Rick Warren - Real Christianity The Model of the First Church—Part Three

Hey everyone, welcome back to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. If

it's your first time with us, we're so glad you're here. Today,

Pastor Rick will wrap up his message called Real Christianity,

the Model of the First Church. And as we conclude,

you'll see how the example of the first church can

really shape your faith today and help you live with

greater purpose, connection, and impact. So let's get right to

what Rick has to say in the final part of

this message.

Number six, real Christianity, not phony, fake pseudo-Christianity, enjoys joyful worship.

Real Christianity enjoys joyful worship. Worship is a celebration. It's

a festival, not a funeral. It's the party for the

kingdom of God. And when worship is joyful, people want

to be there because people are looking for joy. Do

you think church ought to be fun? I do. I do.

You know what? There's so much bad news in the world,

the last thing you need to do is come to

church and hear more bad news. You don't need to

come to church for bad news. All you have to

do is turn on the TV. There's plenty of bad

news in the world. I could stand up here every

week and tell you everything that's wrong in the world.

So what? What we need is the gospel. Gospel means

good news, not bad news, good news. And when you

have good news, when I hear good news, it makes

me joyful. And worship is to be joyful. We come

here to celebrate, not to commiserate. Now I've been in

some of these churches that are called the first church

of the Frigidaire, you know. Where people are ice skating

up and down the aisles as ushers. I look over

to the front to make sure there's no casket there.

And it's really funny because at Saddleback we are a

joyful church. And it kind of ruins people when they

go to other churches sometimes. I actually know of a

lady who moved from Saddleback to Texas. And she joined

a church there that was very formal and kind of quiet.

And at the end of the first song, she started clapping. Like,

you know, we clap at Saddleback. She started clapping for

the song. And the Esher came out and said, ma'am,

you know, we don't do that in this church. And

so then they sang the second song and she forgot

and clapped again. The usher came up and said, ma'am,

you're going to have to be quiet, okay? We don't

do that here. And then they sang a third song

that was kind of rousing, and she kind of did

like one of those Rick Munchaus, woo-hoo, you know? And

the usher came up and said, ma'am, you're going to

have to be quiet or you're going to have to leave.

And she said, well, I'm sorry. I'm just so full

of the joy of the Lord. He said, well, you

didn't get it here. You know... There are two reasons

why unbelievers don't become Christians. Two reasons. One, they've never

met a Christian, and two, they have. Because some Christians

are so cranky and so negative and so legalistic and

so judgmental and no fun, I want to be around

joyful people. I don't want to be around cranky, critical,

negative people.

Yeah.

Yeah. Now look, let's look at real Christianity. It says

in verse 46, they continued to worship together in the

temple courts, notice that's plural, praising God and enjoying the

favor of all the people. Now, there's a couple things

I want you to get out of this. First it says,

they met in the temple courts. Circle the word S

on courts. We've talked about this before, that the first

church did not meet in one building. They met in

lots of buildings. And the reason we have venues and

campuses is because we're a New Testament church. They met

in the temple courts. Do you know that for the

first 300 years of the church, there were no church buildings?

For 300 years, not a single church building was built.

They met in temple courts. They met in parks. They

met in tents. They met outside. They met in catacombs.

They met where it was secret because they were being persecuted.

And you could lose your life No church buildings, but

they met in multiple places. One church, multiple places. But

what I want you to notice is the kind of worship.

It says praising God and enjoying the favor. Circle praising

and enjoying. The worship was happy. It was happy. I

don't know, have you ever noticed why people love to

go to rock concerts? This is the reason why. It

allows them to express emotions they can't express anywhere else.

You go to a concert, they used to do this

with lighters, now everybody does it with cell phones. What

are they doing here? I'm thinking, this is as close

to worship as those people are ever gonna get. Why

do we like to go to rock concerts? Because you

were wired for worship. God gave you emotions that need

to be expressed. The only reason you have emotions is

God has emotions and you're made in his image. God

has joy and God has sadness and God has anger

and God has frustration and God has celebration and you

have all those emotions because you were created in the

image of God. That's why you're not an animal. Ants

don't have emotions. They have instincts. But human beings are

created in the image of God and God made you

with emotions to be expressed and you were wired for worship.

Now if you don't worship God, you're gonna find an

outlet to worship something. Now why is it, tell me

the logic of this, that it's okay for me to

go to a game or a concert and yell my

head off and raise my hands and hoot and holler

and nobody thinks that's weird. I'm just a fan. But

if I come to church and show any kind of emotion,

I'm a fanatic. All right, okay. Now, thank you. Now,

tell me the logic. Tell me the logic of this. Okay,

so I'm allowed to get emotional about anything except the

most important thing in life. I can get emotional about

a game that isn't going to matter a week from today,

but I cannot get excited by the fact that my

past has been forgiven, I have a purpose for living,

and I have a home in heaven. I cannot get

emotional about that. Come on, give me a break. Yeah. Now...

They had fun. And where, by the way, where does

joy come from? Well, Peter mentions it in this sermon

here in Acts chapter two. He quotes David in 228.

He says, you've shown me the paths that lead to

life and your presence is Fills me with joy. Circle

paths and presence. The two things that give human beings

joy is knowing your purpose and feeling God's presence. That's

where lasting joy comes from. Knowing the path that leads

to life, knowing your purpose in life, and feeling God's presence.

God is with me. He's with me right now. Look

at the next verse. Acts 2.26. This is more of

Peter's Pentecost sermon. He says, because of this... My heart

will be glad, my words will be joyful, and I

will live in hope. Question, do you think if everybody

in our church lived like this, our hearts were glad,

our words were joyful, and we lived in hope, would

that attract other unbelievers? Oh yeah. You wouldn't have to

advertise or market anything. Let me just tell you something.

If you're cranky and boring, don't call yourself a Christian

because you're a bad advertisement for God. Because if you

call yourself a Christian and you're mean-spirited, people think God's mean.

He's saying, if my heart is glad and my words

are joyful and I live in hope, that's going to

attract unbelievers. Some of you have lost your joy, and

you need to get it back, and you need to

pray like David, restoring to me the joy of salvation. Now,

there's another element. Real Christianity, number seven, makes generous sacrifices.

Real Christians and real Christianity makes generous sacrifices. The Christians

of the Roman Empire era were the most generous people

in the empire. In fact, they were famous for their generosity.

They took care of each other. They took care of

the poor. They helped each other out. They literally shared everything.

Look at this next verse. Here's what the Bible says

about the first church. All the believers, it's not just pastors,

all the believers, that's all of you, shared everything. Not

just something. That means lawnmowers. It means RVs. It means whatever.

They shared everything with each other because they were family.

In fact, it says they would sell their land and

the things they owned and then give the money to

anybody who needed it. That's pretty radical, you see how

far the 21st century church is off from the first

century church? Now I've actually read books who talked about

that the first Christians lived in community and they say

the first Christians practiced communism. Wrong. Absolutely wrong. Let me

explain this to you. Capitalism says, in a nutshell, what's

mine is mine and I'm gonna keep it. I'm gonna

keep it and I'm gonna protect it. What's mine is

mine and it's all mine. That's capitalism. Communism says, what's

yours is mine and I have a right to take it.

And as the state, I can take it away from

you and I can redistribute it to everybody else. It's

forced charity. We're gonna tax it and we're gonna redistribute it.

That's communism, that's socialism. Capitalism, what's mine is mine, I'm

gonna keep it. Communism, what's yours is mine and it

belongs to the state and we're gonna redistribute it the

way we want to. Christianity says, what's mine is really

God's and I'm sure willing to share it with you.

See the difference? It's voluntary. It's not taxed. It's not forced.

It's done not out of law or legalism. It's done

out of love. Christianity is neither capitalism nor communism. It

is saying, what's mine really belongs to God. I don't

really own anything. I'm here for 80 years. God's given

me a little bit. I'm going to use it right now.

And then it gets passed on to somebody else. So

if you need it, here, let me help you out

with it. Total, voluntary, generous, and sacrificial. And notice they

shared everything, not just money, everything. In fact, notice it

says in Acts 2 46, they shared their meals. Oh,

I like that one. Okay, they shared their meals with

great joy and generosity. Circle joy and circle generosity. And

then draw a line between the two because generosity always

produces joy. The more generous you are, the more joyful

you are, and the more joy you have, the more

it makes you want to be generous. Generous churches are joyful.

By the way, did you know that in the New Testament,

the word when they gave at worship, when they gave

the offering, the word that they gave to describe the

offering is the word hilarios. Now guess what word, that's

in Greek, guess what word we get from that? Yeah, hilarious.

It says, when they gave the offering, these guys had

a party when they gave the offering. They so loved

to give, they were so generous, and they were so

joyful about it, they had a party every time they

took an offering. Now let's just admit it. In most churches,

when you take the offering, that's the low point in service.

It's like, okay, everything's died. Take the offering. You know,

it's like, oh, brother, what can I think of? How

soon can I get out of here? All you guys,

the bleachers, try to leave. I know that, you know. And, oh,

they're taking the offering. But in the New Testament time,

it says they were hilarious. Now, if the offering was hilarious,

what do you think they did when they were really

having fun? They loved to give. Here's my question. Do

you think that if we went back to the original

New Testament, real Christianity, not the fake stuff, but the

real kind of Christianity that has supernatural power, and you

see miracles happening, and uses everybody's language, and you speak

to the people you can best speak to, and uses

everybody's gifts, and women's gifts are used and valued, and

men's gifts are used and valued, and little kids, and elderly,

young and old, everybody's gifts and talents are used, And

we offer life-changing truth that free people from their habits

and their hurts and their hangups. And we share the

true gospel. And we provide loving support for each other

because we're family. And we stick together as brothers and sisters.

And we treat the elderly as mothers and fathers. We

care for each other. And when we get together for worship,

we celebrate. We don't commiserate. We have a good time.

We have a joyful party. We enjoy God's grace. And

then we generously sacrifice for each other and for our

church and for the kingdom of God. Do you think

that if we did that, we could reach more people

for Jesus? Oh, without a doubt. We'd reach more people

in the next 10 years than the last 30 years combined.

This is a church worth dying for. In fact, that's

exactly what they did. In the New Testament church, they

died for their church. They would rather go to the

Colosseum and die a death with gladiators and lions than

renounce their faith and their brothers and sisters in God's family.

It's a church worth dying for. Now when you have

that kind of commitment, the eighth condition is this, real

Christianity creates exponential growth. Rapid, multiplying, fast, exponential growth. When

you do these other seven things, the eighth is automatic.

Now notice it says, people liked what they saw. So

every day their number grew and added those who were

being saved. When it says people liked what they saw,

who's it talking about there? Unbelievers. Unbelievers look at Christians

and go, those guys are weird, but I like what

they're doing. They love each other. They're happy. They're seeing miracles.

And all these things are happening in their lives. Let

me go back to the very first verse we looked at.

It's our charter. It's here on the screen. We sang

about this. From Jerusalem, you'll go out to the whole world.

You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.

And then you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea,

in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Do

you know why this church has power? Because we take

that verse seriously. And when God looks down and sees

people and churches saying, they believe what I tell them

to do. They do it the way I said to

do it in the Bible. He puts his power. Wouldn't

you like to be a part of a church like that?

This is a church worth living for. And it's a

church worth dying for. You guys are a bunch of radicals.

Let me pray for you. Father, I pray you will

protect everybody this week. Protect their finances. Protect their jobs.

Protect their marriages. Protect their health. Protect their minds from

temptation and evil. Protect them from all the things that

try to mess up their lives. May they live this

week as real Christians representing real Christianity. I ask you

to bless them in the name of the Father and

the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

You know, people are being transformed by these messages. In fact,

here's Rick with a letter from one of our listeners.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the broadcast today. I love

to end our time together by sharing letters from listeners

because we get so many great ones. This one's from

a woman named Elena. Dear Pastor Rick, I've been struggling

with insomnia for many years. That's a common problem. It

has inevitably affected my family, and I've been irritable. I've

been short-tempered with them. I've even gone to sleep therapists

in hopes of regaining at least five hours of continual

sleep without sleeping pills that do more harm than good.

But it was all unsuccessful until I started listening to

Daily Hope. You know, quieting my mind, Pastor Rick, with

the messages from the Bible and my desire to glorify

God when I turn out the lights with the Daily

Hope messages, has brought me back to a stable sleeping pattern.

That's amazing, Elena. That's amazing. She writes, every morning now

I wake up after more than five to eight hours

of sleep and I wake up saying, thank you, Lord,

for another night of peaceful sleep. With full comprehension, I

turn on Daily Hope again before I start my day.

So she's ending her evening with Daily Hope and she's

starting her day with Daily Hope. That's pretty amazing. She said,

Pastor Rick, life happens and sometimes my insomnia problems come back. However,

they're not as frequent and they don't last as long

as they used to before. So thanks for your messages

of hope from God. I now function with more clarity

and more spring in my step. Elena, thank you for writing.

I love you. And I'm so encouraged that these messages

have brought some peace to your mind. And I'm going

to be praying for you this week that your nerves

will be calmed that your peace will increase, that you

will be given sleep. You know, there's a verse in

the Bible where it says God wants his loved ones

to get their proper rest. So thank you for writing

to me. And those of you who are listening, I

encourage you to write me. Let me know what's going

on in your life. It's one way that we can

partner together. Thanks for your financial gifts. Thanks for your prayers.

And thanks for your letters. God bless you all.

Hey, if you'd like to let Rick know how this

broadcast has blessed you, he would love it.

Please feel free.

To send him an email at rick at pastorrick.com. That's

rick at pastorrick.com. Be sure to join us next time

as we look into God's word for our daily hope.

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Thank you.