Heritage of the Church

Acts 1:12-16

Welcome to Mountain View Baptist Church! We are honored to have you in attendance today and if you are first time guest, we would love the opportunity to connect with you. You are an encouragement to us just by being here. If there is anything we can do for you, please let one of our ushers know.

If someone were to ask you are you engaged? What would you say? No I am not talking about engagement to get married but involved or committed to a cause. Obviously God wants us to be engaged in His cause. The Cause of Christ is the greatest of all causes. Today we will begin a series on the cause of the church which falls under the cause of Christ.

There is no question in our minds of God’s engagement to the church. Ephesians 5:25 “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it;” shows us how much Christ loved the church. He died for it.

One man said to me, the church is made up of sinners and hypocrites. I reminded him the world is made up of sinners and hypocrites. Don’t you think Jesus knows the church is made up of imperfect people? Yet, what did Christ do for the church? He died for it. This means His love for the church is so engaged that He was willing to die for it.

There are big businesses in our world today like Microsoft or General Electric or Proctor and Gamble. These are huge businesses that make a lot of money. They offer to us things that make our life here better and more convenient. However, the church is the most important organization in the world because it offers life for both here and now, and also into eternity. This is the reason believers should be engaged in the local church. This means joining the church, supporting the church, attending the church, praying for the church, and serving in the church.

The church was started and founded under Christ with His disciples and then here in this passage as they gathered after Christ ascended to heaven, God inaugurates the church by sending the Holy Spirit in chapter 2.

Here in this passage God shows us three of the most important ingredients the church must and needs to have in order for it to be right.

Ingredient one . . .

People

A church is a called out assembly of Baptized believers. It is made up of normal, every day people just like those listed here. It is significant that God lists the names of people here in the Scripture. To be a member of Mountain View Baptist Church, you need to know you are saved and you have been Scripturally baptized. If you have not been, we can help you with both.

As the followers of Jesus left the mount of olives and travelled across the Kidron valley to go into Jerusalem, it was less than a half a mile. This was within the allowable travel distance of 2,000 cubits distance permitted on the Sabbath day. A side note, even in those days, the people who made up the church left their home and normal pace of life to go to church. They made it a priority to attend an assembly of believers.

These were common people as we learn some were fishermen, tax collectors, doctors, and carpenters. There were women and we know there must’ve been children also who made up this early church.

God began the church for people to gather, to encourage each other, to preach the gospel, and serve God. This is what it means to engage in the church.

Please turn to Hebrews 10:24–25 “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”

Please notice here the church is to encourage fellow believers to be engaged in the church and look after fellow believers in the church. In Acts 6 the church helped widows and we also see in chapter 2, the church helped those who were unable to help themselves in vv. 44-45. The church is made up of people and we are to encourage people to get closer to God.

This is the reason for adult connection groups and teen groups and Sunday Schools. This offers a chance to share the Christian life and help others also. Engagement in these class opportunities strengthens people through relationships. Friendliness and compassion builds trust and confidence to share the Christian life. When we go out soul winning, it is always better to go together, to share the gospel together, to serve the Lord together.

Sometimes people confuse the church building with the church. A new church plant has to overcome this struggle because, people see a rented store front as just that and not a church. A church is not a four walled building with pews , a pulpit, and a steeple; it is the people.

God uses people to teach, to preach, to encourage others, and to give financially. God uses people to work on the bus ministry to do secretarial work and administrate the operations of the church. God uses people to share the message. A church cannot be a church without people.

You as a people are a vital part of the church. Your attendance, your support, your prayer, your amens, your response to commitments, your giving all make up what this church was in Acts. It is our heritage, our marching orders.

How many of you have a someone in your past who you knew to be a great Christian? Someone you may remember from family, from friends, or neighbors? A person who left you a Godly heritage?

Today, you can be that someone for a bus kid or teenager who when they become adults, will look back and say I remember brother or sister so and so who taught me or helped me or ushered me or made sure I was in church.

Ingredient 2 . . .

Prayer v.14

This was truly a praying church. Please notice they were united in prayer. This means they prayed together on purpose for each other. You pray for others and others pray for you. You share your prayer needs and the church unites as one voice. Unity means they set aside their differences and their likes and dislikes to seek God’s face as one body.

Please note there there are men and women seeking God together. Their desire, their heart, their purpose is so engaged in the cause of the church that they are seeking God together. United prayer brings great results.

1 Corinthians 1:10 “Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.”

I think of the multiple people who are here today because of God’s people in prayer. Mrs. Munger who has fought numerous health issues and had been given one day to live. As this church sought God, she is here today because God answers prayers. Becky Card is here today because God answers the prayer of His people when she was given a stage 4 cancer report. God’s people prayed and God answered their prayers.

Matthew 18:19–20 “Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

"Be united with other Christians. A wall with loose bricks is not good. The bricks must be cemented together." - Corrie Ten Boom 

Over and over you hear when God’s people pray in unity, God answers those prayers.

Additionally not only did they pray in unity, but they also prayed continually. The apostle Paul said it this way: 1 Thessalonians 5:17 “Pray without ceasing.” This doesn’t mean we take every waking minute of the day to pray but we have a spirit of prayer always about us. We don’t lose heart, we don’t get discouraged about prayer. Certainly we don’t we cease in our praying.

To “pray without ceasing” basically refers to recurring prayer, not nonstop talking. Thus it is to be our way of life—we’re to be continually in an attitude of prayer.

John F. MacArthur

This group prayer is critical to the advancement and ministry of the church. Prayer is the catalyst to move the ministry forward.

Prayer meetings are the throbbing machinery of the Church.

Charles Spurgeon

We shall never see much change for the better in our churches in general till the prayer meeting occupies a higher place in the esteem of Christians.

Charles Spurgeon

The prime need of the church is not men of money nor men of brains, but men of prayer.

Edward McKendree Bounds

What is missing in our churches today is men and women who pray like the early church. The modern church would rather be entertained than pray. They would rather walk than get on their knees and pray. Tonight, we will have Fresh Encounter. It has been my concern that churches with multiple services like ours need to take one of those regularly and make them a prayer service.

Ingredient 3. . .

Proclamation

In verse 16, they were focused on God’s Word. The message is the key ingredient in our church heritage. Paul challenges the young preacher Timothy with the message in 2 Timothy 4:2 “Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.”

This means we don’t preach our opinions or our philosophies or our preferences, we are to preach God’s Word.

Notice preaching the Word of God is attached to the salvation of those in need of Christ.

1 Peter 1:23 “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” God’s Word works on the heart and penetrates our cold stony life with the truth of the gospel.

The message of the Bible is more than the gospel, but it starts with the gospel. The Word of God is not psychology or philosophy or man’s thoughts but the very Word that God wants us to know.

John 6:63 “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”

It seems as though we hear everything to the white house to the hen house, but we are not hearing God’s Word these days. We need His Word to teach us who God is and what He wants us to do for Him.

I fear the prophecy is being fulfilled today regarding His Word in Amos 8:11 “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, That I will send a famine in the land, Not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, But of hearing the words of the Lord:” It seems as though the famine of God’s Word comes because the famine is hearing of God’s Word. When the church stops hearing is when the famine comes.

These three essential ingredients is what the early church needed to do God’s work. This is also what is needed today as we think of the 21st century church. People like you and me who are praying and proclaiming a life changing message which is found in Jesus Christ.

Do you know Jesus as your personal Savior? Are you 100% sure you are on the way to heaven? Do you have a personal relationship with Him?

Christian, how engaged are you in the ministry of the church? Perhaps you are not a member yet, you can be by simply coming forward in one of our services and expressing your desire to be a member. Perhaps you need to get baptized? We can take care of that tonight or whenever you are ready.

What is God speaking to you about today?