Community Passion

Introduction

In our world, there is so much confusion when it comes to biological truths… however, one of the most basic observations that cannot be argued is that God made each of us with 2 ears and 1 mouth! In Genesis, we read that everything that God made was good and it follows that God has a purpose that is good with this fact. Now, why would God give us twice the amount of ears than mouths? For one, it would just look weird if we had 2 mouths! But diving a little deeper, we see a basic takeaway is that we should listen more than we speak - we see this clearly in James 1 as we are exhorted to be quick to listen and slow to speak! Listening to people is so important in life because as you listen, you begin to truly see who the person is, and especially what they are passionate about. You can tell if someone has kids or grandkids just by listening to them talk… because they will probably tell you about them pretty quickly! You can tell if someone is a high school football fan, because high school football just started last Friday night! We talk about what matters to us and we can learn from others just by listening… South Gate Baptist Church, what do we talk about? What matters to us?

The last 4 weeks we’ve been studying throughout the New Testament to see what Jesus’ plan is for His church. We’ve seen the importance of being a body that submits to God’s plan, sits under Christ-Centered Preaching, takes time to pray, and gathers to praise the name of our God. See, whenever you come to South Gate, you’re going to hear a whole lot about Jesus Christ because we exist to glorify Him! Jesus Christ has placed us here in Springfield, Nixa, Ozark, Republic, Strafford, Willard, and these surrounding areas. He has given us relationships with people in our schools, jobs, families, neighborhoods, and teams. He has given us community outside of the church, but He has especially given us Christ-Centered community here at South Gate. We talk a lot about Jesus when we gather, and we also talk about our community… because we love our community and we want to see this community come to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior!

This morning, we’re going to dive into Acts 2:37-47 and we’re going to wrap up our first sermon series by seeing how a healthy church not only cares about what happens inside the walls of the physical church, but a healthy church also cares about the community that Christ has placed it in. A healthy church proclaims the Gospel to its community! This morning, as we read from God’s Word, ask yourself: What Am I Talking About Today?

Acts 2:37–47 CSB

37 When they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” 38 Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” 40 With many other words he testified and strongly urged them, saying, “Be saved from this corrupt generation!” 41 So those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand people were added to them. 42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. 44 Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. 45 They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

God’s Gospel Changes Lives (37-42)

In order to see the importance of a healthy church, it’s helpful to jump back to the early church as we see in Acts 2 that Jesus has ascended, the Holy Spirit has descended, and immediately we see that Peter preaches a Christ-Centered Sermon. He preaches that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Savior, who was crucified by the same people now listening to Peter’s sermon. Notice verse 36, “Whom YOU crucified!” Do you see the severity here? Ask yourself this question: Why did Jesus die on the cross? Yes, because He willingly laid down His life. Yes, because it was God’s plan. But also, yes, because of our sins. Peter is giving these people the Gospel - we stand separated from God because of our sin. There is a chasm that we can’t cross ourselves. We can’t save ourselves. We all need help! And this is what Jesus did - He came to seek and save the lost and He provides hope to the hopeless by dying in our place. Peter preaches and people are pierced to the heart! Friends, we have to remember that whenever the Gospel is proclaimed, the Word of God does the Work of God among the People of God for the Glory of God! God is the one who opens eyes, softens hearts, and changes lives! We have to pause and remember that even though the world has changed significantly over the last 2000 years, God’s Word has not. God’s Word is still inspired (2 Timothy 3:16) and Hebrews 4:12 reminds us that it is truly alive

Hebrews 4:12 CSB

12 For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

God’s Living Word doesn’t just change minds, but it also changes hearts. These people were living in sin… just as each one of us were once in our lives. Walking in darkness. Children under wrath. But what changed? The Gospel changed us - and as Peter says in verse 38, the Gospel commands us to repent of our sins. Now, what does that word repentance mean? For many repent means regret. We know that we did something wrong, and we regret doing that wrong thing… but do nothing about it. One of the rules that Lindsey and I have in our house is that Gabriel is not allowed to stand on our TV table in the living room. Whenever I tell him not to stand on that, he’ll quickly repeat the rule and be sorry… but what happens a few minutes later? Back to the TV table! This isn’t repentance, but it is what we do so often in life. We recognize what we did is wrong, and maybe we regret doing what was wrong… but we keep going right back to that thing again, and again. The Bible tells us to repent of our sin - not simply to regret it. This means to do a U-Turn - to acknowledge that we were going our way, but now we are actively pursuing God’s Way! This isn’t easy, but it is necessary, and this is only brought about by the change that the Gospel makes in our lives! Some might not think that repentance is a big deal… but we read in Scripture that we are all dead in our sins, and we are all commanded by God to repent of our sin

Acts 17:30–31 CSB

30 “Therefore, having overlooked the times of ignorance, God now commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed. He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

We see in Acts 2 that people repent, are baptized, and are added “to them” meaning, added to the body, added to the church. The idea of being saved and baptized and becoming a free agent without a church home is the exception, not the rule, and we have to be careful not to endorse and promote an exception, not the rule, in our church and to prioritize meaningful church membership that follows baptism. Some denominations say that baptism is actually what saves you - we’ll talk more about baptism on Wednesday, October 30th if you want to mark your calendars for our Baptist Faith and Message 2000 study! As Baptists we do not believe that water baptism saves you - think of the Thief on the Cross whom Jesus promised would be with Him in paradise, but who was not baptized. We would say that whenever you repent, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in you and cleanses you of your sins… you follow this with water baptism as you show others what God has done inside of you. We could say that baptism is one of the first acts of obedience after our salvation - we are to repent of our sins, and to obey Christ, and to identify publicly with Christ!

As we think about our community, we know that there are many people who do not yet know Christ. How many people do you think live within 15 miles of South Gate? I looked this up on Tuesday, if you drew a 15 mile radius from South Gate Baptist Church, there are nearly 400,000 people. Of this, nearly half claim to be Christian. From the get-go, that means that over 200,000 people within 15 miles of our church do not even claim to belong to Christ. And of the 200,000 that do, we know that so many claim to be Christians and the basis for that identification is because their grandparents used to go to church, or because they’re a nice person. Friends, there are literally hundreds of thousands of people in our community who do not yet know Christ. Because we love our community and, chiefly, because we love Christ, we must get to work!

The greatest problem in Greene County is lostness - the solution is the Gospel!

There was a time in your life whenever you were “far off”, but God used someone - maybe a parent, maybe a friend, maybe a teacher, maybe a grandparent, maybe a pastor, but God used someone to tell you about the Gospel. Someone who invited you to come to church. What is our hope in this process of sharing the Gospel? God uses the sharing of the Gospel as the means through which sinners are saved! We know that not every person will accept the Gospel. But we do know that some will! God works through His Word and this gives us hope as we share.

Look at the result of the Gospel being proclaimed - 3,000 people were saved! This wasn’t Gravel Road Baptist Church, this was a megachurch. So often in church life we compare ourselves with the church “down the street.” I can say this because I’ve been a member of 5 churches in my life - FBC Springfield, Ozark, Morgan Baptist, FBC Salem, and now here at South Gate. LifeWay Research shares that nearly 1/3 churches in the US have under 50 people. 37% have between 50-100, 25% have between 100-250, and only 8% are in the “very large” category of more than 250. I’ve been in the normal size of a 60 person church, 2 churches with around 300 people, one church with nearly 700 people, and South Gate. I’ve seen just about everything! Here’s the danger when it comes to growth and church size from the vantage point of a small church looking at the big church, “The reason they’re so big is because they’ve compromised the Gospel and that can’t be a healthy church.” Meanwhile, the big church looks at the small church and says, “That church must be pretty boring and bad at reaching people if they’re still small and not growing like us.” Both are wrong! There are good churches that are both big and small… and there are bad churches that can be both big and small too. Yes, there are some large churches that have watered down the Gospel and, in fact, aren’t true Christian churches. Yes, there are some small churches that have grown inward focused and are dying as a result of forgetting their commission in the first place. But we can’t think that big is bad or small is bad, bad is bad. God cares more about the health of the church than the size of the church.

In Acts 2, the church grew from 120 to 3,120 overnight! What would we do at South Gate if God sent this type of move of the Holy Spirit today? Y’all, I pray for this. Not for us. Not for our name to be in the headlines. Not for anything of the sort… but because there are thousand of folks within a couple of hits of a golf ball from this church that do not know Christ. In fact, if 3000 people showed up to South Gate wanting to worship Jesus with us, we lack the space currently needed for that! We’d have to send them to other Bible-believing churches and we have to remember that other churches aren’t our competition, they are our co-laborers in the Gospel!

Notice what moved the crowd - it wasn’t programs. It wasn’t signs and wonders. It was the faithful proclamation of the Word of God. What is our responsibility, church? To be people of this Book! To stand on Scripture. To sing God’s praise. To spend time in prayer. To share the Gospel with a lost and dying world and call on people to respond with repentance and faith.

God’s People Give Generously (43-46)

These early Christians gathered together to worship, but they also came together in order to meet needs in their new community. We see that all the believers were together and held all things in common - do you believe in miracles? How manny believers are there now? 3,120 if we’re being technical… and Scripture tells us that they held all things in common. This isn’t a communistic community where the church took everything from every person, far from it!

The early church gave freely, voluntarily, sacrificially, and generously to God’s Word because Jesus had radically changed their lives. They were once lost. Hopeless. Without community… but because of Jesus, they were found. With hope. Apart of God’s forever family… and they desired to work together to help others come and know of the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

2 Corinthians 8:9 CSB

9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: Though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.

Our Savior came to the earth from the throne room of heaven. From the glory place to the gory place. From worship to wrath. From exaltation to humiliation. From the throne to the tree. From the heights of glory to the depths of shame. From the halls of heaven to the nails of earth. From riches to rags. He came for us… So that in Him, we might experience salvation that we could never deserve. Why do God’s people give generously? 3 reasons

Jesus Commands Us To

Souls Need Us To

God Works Through It

Understand this, because I’ve heard from so many people in person and online that “Churches Only Care About Your Money” and this is demonstrably false! Listen to this: God doesn’t need you. Me. Us. He doesn’t need our money - He already owns everything! He gives to us and calls on us to steward what we are given… and as believers we have the blessing to partner with the Lord in doing His Kingdom Work - and we trust in the Lord in this area, just like the early church did, in order to meet needs, proclaim the Gospel, and make disciples of our neighbors and the nations. A Generous Church is a Dangerous Church!

But isn’t generosity hard at times? Do you remember whenever you entered the real world after high school and learned that being an adult wasn’t everything that you thought that it was going to be? Bills are not fun! I’ll always remember this conversation with my dad while I was working at SBU in college. I drive down over a weekend to play bass guitar in the Christmas program at FBC Ozark and I’m talking to my dad about what I’m learning in some of my Bible classes and we somehow got to the topic of giving and I tell my dad that I can’t afford to give because I’m a poor college kid and can barely make ends meet as it was. Do you remember that Taco Bell used to have a Taco Bell Cravings Menu with tacos that were actually affordable? That was a luxury that I couldn’t always afford with my friends, money was tight! Into this context my dad dropped a nugget of pastoral wisdom, “Son, you can’t afford not to give.” Now, my dad is as far from a prosperity preacher as you can find… he wasn’t saying, “Sow a seed of $10 and you’ll be repaid with a $100 bill!” He was saying this, “Giving is one way that we trust God… and you can’t afford not to do that.” The early church realized this and they gave above and beyond in order to further God’s Kingdom, support God’s work, and meet needs where they could so that souls would be saved. So how should we give? We see that these people sold what they had in this process - what should be our standard?

2 Corinthians 9:7–8 CSB

7 Each person should do as he has decided in his heart—not reluctantly or out of compulsion, since God loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make every grace overflow to you, so that in every way, always having everything you need, you may excel in every good work.

There isn’t figure. Sure, in the Old Testament there was something called a tithe, or 10%, but if we really go through the Old Testament when it comes to giving, we see that those people gave more like 23%. These early Christians gathered, and when they did they sang, they studied Scripture, they gave, and they ate… sounds like a baptist church, if you ask me! As you think about these different aspects of the early church, remember the focus was on honoring the Lord, helping the saints, and reaching the lost. This is the focus of South Gate Baptist Church as well! We worship through song, studying Scripture, sweet fellowship, and sacrificial giving week in and week out in order to honor God, help the saints in our church, and reach the lost who do not yet know Jesus Christ! There are needs in this community and this community needs our church to stand on the Word unapologetically and practice sacrificial giving consistently so that we can make a dent in this community in the days to come.

If you have tasted God’s Gospel, you will be Generous with God’s Gifts. Would you say that you are a generous person or a stingy person? Generosity is more than simply money, it includes our time and our talents. It includes going above and beyond for God’s Kingdom. It includes helping those in need who can’t help themselves. What we see throughout the New Testament is that God’s people came together with generosity in order to meet needs and help expand God’s Kingdom with what God had given them… This is why we give - we desire to trust in God and we desire to see our community come to know Jesus and our Savior calls His people to be a generous people because we have been shown more generosity than we could ever imagine or show ourselves.

God Gets the Glory (47)

As we proclaim the Gospel and as we give to further God’s Kingdom work here, we know that God gets the glory. We read in Acts 2 that each day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. We aren’t promised that each day that we share the Gospel, someone will be saved. We aren’t promised here that every worship service, our success rate is someone walking the aisle or praying at the altar, that’s not our barometer of success… This is describing what took place 2,000 years ago. What is our takeaway beyond this mighty move of God in the past? Whenever we gather to praise God and as we come together to love on our community, God gets the glory, and we know that His Word doesn’t return to Him void.

We don’t control the results, God is in charge of that! What is our responsibility? To praise God. To proclaim the Gospel. To pray. To preach the Word. To be passionate about our community. Whenever we do these things, we honor God, our church becomes healthier, and lives are changed. Grant Osborne once shared, “Church growth is explosive when people are excited about the things of Christ.” Are you excited about Jesus Christ? Are you excited about your church? As we stand on Scripture and submit to the Spirit, we achieve the Christian definition of success. That’s not platforms, promotions, or popularity… it’s faithfulness to Jesus. Growth in the church must be the result of health in the church. A healthy church must love its community.

Matthew 5:16 CSB

16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.

We give, grow, and go so that people see good works and give glory to our God. What are some of the things that we are doing or are in the process of doing? A little over a week ago we had a back to school bash for our Promise Preschoolers and were blessed to have dozens of people attend and eat some yummy food together - many of those families don’t have a church home, but we had the opportunity to serve them and to invite them to join us for worship on Sunday. This summer we had the opportunity to send kids to camp to learn about Jesus and grow in their walk with Him. This fall we’ll be kicking off our Wednesday night services with activities for kids, students, and a time of worship here in our sanctuary for our adults. Why do we do these things? Not because it’s always easy, but because it’s necessary. We know that there are fundamental problems in our world: Evil, Brokenness, Sickness, Disaster. Everyone admits that there are problems… but where do we search for the answer? In Acts 2, the church gathered and sat under the apostles teaching which said that salvation is found not by looking within but by looking up. What has our world bought today? The opposite - if you want to find salvation and truth, look within. One psychologist noted that fewer people come into their office saying that they want to change… instead they want someone else to change. Do we see this in our world? We absolutely do! We want change, but we just don’t want to be the one who has to change… but what is the Christian message? The reason that there is a problem is because of sin… and we all have sinned. In fact, we all have a sinful, fallen heart.

What must happen? We all must change. We can’t do this ourselves by looking within and just trying harder as many in our community try to do… We need Jesus. We need the Holy Spirit. You will never meet a person so bad who cannot be saved by Jesus… and you will never meet a person so good that they don’t need Jesus. Church, we must step up and take the Gospel into this community for the glory of God because souls are at stake.

One of my missionary friends in Guatemala named Alex shared recently that God could do all of this work by Himself if He chose to. He could snap His fingers and it would be done. He doesn’t need us! But He loves US so much that He desires for us to join Him and be apart of His worldwide work of redemption. God does not need us, He doesn’t need our money to accomplish His purposes… but our community does. Flawed as we all are, God calls on us to be faithful and to trust in Him. God uses crooked sticks to hit straight shots, is anyone else thankful that God chooses to use us for His glory?

How Can We Reach Our Community?

Talk

We talk about what matters to us. What do you talk about to those God has placed around you in your community? Family? Job? School? We should be eager to talk about WHO Jesus is and WHAT He has done in our lives and WHAT He is doing in our midst here at South Gate!

Time

Studies show us that the main reason that a guest comes to church is because they are invited by someone from the church - not the pastor, not a staff member, but more often than not a neighbor, a co-worker, a friend, a family member (83%!)… sadly, studies also show us that roughly half of churchgoers have invited 1 person in the last 6 months. How can we reach our community? By taking the time to build relationships and whenever we have relationships with people who we know do not go to church, that should burden our hearts and we invite them to come worship Jesus with us at South Gate! It takes time to build relationships and to “earn” the right to present the Gospel. But this is our commission by Jesus - people should see a difference in our lives not only with the fact that we come to church on Sunday morning when half the world is sleeping in, but we don’t just come to church, we serve in church. We live our entire lives on mission for Jesus. Intentionally using our time is required to reach our community

Talent

Every one of us is gifted uniquely by God for a reason. Back in Salem, we had a week each summer called Love Thy Neighbor where between 100 and 200 people from area churches would gather together and we would do projects throughout community. 2 summers ago, there was a family whose home was essentially going to need to be rebuilt from the ground up and they had not way to afford such a renovation. By God’s grace, a construction man stepped up and said that he would not only lead the efforts to build a new house for this family, he would donate his time and the time of his entire work crew. Sure enough, we had about 20-30 people at that one project all week long, and eventually that house was completed for that family. How did this happen? Because someone talented and gifted by God used his talent for God’s glory and the good of the community in a way that no one else could have. Friend, we all have talents that we must use for God’s glory and the good of our community!

Treasure

Many in our world think that it is foolish to give to anything not relating to self or family. While some do give to non-profits, the thought of giving to a local church is seen as backward at best and foolish at worst. Is that what the Bible tells us, though? While God does not need us and He doesn’t need our treasure, He does desire obedience from His people. One of the ways that we can reach our community is by uniting as a body and giving of our time, talent, and treasure for God’s glory and the good of those around us. As we give generously, God takes those offerings and dollars and blesses them and uses them in ways that we can’t even begin to imagine! We care about this community and we realize that we are able to do more in this community as we come together and use our treasure, our resources, as a body. There are many needs in this community - but God has blessed us not only spiritually, but financially, in order to meet many of these needs - our responsibility is to be obedient, just as the church in Acts was, in order to further God’s Kingdom one life at a time!

God saves us into His service. He has blessed South Gate Baptist Church over the last 35 years! He has equipped us with His Word. He has placed us in an ideal location at a time in which 125,000 people live within 5 miles of our church and the vast majority don’t know Christ - friends, lost people aren’t our enemy, they are our mission field! Do you want to see Greene County evangelized with the Gospel? Are you ready for the cost?

What will it cost you? Your time, talent, and treasure. Is Jesus worth that cost? Absolutely! Maybe you’re here though and you haven’t responded yet to the Gospel message. Know that Jesus Christ is still in the business of saving sinners just like He did 2,000 years ago in Acts 2! He changed my life, and I know that He can change yours as well. South Gate Baptist Church isn’t a perfect church. But we follow a perfect Savior and we desire to be a healthy church. If you don’t have a church home or if you haven’t yet come home to Jesus Christ, I’ll be standing down here in just a minute after we pray and I’d love to talk with you about what it means to repent from your sins and trust in Christ and receive the peace and hope that only He can provide!

South Gate, what do we talk about? We talk about what matters the most to us. Let’s talk about and trust in the Lord, stand on His Word, and watch God work as we seek to reach this community for His glory, one life at a time!