More Than Sunday | Acts 2:40-47, Week 3 | Rob Hall | New North Church

Hey, welcome to the New North Church podcast.

It's great to have you listening in with us.

Our vision at our church is to be an authentic community of Jesus followers who love and serve people.

So if we can help you in any way at all, just reach out to us.

The email address is hello at new north.church.

With that, let's go right to this week's message.

Alright, good morning everyone.

Good to see you.

Hopefully you got a fan.

You are smart.

You did not come to 12 o'clock today.

It's gonna be a sauna in here.

Cannot wait.

I did uh like hot yoga for like 30 days once.

Have you ever done that before?

Wow.

Um if you want to pass out, do hot yoga.

Um, it was crazy.

Um, and so I did not go back after my my my trial was over.

But I want you to think about let's just pretend you were out with some friends, family members, um, you know, co-workers, and you were to ask them this question, I wonder how they would respond.

And here's the question hey, do you think the church, the Christian church in the U.S.

is thriving or dying?

What do you think they would say?

They would say, dying, right?

And there was a there's a lot of research to back that up.

Like, we know this, we live in the San Francisco Bay Area where very few people are gathering in a Christian church today.

We're the least churched major metro area in the entire country.

Gallup polls said that weekly church attendance has dropped, watch this from 46% in 2000, that feels like a long time ago, to 31% today.

More churches are closing their doors today than churches that are being opened.

Barna did research and they interviewed some Bay Area residents and they found that six in ten Bay Area residents hadn't been to a church in well over six months.

And, you know, if you ask people in the Bay Area if they're a Christian, 44% would say yes, and then if you ask them if they attend church regularly, they would say no.

So why do you think that is?

Like, why is the church in the U.S.

in decline while the church in, say, like Africa and Asia is exploding?

Man, I think there are a lot of reasons for that, so let me just highlight a few.

There's a growing distrust in institutions, especially religious institutions.

We're living in an increasingly secular society that doesn't want anything to do with God.

Technology has really changed things today, especially uh political division are keeping people far away from the church.

And those are all maybe true.

I actually think the problem is much, much deeper.

And I think we, those of us who follow Jesus, is time to look at ourselves in the mirror because here's the issue, I think.

For many people, church has just become a place to go to, to attend.

It's not a place where you are called to belong and to give or to serve at all.

It's just something we do and then we don't think about it at all during the week.

It's kind of like I put it this way, church for so many people, I mean, no one in this service at all, I probably not, but for the rest of our services, church can be kind of like a grocery store for like spiritual goods and services.

Like you show up, you get what you need, and then you leave.

And when your favorite store changes their product, or they move things around, or they don't have what you like any longer, or they remodel, or whatever, you just go shop somewhere else.

Or you stop shopping all together and just order online.

Hey everyone online, good to see you.

They're like, what?

It's calling me out.

No, I'm not.

Yes, I am.

See, so so here's the thing though.

If that's the problem, you know, the answer isn't like a better church product.

The answer isn't better preaching or better worship or whatever.

The answer, I believe, is a different vision for the church.

And if I could sit down with you and just ask you questions like, what do you think about the church?

What comes to your mind?

Why do you show up?

Why do you gather?

Are you involved?

Are you not involved?

Why?

What's the purpose of the church?

Why are we here?

I think I would get a hundred different answers.

And so I say that because we're in week three of a year-long study in the book of Acts, and here's what we're gonna see today, and it's so powerful.

We're gonna see the beauty, the glory, and also the messiness of the early church.

Here's what's crazy: the early church had no dedicated major building, there was no paid staff, you didn't call people pastor, there was no budget, there was no kids or youth ministries, there was no midweek ministries, uh, there was no parking lot to complain about.

It was just a few thousand people, freshly filled with the Holy Spirit, gathering together, trying to figure out what it means to be the church.

And so, what we're gonna see today in just a few verses is what the spirit-filled church actually looked like and why the early church was so attractive that people just kept joining and joining and joining.

So if you have a Bible, turn with me to Acts chapter 2, and I'm gonna finish this chapter today.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

So here's what we're gonna see.

Peter, remember him from last week.

He had just preached a powerful sermon.

Uh, the Holy Spirit moved, 3,000 people came to faith, and here's what happened next.

Acts chapter 2, starting in verse 42, it says this.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

It says, they, that's the church, these 3,000 plus, devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.

Everyone was filled with awe at the many wondrous wonders and signs performed by the apostles.

All the believers were together and had everything in common.

They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.

And every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.

They broke bread in their homes and they ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.

And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Okay, let's pray together.

Would you just take a second and just pray for yourself that you would be open to God's word today, that he would speak to you, to those around you, that he would use me.

Why don't you pray and then I'll then I'll pray.

So, Father, we believe that you're still moving and working today.

So come, Holy Spirit, come.

Teach your people today.

Give us eyes to see, ears to hear, hearts and minds that are open to do whatever you want us to do, to go wherever you want us to go, to do whatever you want to do today, God.

We're willing, we're ready.

So speak to us in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

All right, here's the first point if you're taking notes.

The Spirit-Fill Church is a learning community of faith.

And so what was going on is the Spirit was forming teachable people who were receiving daily the apostles' messages.

Now let me stop and say this.

I bet it was so tempting for these early followers of Jesus after the events of Pentecost, where the Holy Spirit comes in power to say, forget the Bible, forget teaching, just give me more of the Holy Spirit, more wind, more fire, more tongues, more experience.

They didn't do that.

Because when the Spirit of God fills our lives, one of the first things He does is gives us a hunger and an understanding of God's truth.

Why?

Because the Spirit is the Spirit of truth.

And that happened to me.

I tried to read the Bible long before I was a Christian.

When I came to faith and the Holy Spirit came upon me, man, suddenly I began to desire to read the Bible.

I began to read it and actually understand it.

What does that mean?

It means that a spirit-filled church should always be a Bible-learning church.

So here at New North Church, you should know that we want to both experience the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives and learn the Word of God deeply.

And we believe both can happen.

We want to dig into the scriptures and we want to open up our hearts and allow the Spirit to work in our hearts.

We are a word and spirit church.

Both can happen.

But I want you to notice what was going on in the church by this simple word, devoted.

It says that they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.

That word devoted means to like persist stubbornly, like a dog that won't let go of a bone, to stay at it, to grind, to commit.

So here's what was going on.

These new followers of Jesus didn't just sprinkle a little Jesus on their already busy lives.

Jesus was not like a little uh spiritual pick me up before the grind of Monday.

No, it says that they devoted themselves to becoming more like Jesus.

They devoted themselves to gathering as a church, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.

What does that mean?

It means that they listened to the word of God.

They learned the word of God, they studied the word of God, they practiced the way of Jesus together.

And so what Luke tells us is that the 12 apostles taught the Bible daily.

And here's why.

Here's what I've learned.

The closer you get to God, the closer you want to be to where God speaks, and he speaks in the word of God.

Now I want you to notice that these gatherings in church, it was wild.

Awesome things that were happening.

Like the teaching authority of the apostles came and they were authenticated with signs and wonders and miracles.

People were getting healed as they gathered, people were getting set free as they gathered.

And the believers were just in awe because of what God was doing.

And that made them even more devoted.

God was moving in power.

And can I just stop and say, and I've said this the first week, Acts is not only descriptive, it's not only describing how God moved in the early church, it's also prescriptive.

God is still moving in this way.

We believe that God can and does miracles today.

Can you say amen to that?

Absolutely.

He can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, however he wants.

But like those in the early church, the Christian life today, it's a life of devotion.

We're called to be people who read and who engage and who enjoy and who study and who memorize and who meditate on the word of God.

That's why your kids and our students are learning the word of God today.

Why?

Because the Bible describes us itself as our daily bread.

It's a light to our path.

Without it, we will not grow.

So here at New North Church, we want to be people who come ready to learn and watch this.

And not to be entertained.

Secondly, the spiritful church, we clearly see, is a loving community of faith.

And what you see in their gatherings is that the spirit was clearly like loosening the grip on their possessions, on their stuff.

They were meeting real needs in the church.

They actually had a word for this.

They called it fellowship.

Fellowship.

Now the word fellowship, it simply means to hold something in common.

It means to share something in common.

Fellowship was much more than, you know, having a meal together or hanging out after church.

It was fellowship with God, fellowship with one another.

There was hospitality.

There was a sharing of resources.

And back then, man, in the ancient world and in lots of the world today, hospitality was a big deal.

Eating at someone's table, going into their home was like almost like a holy experience.

It was fellowship, it was intimate, it was close.

You would eat together, you would pray together.

People would even teach at those meals and those gatherings.

And so one of the most beautiful things about the early church is that it's always brought all types of people together equally in fellowship.

Jew and Gentile.

We're gonna see a lot of that in the rest of Acts.

Men and women, slaves and free, rich and poor.

No one was excluded from the early church from loving fellowship together.

Now here's what happens.

We take this kind of for granted in the diversity of the Bay Area.

We look around, we're like, of course, we expect it to be diverse.

But back then there were strong boundaries that shaped social and even religious life.

And so sadly, and I've shared this before, this metaphor is overused, but it's true.

The church so often, especially in America, can function like a country club, you know, where you're wearing your members-only jacket, you know, you got your seat, you know, um, and it's just for you.

But I've said this before, again, this is overused too, but it's true.

The church, it's it's not a country club, it's a hospital.

It's a hospital for the broken.

Hospitals are supposed to be places of healing and hope.

The sick are brought in and cared for, and just like a hospital, though, this type of fellowship can be uncomfortable.

I don't love hospitals.

Messy, too.

But the beauty of the church, and you see this from day one, is when they come together, man, God is at work removing boundaries.

When people who have so many reasons to be divided come together and love one another and listen to one another and lift up the name of Jesus, man, beautiful fellowship happens.

God moves in power.

I want you to notice, too, that the early church, their fellowship included radical generosity.

They shared their resources.

Verse 44 says they had everything in common.

Right?

You need to borrow my lawnmower, come and get it, kind of thing.

Because they spent a lot of time together, though.

Here's what happens: they knew each other's needs.

And so they knew exactly how to care for one another.

They were never surprised about, oh my gosh, you're going through that?

They knew about it.

Because it's hard to be in relationship with someone, especially someone you care about, and not know their needs or not know what they're going through.

Like, for example, if someone in your community group this week was like kind of saying, Hey, can you guys pray for me?

Man, I'm really struggling to pay my PG ⁇ E bill this month.

I hope you don't just say, Oh, we'll pray about that and that's it.

Man, I hope you reach into your pocket and try to help them out.

That's the church.

Like there was an old church back in the day, um, they had a service, PBC, called Body Life.

And uh it was the hippie movement and it was a Sunday night service, and they would pass around the offering, and here's what the old pastor would say.

He said, Hey, if God has blessed you, please give.

If you need something, please take out what you need.

Can you imagine that today?

And so, this is, by the way, if you forget, we have what we call a community care fund in our church.

It's a designated fund, like a benevolence fund.

And many of you give to that fund generously, and you do that because when anyone in our church has a financial need, they contact our staff.

Anyone even in our community can contact us, and we meet with them, we hear about their need, and many of them, many times we come alongside them and financially give to their need.

We never write anyone a check, we usually just pay certain bills, and uh man, God has blessed thousands of people.

We've given away hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Yeah.

And that's the church, though.

That's the church.

They gave their time, they gave their resources, they gave their money, but uh, but I want to be careful here because people love to take this verse out of context.

They gave as there was need.

The selling and giving of their resources was voluntary, they weren't pressured, they weren't coerced, none of it went to the pastor.

The generosity of the church was actually wildly attractive to the community.

Why?

Because we're not very generous people.

So here at New North, man, we want our people to feel and be part of a family instead of just showing up expecting to be served.

Third thing that we see in the early church is a spirit-filled church is always going to be a worshiping community of faith.

See, when the Spirit of God is really moving, he creates dependency in prayer, he creates joyful worship.

We don't sit out there and go, oh, I don't like this song.

Can it be over?

We don't show up late just to hear the sermon.

None of you do that, I'm sure.

Verse 47 says they were praising God.

That's worship.

And look at what happened.

The church actually gathered formally in the temple courts.

They gathered informally in homes.

So there was teaching, there was fellowship, there was eating, there was praying, there was singing, all elements of worship.

They broke bread, which means they ate together.

That also means they they took and partake of the Lord's Supper, which we're gonna do today.

They gathered for worship, they sp they prayed, they spent a lot of time together seeking God, listening to God.

Their worship, again, was formal and informal.

And so here's what we see happening in the early church.

Here's what God wants to do even today.

God was in their midst, and there was surrender, obedience, joy, humility, and just awe.

People will just gather and go, God is here.

That's what we're after.

Here at New North, we want our people to be worshipers, not spectators.

When we gather on Sundays, we are not performing for you.

We're hearing from the word of God, we're listening to the Spirit of God, we are being the church together.

The fourth thing we see, we see is a spirit-filled church is a growing community of faith.

And that's so important to understand today.

See, in Acts chapter 1, remember the Holy Spirit empowered, Acts chapter 1, verse 8, comes in power so that we will be his witnesses in Judea, Sumar, or Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Acts 1 · chapter mention Acts 1:8

Peter gets up, we saw this last week.

He's filled with the Spirit of God.

He preaches a sermon, and the church grew from 120 people to 3,000 people overnight.

Incredible growth.

But I've been around the church long enough to know, not our church, but other churches, and there are some Christians who would hate to see their church grow.

Like, they don't want anyone else to show up.

They like it just the way it is.

I mean, just think about it before you go, yeah, yeah, those people, yeah.

Let's let's let's look at our own hearts.

Let's do a little a little experiment.

Let's say you show up next week and you pull into the parking lot, and there is not one zero parking spaces available.

Ha ha ha, there you go.

All right, the super spiritual person is here.

All right, good.

I knew there was gonna be one.

So you park on the street, you drag your kids down to kids' ministry to see teacher Sam, and there's a sign on the store on the door.

We are absolutely fooled.

Please do not call the fire marshal.

And you're okay.

So you bring them in here, and the usher stops you at the door.

Hey, we are standing room only.

And then you're like, fine, I just gotta see my friends, though.

So you wait outside, hundreds of people file out, and right before you can get any coffee or snacks, they are gone.

Now, only this person or whoever said that, most of us might not say, praise the Lord.

But maybe we would.

And that'd be an awesome day.

But God's design for the church is to grow.

Now, now hear me though, I'm not saying every church needs to be big like ours.

I'm not saying that.

But every healthy church should see people regularly coming to faith, even as just one person a year.

Man, I pray that New Noah Church always has people coming to faith, always has people getting baptized, always Has people that when we talk to them, they're cussing because God hasn't done worked in their heart yet.

And we're like, yeah, praise God.

Right?

Being discipled.

That's where it gets messy.

I love it.

But there needs to be balance.

See, verse 42 balances verse 41.

Let me explain.

Verse 42, remember they devoted themselves to teaching and to fellowship and the breaking of bread and to prayer.

See, verse 42, churches, if they are not careful, will only care about themselves and their needs.

Verse 42, churches, in every church, the gradual thing we do is stop caring about those who don't know Jesus.

And so verse 47, and the Lord added to their number daily, those are being saved, right?

Verse 47, churches need to be careful.

Because when a church only cares about evangelism and more bodies and more church growth than what happens, and you see this, and I see this, they can grow a mile wide, they can be big, but only an inch deep.

A healthy church, please hear me, can be both deep and wide.

A healthy church can focus and teach the scriptures and not minimize the work of the Spirit.

Both can happen.

And when both happens, you know what Luke tells us?

It says, the Lord added to their number daily.

God grows the church.

So we can we plant seed, we water seed, but the scriptures are clear.

Only God grows the church, but we have a part to play.

So this is why we preach and we teach and we worship and we lead ministries and we serve people together because together we're working with Jesus, building his church.

And as the early church worshiped in their homes, they also went out the doors to live form with Jesus.

They were learning how to love God, how to love their neighbor.

They were for sure making mistakes.

We're gonna see that in the weeks to come.

But man, they had a good reputation with outsiders.

Do you think the Church of Jesus Christ has a good reputation with outsiders today?

No, it does not.

But people back then saw what God was doing, saw their generosity, saw the Spirit moving, and said, and Luke tells us that they gave God the glory.

They said, Hey, I'm not gonna show up there, I don't want it, but there's something special going on there.

And that's what we want here at New North.

We want to gather so we can send out our people to live with and for Jesus.

We are not only interested in maintaining people.

So here's my my big idea.

Here's the point, I think, in these verses.

Church is meant to be a faith community that we participate in, not just something we consume.

Let me say that again.

Church is a community of faith that we participate in, that we belong to.

It's not just something we consume.

And see, the early church, they were learners, they didn't show up to be entertained.

They believed that they were family instead of showing up to be served.

They were worshipers, not spectators.

They were people sent out, not people maintained.

Now I say all that, and I don't want to put any guilt on anyone because here's the truth for some of you.

I want to acknowledge that some of you have come here to heal and to be served and to rest, and you are more than welcome to do that.

Some of you have been hurt by the church, some of you are exhausted from serving at a previous church.

Man, I hope and pray you find healing here.

We don't need anything from you.

But let me warn you, we're not a perfect church either.

We have our own struggles.

I will disappoint you.

Just stay around here long enough.

Even the early church had struggles, and we're gonna see them in just a few weeks.

I want to end with a story.

I'm gonna try not to cry, we'll see.

But did you know that even pastors need the church?

About a year ago, my family really needed some help with my youngest son.

And uh we were uh between uh school placements, and for five months, man, we were really struggling.

But during that time, we reached out to some of you and said, Can you help us?

Can you spend time with him?

Because we got to work and we don't know what to do all day.

And some of you even reached out and and and and came and helped.

And and I'll be honest with you, it was so humbling for Missy and I to ask for help because we're the ones that help people.

But you were the church for us at a time, man, where we were desperate and tired, and so you took my son out to do fun stuff.

I'm like, he's never gonna want to go back to school.

No.

You put him to work, you loved him, you invested in him, and Missy and I just want to say thank you.

Missy and I are so grateful for this church community who have loved us for close to 20 years.

Now, you might be thinking, you're the pastor, though.

Like, you kind of get that, you know, like that's what we're supposed to do.

But you know what?

No, no, no.

There are so many of you who have been served and loved and cared for by our church, and I get to see the beauty of that every single week.

And that's the kind of church we want to be.

We want to be a church where we show up, pray, serve, give, love, share, heal, and build God's church together.

Can I just remind us, this is not my church.

This is your church.

You are the church.

The church is not a building you show up to, it's a gathering of God's people where you're using your time and your gifts and your talents for Him.

And I'll tell you what, the body of Christ really misses out when people don't engage or just come only as consumers.

And so I just want to end.

How is the Holy Spirit nudging you to respond today?

Maybe today's a day where you're finding like, dude, okay, I'm I'm gonna join a community group.

That's it.

Or maybe you're gonna say, you know what, it's time to just share what I'm going through with someone and ask for some help.

Or maybe today's a day where you come up for prayer and just allow someone to pray with you and carry your burden with you.

Or here's a good one.

You're gonna not like me for this.

Maybe we can start coming on time and ready for worship.

Or honestly, like, maybe today is a day you're like, you know, I'm gonna start giving.

I've never given.

Or maybe this fall you're like, you know, I'm gonna start serving.

Or maybe you're gonna come with an attitude of like, God, lead me to pray for someone today.

Or how about this?

Forget anything about our church.

What if this week you invited someone over to your home and just had a meal and just said, How are you really doing?

How can I pray for you today?

Man, let's be the church.

So when we gather, this becomes like the cherry on top of a Sunday that God's been doing all week long.

All right?

We've been we've we've been to church all week long.

We just gather to be together.

Man, what could God do with a church like that?

All right, we're gonna transition to communion.

And I'm so glad we're doing this today because it's time for us to remember who Jesus is and what he did for us.

His body was broken, his blood was shed, he rose again and he poured out his spirit to make us his people.

He didn't do it just for you, he did, but he did it for the church.

So we don't earn his grace.

You don't come to this table at my invitation, you come to this table at his invitation.

And that grace, though, changes how we live together in community.

We're not perfect, we're sinners, we're desperate, and we come to feed on the life of Jesus.

And so as we worship, as we take communion, man, let's be asking the Holy Spirit, how are you calling me to respond today?

Is there anything I need to obey?

Is there someone I need to love?

Is there a need that maybe you're calling me to meet?

And so, Jesus, thank you for giving yourself for us.

Fill us with your spirit and teach us to give ourselves, to pour ourselves out in love.

Help us to be the church.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Hey, thanks for being with us, and we really pray that God spoke to you through his word today.

And we want to stay connected, so don't forget to subscribe to this podcast, and that way you'll be notified the moment we have new content go live.

And if you'd like uh more resources or to donate to our ministry, just simply go to newnorth.church.

Thanks again for joining us.

God bless you, and we'll see you right here next time.