.

You were saved the moment when you repented of your sins and with childlike faith, trusted in Jesus.

But if you're genuinely saved, you will want the whole world to see I am proud to belong to Jesus.

And that's what we celebrated last Sunday.

And let me encourage you and challenge you.

If you have heard the gospel and you've repented and believed, but you've never been baptized, stop looking for a sign.

Stop waiting for some cloud to appear in Chesapeake saying you shall be baptized.

God has already told us in his word to be baptized.

So don't overcomplicate it.

I want to challenge you to take that step of obedience.

Trust me, you will be happy that you did.

These people were following completely.

And then the text tells us, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls.

And one day, the first megachurch in Jerusalem was born.

And I want to highlight the word here, added.

Added.

Okay, we live in an anti-institutional age.

We're very individualistic.

A lot of people don't like the word added, but hear me, the early church knew who was in the church and who was not in the church.

In fact, you know, we know from this text, it says initially there was 120.

On this day there were 3,000.

And a few books later, we just preached through 1 Timothy.

It said of caring for the widows as to those who are enlisted.

The early church was not anti-lists.

They practiced meaningful membership.

Do you know that all of the uh letters to the New Testament churches, it's not written to the church at large or the church generally, or believers everywhere.

All of those letters were written to the church at Galatia, the church at Corinth.

And here we are at a church at Chesapeake.

So one part of just following God completely is to belong to a local church.

And on this day, 3,000 were added to that church, and we see that number somewhere else in Scripture.

A very somber moment in Scripture.

When Moses came down from the mountain with the law, do you remember what happened shortly after?

Because of their rebellion against God and their worship of Baal, the worship of a golden calf, nearly 3,000 people died.

But here we are, the birth of the early church.

The spirit descends, and 3,000 people are born again.

That's what our spirit can do with one day.

Here's the next vital sign.

Am I changing continuously?

Look at verse 42.

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

Okay, so the early church was not only interested in seeing people saved, they wanted to see people mature.

So the early church were devoted.

They were devoted.

Are you devoted?

They were devoted to four practices of discipleship.

Here's the first one.

They were devoted to the to biblical teaching, to biblical teaching.

It says they were devoted to the apostles' teaching.

The apostles were handpicked by Jesus Christ to witness his life, his ministry, his resurrection.

As he ascended, he bestowed upon him the spirit of power, the apostles, the spirit of power.

In fact, God even granted them a season of miracles and wonders to give credibility to the gospel message that they were proclaiming.

Since then, all apostles have died, but before then, they were able to pull off the writing by the Spirit of the New Testament.

And I want you to hear Peter's own words about their ministry.

For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation.

For no prophecy was ever prophesied by the will of man.

But men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Each of these men kept their own personalities, but the Spirit empowered them and carried them along to write every word of Scripture.

River Oak has a conviction that every dotted I and every cross T of the New Testament is God's word.

It is the Holy Spirit's gift to us.

2,000 years later, we are devoted to the apostles' teaching here.

We are devoted.

And we're unashamed of that.

This is the gift of the Holy Spirit to us.

Each season, I'll ask our group leaders, which metrics are strongest?

I give them a list of different metrics: dedication, holiness, prayer, care.

And one of the metrics that I send to them is Scripture.

And I have them rank our groups themselves, the groups that they lead.

Without a doubt.

The one that they rank the highest as a whole at River Oak is Scripture.

What I hear from them is essentially saying, if we're going to do one thing in our groups, we're going to open God's word together.

We're going to be devoted to the apostles' teaching.

Here's the second practice: fellowship.

Fellowship.

This is the first occurrence of the word fellowship in all of the New Testament.

It's the first time that it happens.

Something unique, something special was happening on this day.

Fellowship is more than just friendship.

The word fellowship literally means to share, to participate, to have fellowship often for the early church meant giving of material goods for the good of the community as a whole.

And if you just want friendship and community, there's other places you can go.

I want you to know that.

Join your local pool.

Join a book club.

We're not here just for friendships.

I hope that we are friends.

I have many friends here.

But we are called to do fellowship.

You are not just called to attend, you are not just called to observe, you are called to participate in the mission of God.

And that should be exciting for you.

Next week, uh we're having this event called Group Link.

If you've never been here for that before, you're going to be led out of a service early.

We're going to give you donuts, but all for the purpose of discipleship.

That's really the main point.

There are over 100 groups at River Oak, okay?

And as you explore groups this year, I cannot imagine how different your group experience might be.

If instead of entering into groups, you thought to yourself, What can they do for me?

Will this group produce the most friends for me this year?

Are they the most similar to me?

Maybe which group can I go to that has the best teaching?

I want to be fed, I want to receive the word.

Hey, some of those things are honorable.

But would your year look different?

If you're Christian, if you approach each group with the mindset of, I'm here for fellowship, I'm here to share, I'm here to participate.

I have a gift of hospitality I can give to this group.

I have a gift of mercy that I can give to this group.

I have a gift of administration I can help this group organize events to bless our community.

This past year, um, my my life group, we did an experiment.

We decided we were gonna launch last year uh with no age demographics.

Now there's nothing wrong with age demographics.

Titus says uh to the young men, to the young women, to the older men, to the older women, there's nothing wrong with that.

Uh, but we decided we're gonna put them all in the same room, or we're gonna try to do that.

Week one.

What ends up happening is naturally you're drawn to the same like age and stage.

So it was mostly like 30-year-olds with kids, mostly.

But this is so cool.

Some grandmas and grandpas roll in and they look around almost like they're in the wrong place.

And they stick it out for a few weeks, and one of them told me in honesty a few weeks later, when we first came in, we kind of felt like I'm not sure if we should stay here.

Uh, maybe these young people will think that we're old Fuddy Duddies.

And Fuddy Duddy is Greek, by the way.

Fuddy duddy is Greek.

Just kidding, it's not.

Um yeah, maybe we're old Fuddy Duddies.

I don't know if we'll be out of touch, we won't understand the same stories, we'll laugh at different jokes.

In reality, what's happened is God has given us spiritual grandparents, and it has been awesome.

When we have parties and events, we do it at their house because they're a lot richer than all of us, and they have a pull.

Um and and when we are discouraged and they can tell we're sleepless, we've got bags under our eyes, there's all these babies rolling around.

I'm gonna have to have like a meal train budget because of the babies that are gonna be birthed for our life group.

Um, these people are caring for us.

They should live, some of them showed up to my house with meals uh this past year.

Why?

Fellowship.

These older believers had the mindset of, what could I give?

What can I give?

Thirdly, meals.

The breaking of bread.

This is my favorite habit.

We are Baptists, this should be our favorite habit.

The early church they would do this practice called the agape feast.

It was literally called the love feast.

They'd all be sitting at a big table and share a community meal.

Each would bring a piece of the meal, and two staples at this meal uh were bread and wine.

And it was typical for them that at the end of the meal, the pastor would break the bread, remembering the life of Christ for us.

And they'd pass around the cup for them to remember the blood of Christ shed for us so that we could be saved.

Would have meals together.

And later on in this text, it's gonna say that they did that from home to home.

Literally, the application for this is eat together.

What I've learned is no one is cool while eating.

Eating puts us all in a level playing field.

Those of y'all that are super clean and you use one napkin per bite and you have a mountain of napkins, that comes out during eating.

Those of you who never use napkins and you are messy, that comes out during eating.

And it's been so fun.

River Oak has our favorite spots.

I know our favorite spots.

Sunrise Cafe, just down the road, like 6 a.m.

Y'all are there.

Taste.

Some of y'all might be at Taste after church a few weeks ago.

I saw this sweet family, and they were at the 11:15.

I said, Hey, where are y'all going to where are y'all going for lunch?

And this young girl looks up at dad and says, We're going to taste.

And I'm like, man, the sandwiches there are like 20 bucks.

And uh I was I was nervous for the dad.

Um church family, we we should be eating together.

This honors the Lord.

And as we do, I I trust that the community sees our prayer before meals.

Lord willing, they see our love for one another.

Their fourth habit was prayer.

It says that they were devoted to prayer.

Okay?

Can it be said of us as a church that we are devoted to prayer?

Now, each service we pray.

We pray, you know, before singing, after singing.

I'm not sure if that qualifies for being devoted to prayer.

There's nothing wrong with that.

We should pray as much as we can.

Are we a church that's devoted to prayer?

What I know about some of you is some of you individually are devoted to prayer.

You are prayer warriors, you're the reason why we're not a Costco right now, uh, you're the reason why we exist still.

And I thank God for you.

That is such a significant work for the kingdom of God.

But uh I was asking one of our pastors this past week: of these four, devotion to the apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayer, which of these four do you think that we can grow in the most?

Which is the greatest opportunity for us?

Without even blinking, he said prayer.

And I agree.

Um, I want to read to you a quote from this book, Why Revival Tarries, by Leonard Ravenhill.

This has stuck with me for a few years now.

Poverty stricken as the church is today in many things, she is most stricken here in the place of prayer.

We have many organizers, but few agonizers, many players, but few prayers, many singers, a few clingers, lots of pastors, a few wrestlers, many fears, a few tears, much fashion, little passion, many interferers, few intercessors, many riders, but few fighters, failing here, we fail everywhere.

If, I don't think this is true of us, but if River Oak were to fail to be a praying church, hear me, we would fail everywhere.

If we are not operating by the strength and the power of the same Holy Spirit, we will fail.

We will not make it.

Spiritual sicknesses will rise up.

But as an encouragement, this is our greatest opportunity.

People moving to Hampton Roads is not our greatest opportunity.

Planting a church in North Carolina is not our greatest opportunity.

Our greatest opportunity as a church family is to pray.

Do y'all believe that?

That's our greatest opportunity as a church.

Think with me.

This day, when 3,000 people were saved in one day, it began with a prayer service.

Just a hundred and twenty people, and with the Spirit's wind of blessing, three thousand people were saved.

The same Holy Spirit dwells in us, River Oak.

The third vital sign.

Am I living generously?

Look with me in verse 43.

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

So, to add credibility to the resurrection message, God bestowed the apostles with miraculous powers and works to confirm and validate the gospel message.

Verse 44.

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.

Okay.

What this is not telling us to do is go buy a field in southern Chesapeake, sell all of our homes, live on a commune, and wear white robes.

That is not what this passage is telling us to do.

This passage is not advocating for communism or socialism.

There were teachers in the 60s and 70s that twisted this scripture out of context to promote communism and socialism.

These people in the early church, they were not forced to give away their possessions and goods.

They gave away their possessions and goods willingly as need arose.

It's not as though the Romans had soared to the neck, forcing them to sell their homes.

No, these people were willingly responding to the Spirit's work.

Think with me about the context.

There's a unique festival during a unique time period.

The Spirit shows up with a unique miracle.

3,000 people are getting saved.

And there's no Boeing 757 to just send them back to their hometowns and then fly them back for a discipleship conference.

These early believers saw the moment.

They said, sleep in my house.

Man, I have a little bit of this uh field that I'm not using.

I'm gonna sell that, use the proceeds to continue the work that the Spirit has birthed.

And as a church family, I want us to consider how do we see God's hand blessing and moving in our community, and how can we join him with radical generosity in that work?

We saw this uh this past summer.

Tim Schneider is one of our leaders in the middle school ministry.

And he was away with him for summer camp.

Uh he took a bus there, but while he was there, he got a call, a very scary call, that one of his children uh needed an emergency medical procedure.

One of the men at that camp, just a stranger to Tim, but a Christian, in hearing this, said, You can have my car keys, take my car.

And from Lexington, Virginia, to Chesapeake, Virginia, if I'm not mistaken, like four hours of driving, eight hours both way, this Christian man, a stranger to Tim, saw the spirit's need, radical generosity, take my car.

In fact, Tim told me that the man was kind of apologetic that there wasn't enough gas in the car.

It's that same Holy Spirit promoting generosity in people.

This past week I asked the staff, what are areas that you see the Spirit blessing?

And here were some of their responses.

The first one that came to mind was families.

As you exit this morning, you're gonna see little ones just running all over the place.

Thank God.

Let them cry.

Let them cry during the message.

I don't even hear it.

I have little ones of my own, I don't even hear it.

You want evidence that the Spirit is blessing families.

Yesterday, Saturday morning, we had an event called Captivated and Changed at Home, where we taught young families how to open God's word in their home, disciple their families, sing hymns in the living room.

And if you're kind of uh discouraged about the upcoming generations, you might think to yourself, who is gonna wake up Saturday morning to learn how to sing hymns to their little ones?

We had a packed room.

That's that's the spirit's work.

That's not culture.

Encouraging parents to disciple their kids?

That is the spirit's blessing.

Here's another one.

We see a unique hunger for truth.

Um, not too long ago, it was common people to say, I'm an atheist, I'm an agnostic.

Frankly, I don't have stats for this.

I don't think that's as common anymore.

People are seeking after truth.

Now, they may be seeking after truth uh with new age thoughts and all kinds of weird, wacky stuff, but they're seeking truth.

And we have the truth.

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and we have a unique window of evangelism.

Here's another one.

Our buddies program, our rock stars, each service uh for our neurodiverse group.

Um, it's just overflowing with blessing.

And we need more help.

We need more volunteers to bless uh families in that scenario.

And then lastly, North Carolina.

Uh not just the state in general, but Northeast North Carolina.

We have approximately over a hundred people that cross the border each Sunday to attend River Oak.

And we want to bless local churches there, and also we want to see uh uh discipleship and the gospel saturate Northeast North Carolina next week.

If you live in North Carolina, next week at Group Link, there's gonna be three groups already, three existing uh home groups that already meet in North Carolina.

And I want you to consider personally um where do you see the Spirit's hand of favor and blessing in your life?

Join him in that and see what can happen.

Has God given you favor with a particular neighbor?

Try sharing the gospel.

You might be amazed at what might happen.

Are we a generous church?

I want to encourage us, I believe that we are.

I believe that we are.

Last weekend, I was at the men's conference, and I was in line for barbecue, and as I'm in line, I see Adam Chase with his massive red beard serving barbecue.

And then there was Alan, and then there's Sean Stewart.

He had gloves on, he was greasy and sweaty, but here he was serving the church so that men could hear the word of God.

And then last Sunday, the next day, uh, I'm at the baptism event, I'm in line from a hot dog, and I see Adam Chase with his big red beard serving hot dogs.

And then there's Alan serving hot dogs, a Marine with several kids.

He's a busy man giving his Sunday afternoon.

And then there's Sean Stewart.

These men have families, uh, they have lives, they have jobs.

What are they doing?

The Spirit's hand of blessing.

They've opened the wind, the the sail of their lives to catch the wind of the spirit's blessing.

And frankly, there might be some people in this room, you're a Christian, you're born again, you're filled with the same Holy Spirit, and his wind is blowing all over the place, and your sail is closed.

Don't expect to move, don't expect to go on any adventure.

If you are closed off to the Spirit's work in your life, we must open our sails to the Spirit, and as a church, I believe we're doing that.

Here's the fourth vital sign.

Am I multiplying disciples?

Look with me at 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.

Day by day they were together.

Day by day.

That really stood out to me this past week.

Is it possible for us in our modern age, living in a very large area, to have community with one another day by day on a weekly basis?

I believe that the answer is yes, and here's how.

First of all, just like as a whole group, they gathered in the temple, a very large space for the worship of God and the teaching of the apostles.

We are committed each Sunday to gather in this building that God has blessed us with, to worship the same Jesus and hear the same teachings of the same apostles.

And we're committed to that, honoring the Lord's day.

But also, they didn't just gather in the large space, they also broke off into their homes and scattered all throughout Jerusalem, breaking bread and practicing fellowship.

And in a very similar way, all throughout the week, in all of Hampton Roads, believers are scattered, practicing the biblical one-another's and enjoying fellowship with one another in our homes.

It is possible to have community day by day.

Now, as a side note, I want to encourage us to leverage technology for the sake of spreading the gospel in our community and discipleship.

John the Apostle, when concluding 3 John, he wrote this.

John the Apostle used the technology of his day.

He used pen and ink to disciple this church family.

Even though he would have rather been with them face to face.

Can we all admit this morning, face-to-face is so much better.

Face to face is far superior.

But, church family, we want to utilize the technology that we have to disciple people when we cannot be face-to-face.

What does this look like?

Well, we have a lot of military members, and frankly, I thank God that we utilize the technology of internet and videos so that they can watch our services online.

We have senior citizens.

We have partnerships with over seven local nursing homes and facilities.

They cannot physically attend church anymore.

I wish that they could.

So we bring church to them, and we utilize whatever tools we can to bring the gospel to them.

And there's a time to utilize technology.

As we saturate Chesapeake with the gospel, just like they had favor in this season in the church, pray for favor.

As we're in Hickory schools through Young Life, pray for favor with administration.

As we're in local nursing homes, pray for favor with owners.

There's a group that goes out to Virginia Beach and does street evangelism, taking, seizing this opportunity of the Spirit's blessing.

Pray for favor as we share the gospel literally on the streets.

I like how author Vance Havner wrote about this passage.

We are not going to move this world by criticism of it or by conformity to it, but by the combustion within it of lives ignited by the Spirit of God.

So River Oak, I want to ask you, how's our health?

How are our vital signs this morning?

Are we following completely?

Are we changing continuously?

Are we living generously?

Are we multiplying disciples?

If the answer is yes, the final sentence of today's text tells us why.

Hear this.

And the Lord added to their number, day by day, those who were being saved.

And the Lord.

And the Lord.

If anyone gets saved, it was because of the Lord.

If any marriage is healed at River Oak, it is only because of the Lord.

I want to leave you with a promise from Psalm 127.

Unless the Lord builds the house, all those who labor labor in vain.

Would you pray with me?

Father, the last thing on earth that we would want to do is labor in vain.

And if we operate on our own strength, we will labor in vain.

If we are a prayerless church, we will labor in vain.

If we trust in man's wisdom instead of the wisdom of the apostles' teaching, we will labor in vain.

But Father, I thank you that the best we know how, we are seeking to rely on the Spirit.

We are totally dependent on you to share the gospel, to see fruit, to see families restored, to see children raised up and discipled, to see Hampton Roads saturated the gospel.

We are totally, totally reliant on you.

But I thank you that the same spirit that indwelt Peter and those 120 dwells in us.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

We pray that this message speaks life into your walk with Jesus.

If you don't have a home church, we'd love to see you in person.

And don't forget to subscribe for all of our content.