Preperation

Greeting

I want to thank Colin for asking me to fill in for him today. It is an honor to be back with you and get to preach God’s word today.

I am going to pray and we will get started.

PRAY

Today we are going to be in Acts 2:42. Colin told me that he has been preaching on the Great Commission and the making of disciples. So today we are going to look at how we are to prepare for the work of the Great Commission.

In 2019, Lifeway research did a study and found that 4500 Protestant churches closed that year. That is 12 churches a day! That was before COVID! I tried to find out if they had done the study since COVID, but I could not find anything. They only do this every 4-5 years. Some good news is that there were 3000 new church plants that year. That was the first time since they had done the study that church closures out paced new plants. They didn’t just creep into the lead, they blew past them.

In 1972 92% of Americans identified as Christians. In 2020 that number was down to 64%.

We (capitol C church) are failing in the last command that Jesus gave us before He returned to His Father! Not only are we failing to go and make disciples, we are failing at living out our faith in public. We look for any excuse to not go to church. We will go to church if there is nothing else to do! If we as professing Christians are not taking this new life seriously and making it a priority, why would a non believer want what we have. Our words must match our actions. We make time for what is important to us. It angers me when I find out that a member misses church because of a child's game, recital, or because they have guests, or any other reason, you fill in the blank. What are we saying to our kids and those whom we attend church with? Church is important as long as I don’t have something else to do! How can we expect to hear the most precious words, “well done my good and faithful servant!!!” Jesus is not going to say that to us if we continue to put the world before Him.

Who is the Church? We are, people are the church. This building is just a place we can meet. If we didn’t have church buildings, the church would not cease to exist. I heard a story about a pastor who went to the poorest are in the world to preach and do mission work. It was in Africa. The church building was made out of cardboard boxes stapled together. He said that these people were worshiping God like he had never seen before. There prayers were more intimate than those he had ever prayed before himself. These people were dependent on God for their daily needs. I believe that it is as much a blessing as it is a curse to be born in America in regards to our salvation and life as a Christian. We are so prosperous that we no longer feel the need to depend on God for anything. When was the last time we had to cried out to God for our next meal? We are just like the Jews who when things were going good would turn our backs on God and depend on ourselves, then God would have to humble them to get them back on track. We must get back to the basics of living out our faith. We must begin to be obedient to Jesus’ last command to us. We must go and make disciples. If we don’t, the church in America will continue to fade. I am going to be going to preach for a view of a call in a couple of weeks. If God wills that to be my new church, I will no longer get to preach all over this county and state. I have been to a lot of churches in Oklahoma. With the exception of 1 or 2 churches, they are all struggling. The Church in America is in decline, but the good news is it doesn’t have to be. We can turn it around, but it is going to take work!

At my day job, I am a project manager for a fire alarm company. The majority of the projects I manage are military or government ones. These installs are very different from the ones done in the civilian buildings. All of our cabling is ran in conduit and has to be ran in a certain way. We can not have any splices or T-taps on our wires. We have to have inspections before we can install our devices and the final acceptance testing is much more in depth than that of a civilian Fire Marshal. I can not send just any technician out to do these installs. Our techs that do the military and government jobs have to be trained to meet the standards by which these installs will be tested.

In the same way, we can not go and make disciples if we have not done the work to prepare ourselves for the task. We can not just go out unprepared and expect to be successful. We must prepare ourselves so that we can be a witness for Jesus Christ and spread His Good News. Our verse today is going to tell us what we need to do in order to be ready to make disciples. Making a disciple is not just leading someone to faith in Jesus Christ, it is walking with them and showing and teaching them how to be like Christ and to live for Him. I feel like many churches in America fail at this. We lead people to a faith in Jesus and then we move on to the next one. Many times these people end up falling back into their old ways because they are not taught how to live a life for Christ. We must do better about coming along side new believers and mentoring them and guiding them through this new life that they have been given. Let’s look at our verse and see what we need to do.

A little back story to catch us up to this point in Acts. In Chapter 1 Luke tells us about Jesus’ ascension and the Apostles return to Jerusalem. While they are waiting in the Upper Room, they choose a new Apostle to replace Judas. They drew lots and Matthias was chosen as Judas’ replacement. Next in Chapter 2 we come to the day of Pentecost. This is the day that the Holy Spirit came down on them and they began to speak in foreign languages. Then Peter gave his first sermon and about 3,000 were baptized and the first church was born. Now we are at our verse and we can see what the first church was doing and what we need to do to be ready to go.

Acts 2:42 (NASB 2020)

42 They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

In the Amplified Version it reads,

They were continually and faithfully devoting themselves to the instruction of the apostles, and to fellowship, to [a]eating meals together and to prayers.

These new believers weren’t just saved from sin, they were saved to Christ and to this new body called the church, which is also His. They had to learn how to live this new life that they had been given. We have to learn also. We are no different than they were. The Apostles walked with Jesus for 3 years to prepare for the day that Jesus would not be here anymore, and they would have to lead His church. They were serious about this new way of life. This new beginning that they had been given. They were continually and faithfully devoting themselves to the teaching of the apostles. Now today we do not have any Apostles. But we do have God’s word. We also have the faithful preaching and teaching of His word by our Pastors. We also must be faithfully and continually devoted to God’s Word and the preaching of His word.

What do you think the most popular verse in the Bible is besides John 3:16? “ God helps those who help themselves”. This is not in the Bible. 82% of Americans think that this verse is in the Bible. 81% of Americans that call themselves born again believers think that it is in the Bible. We are the most illiterate concerning the Bible than we have ever been. If everyone in America were to read their Bibles at the same time, we would have the worst dust storm in history. We live in an age where information is the most available than every before. Almost everyone carries a computer in their pocket today, yet we know less about the Bible than we ever have. I hear people say that they want God to speak to them, He will if you read His Word. If you want Him to speak to you audibly then read it out loud! We have to be faithful and constant about reading and studying God’s Word. How can we expect to be able to tell a non believer about God if we haven’t studied about Him ourselves. We can’t expect to wing it and have God bail us out. We have the potential to do more damage than good if we are not prepared to talk about God and Jesus.

According to the Gallup Poll, 1/3 of Americans don’t know who gave the Sermon on the Mount. The majority of them think that Billy Graham gave the Sermon on the Mount. Less than half of the people polled could name the first book in the Bible. The Gallup Poll made the conclusion that we revere the Bible, we just don’t read it.

God’s Word is our guide to living this new life we have. Why would we not want to read it. It will give us the confidence to accurately talk about our King. We must study the Bible.

How often do we during the week think back on what was preached on Sunday? How often do we look up the verse’s taught on and study them and see if what was said was truth?

Do we devote ourselves to the teaching we are sitting under? How often are we being intentional about studying the Bible? Do we make time for it, or do we do it when we have a few minutes leftover in the day?

Next we can see that they were devoted to fellowship. The Greek word used is KOINONIA. We do not have a word that fits the meaning of this word. We have to use several words to get the meaning of Koinonia. It means fellowship, community, sharing, intimacy, partnership. It could mean the sharing of goods as a family, partnership in a business or other shared religious experiences. It implied a degree of community, intimacy, and interdependence. The early church had a closeness that was the same as, if not closer than, that of blood family. If we are to expect to be able to love a non- believer, we must first be able to love those that are in our church. If we can’t love our fellow believers the same way that Jesus loves them, we have no hope in loving the lost. The early church met together outside of the temple. They met in their homes for prayer, fellowship, teaching, the Lord’s Supper and meals.

Acts 2:46 (NASB 2020)

46 Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart,

How often do you get together with other members of the church outside the church? How open are our homes to others in the church? How is fellowship more than just friendliness on Sundays and Wednesday nights? We all have to eat dinner every night. Why not do it with other believers. We all eat lunch after church on Sunday, why not do it with other believers and discuss what was taught in the sermon. Our love for each other must be different than that of the world if we are to expect the world to want to know about why we love like we do. We show our love by our works and our actions. If we only see or talk to the members of the church when the church is open, we are not really loving them are we? Is that how we treat our kids, our family members? We must begin to act out the love that is in us as children of God. The community must know us by our love for one another if we are to impact it. If our love for each other is not genuine and out in the public, when we try to love the world, they will see it as fake. When Jesus was walking on the earth, He broke all the rules that the Jews had. He talked to women in public. He ate with the tax collectors. He touched the sick and leprous. He didn’t care about what the world thought, He was going to love everyone no matter the cost. It cost Him His earthly life. That is the love that the world needs to see again. The world needs to see true Koinonia. Biblical fellowship will cost us something. It will either cost us in time or money. What we get back out of that cost is infinitely more valuable than we it cost us. True Koinonia is worth doing.

Thirdly we can see that they were devoted to the breaking of bread together. In the Bible this can mean two things, either eating together or the Lord’s Supper. We must do both together. When we are taking the Lord’s Supper together, we are remembering what Jesus did for us on the cross. We must keep this in the forefront of our minds. If we ever forget this then we will become prideful. We must live at the foot of the cross. When we remember what Jesus did for us, we will remain humble and through that humility we will be able to better serve the lost and love them like Christ. When we eat together, we have conversations together. There is something about eating together that makes it easier to talk. We need to be open to having believers and even non-believers at our tables in our homes. There we can have intimate conversations with them and show them love. The home of the believer should be a warm and welcoming place. Hospitality in Jesus’ day was extremely important and for whatever reason it has lost its importance over time. We need to get back to being more hospitable and open to have meals at our homes.

Last but not least we can see that they were devoted and steadfast to praying together. I don’t know why this is last on the list, but I do know that it is one of the most important things that we can do, and it is more powerful and intimate when we pray with and for someone. This is one of the most difficult disciplines to do. We never pray enough. The Bible tells us to pray without ceasing! Too many times we pray as a last resort. We should always start with prayer. If we are going to go out to talk to people and try to make disciples, if we have not bathed that in prayer, then we are going to fail. Everything we do must be bathed in prayer. If we do not pray, we can not know if we are doing God’s will. God wants us to talk to him. He wants to have that intimate relationship with us. That can only be accomplished by continually talking with Him. Prayer is a two way communication with out Father. Through prayer we can become more sensitive to the Holy Spirit and through the prompting of the Holy Spirit, we can know who He wants us to talk to. Who He has prepared for us to talk to. Prayer is vital to making disciples. We can pray for the people before we go out. We can pray with the people we are talking to. We can continue to pray for them after our encounter with them. Prayer should be our first act in making disciples and the last and every time in between. The more we pray, the more God will change us to be more like Christ. We can never pray to much. When you think you have prayed enough, pray more. Pray

I want to leave you with some challenges today.

Are you devoting yourself to the things of God, His word, and the teachings of your Pastor?

Are you practicing Koinonia? Are you having fellowship outside of the church? Invite people to your house during the week, and talk about the Bible, the sermon.

Have a meal with someone in the church this week. Learn something new about them that you never knew.

Pray more this week than you ever have. Pray for something daily. Pray with someone daily. Pray and just listen for God to speak.

Pray, Pray and then Pray.

I encourage you this morning as we have our time of response, to come to the altar and pray today, pray and ask God to show you where you need to make changes to be able to be effective in the making of disciples. Come and pray for God to lead you to someone this week to share Jesus with. Come and Pray.

Let’s Pray