A Spiritually Healthy Church
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Good Evening, tonight I just want to speak to you from the book of .
Were going to be looking at what made the first church unique and what I believe pleases the heart of God inside the body of Christ.
We have all heard about Pentecost and how the toungues as of fire fell upon the disciples and they spoke in toungues and how revival broke out and 3,000 souls were added to the kingdom of God.
For quote some time I have been praying for revival that God would do a fresh work and shake us out of our complacency. I believe we are seeing waves of the movement of the Lord, among us. So what I would like to do is look at and though this church was special I believe it serves as a case study for ever church and can provide an inventory if we want to see the hand of the Lord move among us in powerful ways.
Their Location and Dedication
Their Location and Dedication
When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
Much can be seen in this passage, of scripture at this time Jesus has ascended back into Heaven and has taken His rightful seat at the right hand of God the Father.
But He commanded them to wait in Jerusalem.
Acts 1:
And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
Let’s look at this command and delve into why it is important:
What did Jesus ask of them?
WAIT
Waiting is the key of the Healthy church, when they want a fresh move of the Lord the hardest thing to do is to pray and wait. Think about it they didn’t have a clue what was coming at that time. Sure Jesus had told them the Holy Spirit was coming but did they have any clue what was about to transpire???
Absolutely not
It takes great obedience to wait but it takes even greater obedience to be still when there are people out there hunting you. The religious police were hunting them, they wanted to put to bed this rumor that Jesus had risen from the dead, and would stop at nothing to quiet it down.
Yet they waited, they prayed but I think the second key to a Healthy church was that they
BELIEVED
They believed the Lord was telling the truth, they did not think it was mystical or far fetched they believed Jesus would come through.
How many times do we hear sermons and we think about how nice it would have been to have lived in Biblical times where God seemed to work in these miraculous ways… the sad thing about that notion is that we have forgotten that God still works in these ways everyday.
However many of us are to logical to think this way. We want things worked out on paper, when God does not always give us every detail from the start does he?
He simply told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem and they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit NOT MANY DAYS FROM NOW.
How long did the disciples wait for the Holy Spirit?
Well it is not explicitly given but it is not hard to figure out. We know Jesus died on the day of passover, was resurrected three days later, and appeared to His disciples over the next 40 days.
Which included the day He was resurrected, so He ascended to Heaven 42 days after the Passover.
Pentecost means the 50th day, and it was the 50th day of Passover, or 49 days after Passover. It was called the feast of weeks in the OT the 49 day rule is given in .
Therefore there was a period of 7 days from when JEsus went to HEaven to when the apostles recieved the Holy Spirit.
7 days waiting guards searching, they did not even know what they were looking for when the Holy SPirit came. Even though they did not have all the answers they waited and prayed.
A Spiritually strong church is willing to trust the Lord and each other enough to wait for the power and presence of the Holy Spirit before making any decisions.
But I also like the NKJV translation because it gives a complete translation of the Greek words. They were in one accord, there were no dissenting opinions. Their were no personal agendas they did not sit back and try to think up a plan they waited for the Lords plan to become clear.
Total unity of purpose “wait on the Lord”
They were assembled and unified.
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.
Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them.
Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
THEY PROCLAIMED THE GOSPEL!!
Notice the crowd
There were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. When this sound occurred, a crowd came together and was confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. And they were astounded and amazed, saying, “Look, aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? How is it that each of us can hear in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites; those who live in Mesopotamia, in Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking the magnificent acts of God in our own languages.” They were all astounded and perplexed, saying to one another, “What could this be?” But some sneered and said, “They’re full of new wine!”
Acts 2:5
They were not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ they realized this was the only hope anyone had of salvation!
They proclaimed it boldy, so the whole gathering was speaking with toungues!
But there was one who stood up out of their midst who was especially gifted. His name was Peter
But Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice, and proclaimed to them: “Men of Judah and all you residents of Jerusalem, let me explain this to you and pay attention to my words. For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it’s only nine in the morning. On the contrary, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
And it will be in the last days, says God,
that I will pour out My Spirit on all humanity;
then your sons and your daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
and your old men will dream dreams.
I will even pour out My Spirit
on My male and female slaves in those days,
and they will prophesy.
I will display wonders in the heaven above
and signs on the earth below:
blood and fire and a cloud of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood
before the great and remarkable Day of the Lord comes.
Then everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Acts 2:14-
GOSPEL CENTERED BOLD PREACHING
There was no sugar coating the message of the gospel, He did not frame it in a cute platable way. He did not shy away from the sin of man and the judgment of God. He told the truth as it was and let the Holy Spirit deal with hearts.
This is why we believe in expository preaching sure I may tell stories to help explain a point but at the end of the day I try to exegete the text and simply lift from the pages the word of God as it was recorded.
Look at the boldness from this preacher!
Acts 2:2
“Men of Israel, listen to these words: This Jesus the Nazarene was a man pointed out to you by God with miracles, wonders, and signs that God did among you through Him, just as you yourselves know. Though He was delivered up according to God’s determined plan and foreknowledge, you used lawless people to nail Him to a cross and kill Him.
He said this Jesus was the Messiah and you crucified Him!
God raised Him up, ending the pains of death, because it was not possible for Him to be held by it.
Peter preached the substitutionary death and supernatural resurrection of Jesus Christ boldy and when you preach the word of god under the Spirit of God the Holy Spirit brings about conviction.
Acts 2:
Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?”
“Repent,” Peter said to them, “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.
So there was clear expository preaching among them.
But not only were they assembled, not only were they unified, not only were they proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, not only was there bold Christ centered preaching.
THEY DEVOTED THEMSELVES TO CERTAIN THINGS
And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers.
To the apsotles teaching.
This word devoted meant that they would gather together in a house and they would commit to memory the scriptures and those scriptures were the authority on how they ran things.
It wasn’t man’s ideas or methodology, but the Holy Spirit inspired them as to what they were to do. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching.
This means the study of Biblical doctrine, the study of everything the apostles had learned from the Holy Spirit about the Lord and His character they devoted themselves to learning.
“and the fellowship”
They spent time with one another outside of larger gatherings, they devoted themselves to doing life with one another if it is one thing that I see in our church is that we never see each other during the week unless we see each other at the ballfield or work, in those scenarios not alot of spiritual uplifting goes on.
Sure it can but if were honest it usually doesn’t
No they would gather at houses and break bread together, notice it didn’t say the younger ones gathered over here and the older ones gathered over here, and the middle aged gathered over here.
(Al Mohler)
They shared meals together they studied from house to house breaking bread and learning the apostles teaching.
This is where the idea of small groups comes from, the word of God!
Notice what happened as a result
Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles.
The power of Gcame upon them because the church was being equipped they were loving one another and sharing life as the true family of God.
I dont know about you but I would love for some signs and wonders to begin happening, I see glimpses every now and then. But I still believe if god did it then He will do it again!
So long as His glory and the building of His kingdom is our top priority!
Now all the believers were together and held all things in common.
They held all things in common....
(lifes trials)
(secrets of God)
THEY WERE MEETING EACH OTHERS NEEDS
I would love for us to have a silo account, where whoever felt lead to give to the silo account would just pour money into it, this account would be used to help members of our church family who found themselves without a job, or widows who had lost their spouses income.
OR someone who just flat needs help, I think this mirrors type church life. Whenever any one of us has a need we dip into the silo fund and use it however it is needed.
THEY WERE COMMITTED TO CHURCH ATTENDANCE
Acts 2:
So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart,
HUMILITY
There was not one of them prouder than anyone else, no one viewed themself as better or superior than anyone else they simply loved one another and remained humble in the sight of God.
Simplicity of heart
You know its easy to stay simple when you only have one agenda love God church, show Gods love to the world.
PRAISE WAS THE NORM
praising God and having favor with all the people. And every day the Lord added to them those who were being saved.
Acts 2: