An Ordinary Decade

Mike Leake

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It’s almost New Year’s Day. Have you got your resolutions all put together? I don’t really do them much anymore. Actually, I do something a little different. I try to learn some sort of new skill or something once per month. I just make some simple goal. Like last year for the month of January, I wanted to make a really good omelet. I don’t know that I really succeeded there. I never could get them to look right. Tasted fine but the appearance would have gotten me booted off a cooking show. My goal for January is going to be making a pot or vessel of some sort on a pottery wheel. And I’ll pick some other simple little thing for each month of the year, Lord willing. It’s really just ordinary stuff. We will, Lord willing, return to our study of Hebrews next Sunday. This Sunday I thought might be a good place to launch us into 2020.

Allow me to set this text up for us in think you could perhaps argue that the early church here in was in its purest form. There isn’t cultural Christianity here. Of course there are likely issues of maturity and such still. It’s not as if everyone was saved and filled with the Spirit on this day in Pentecost and so they didn’t struggle with anything anymore. The rest of Acts would show us how much that isn’t true. But in we read, “so those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”

I’m tell you all of this to say that my goal for our church in 2020 is that we be perfectly ordinary—not necessarily boring—but that we just do faithful ordinary day to day things. It’s what Eugene Peterson would call a Long Obedience in the Same Direction. I think this 2020 might give us a bit more pause and time to reflect, because this is also a new decade. Will this be the roaring 20’s?

Did you have really big goals in 2010? Do you pick really big resolutions year to year?

Scripture Introduction:

Do you remember the telephone game? You start by whispering to the person next to you who passes it down to the other person. You start with something like a guppy in a shark tank and end up with something like the puppy ate a spark plug? It’s a funny game which really shows how things tend to get corrupted over time and not quite as pure.

Now let’s imagine these 3,000 people all together and starting this new church. What’s it look like? When the presence of God is obvious among them? When God is working and moving in a way that is just absolutely obvious. What is the first impulse of these new believers?

Acts 2:42–47 ESV

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

I share that illustration to say if you could imagine the church in its purest form you’d like look at Pentecost. In the Holy Spirit has just filled the believers, the church has been formed, and Peter has just preached the first recorded sermon in Acts. And the result is amazing. says, “so those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”

Now there were some pretty amazing things in that text, right? But did you notice how unbelievably ordinary their activities are?

Did you have really big goals in 2010? Do you pick really big resolutions year to year? I want to convince you today to aim for the ordinary in 2020. Here’s what I believe we can see from Acts. Lots of times when we think about the purest expression of the church we think of many things that are probably closer to our culture than what we actually see in the Bible. In the Bible we see ordinary people using ordinary means of grace and God doing some really amazing things.

Let’s rewind to 2010. What if you’d set a goal of reading just one chapter of the Bible per day. Did you realize that you would have read through the entire Bible almost 4 times?

Lots of times when we think about the purest expression of the church we think of many things that are probably closer to our culture than what we actually see in the Bible. In the Bible we see ordinary people using ordinary means of grace and God doing some really amazing things. So where does this come from? I get all kinds of mail every week from conferences and things promising to help us pastors see our churches grow and things like that. Get this book. Go to this conference. Try this program. And it’s covered with words like:

What if you made a goal of praying 15 minutes per day. Did you know that would have led to 912 hours over the last 10 years?

What if you decided that you’d share the gospel of Jesus with 1 person per week. And you did this for the past decade. Did you know you would have shared the gospel with 521 people?

Or maybe you made a goal to spend 1 quality hour per day with your spouse and or your kids. That means no phone, no distractions, just good quality time. That would be 3,650 hours in the past decade. Or 152 entire 24 hour days.

What would happen if you decided to spend something like 2 hours per week really getting to know somebody. Maybe you make it a goal to ask somebody out for lunch at least once a week, or have a coffee with someone. You dedicate 2 hours per week to engaging another human being. You know that would be 1,040 hours over a decade. Can you imagine the relational depth that could be fostered in that time? What if you said, I’m going to pick one person and actively disciple them. 2 hours per week. You do that for a decade…what is that 1000 hours going to do?

But, did you know that the average person spends 4 hours per day on their phone. That’ll be 14,600 hours per decade. Or 608 days. That means of a decade you’ll spend almost 2 full years of that on your phone. Now it’s pretty hard to actually judge what you are doing on your phone. It might be something relationship building. It could be something that truly is of value. But I can tell you that statistics show that half the time on your phone is spent on social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat). That’s a lot of cat videos. So cut those 14,600 hours in half and you’ve got 7300 hours on social media in the next decade.

Did you know that the average person spends 4 hours per day on their phone. That’ll be 14,600 hours per decade. Or 608 days. That means of a decade you’ll spend almost 2 full years of that on your phone. Now it’s pretty hard to actually judge what you are doing on your phone. It might be something relationship building. It could be something that truly is of value. But I can tell you that statistics show that half the time on your phone is spent on social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat). That’s a lot of cat videos. So cut those 14,600 hours in half and you’ve got 7300 hours on social media in the next decade.

We’re also watching on average 5 hours of television per day. Again when you math that out it means 2 of the 10 years is going to be spent watching TV. Granted most people are on their phone and television at the same time. But I’m sharing all of this to say that ordinary activities shape us. Just an ordinary activity like checking your phone. Scrolling through Facebook. Watching a video on YouTube is shaping you. Why? Because while those big epic moments are shaping and transformative for us we truly are what we do in those ordinary moments. That shapes us far more in the long run.

Just an ordinary activity like checking your phone. Scrolling through Facebook. Watching a video on YouTube is shaping you. Why? Because while those big epic moments are shaping and transformative for us we truly are what we do in those ordinary moments. That shapes us far more in the long run.

But we live in a microwave culture. We want what we want and we want it now. We move from epic thing to epic thing and think that it’s going to shape us. Honestly, what we do is we give our ordinary moments to the things of the world and plead with God to capture us with those epic times. I’m going to dedicate a weekend to you, Lord. And he shows up. He’s gracious. He transforms. He does things at conferences and stuff. Don’t hear me wrong. But what if God had the ordinary this year? This decade?

I get all kinds of mail every week from conferences and things promising to help us pastors see our churches grow and things like that. Get this book. Go to this conference. Try this program. And it’s covered with words like:

I’m saying from Acts. Lots of times when we think about the purest expression of the church we think of many things that are probably closer to our culture than what we actually see in the Bible. In the Bible we see ordinary people using ordinary means of grace and God doing some really amazing things. So where does this come from? I get all kinds of mail every week from conferences and things promising to help us pastors see our churches grow and things like that. Get this book. Go to this conference. Try this program. And it’s covered with words like:

So where does this come from? I get all kinds of mail every week from conferences and things promising to help us pastors see our churches grow and things like that. Get this book. Go to this conference. Try this program. And it’s covered with words like:

Here’s what I’m saying from Acts. Lots of times when we think about the purest expression of the church we think of many things that are probably closer to our culture than what we actually see in the Bible. In the Bible we see ordinary people using ordinary means of grace and God doing some really amazing things. So where does this come from? I get all kinds of mail every week from conferences and things promising to help us pastors see our churches grow and things like that. Get this book. Go to this conference. Try this program. And it’s covered with words like:

Radical, epic, revolutionary, transformative, impactful, life-changing, extreme, awesome, emergent, alternative, innovative, on the edge, explosive breakthrough, whole new level.”

And you’re probably thinking the same thing about your walk with Christ. Man, if I’m going to get serious about God and if I really want to see God work and move then we need things to be radical, epic, revolutionary, life-changing. I need to take this thing to the whole new level. But friends this doesn’t come from the New Testament. Ordinary people doing ordinary things to the glory of God.

I’d also say that you don’t necessarily judge a movement of God by these weekly cataclysms. But it’s more by the moment-to-moment things. One of the most helpful books I’ve read on marriage is What Did You Expect by Paul Tripp. He says this:

Here is my question for you, what do you think goes on in this church? Or maybe I’d even ask it a little differently. You’ve got three thousand people who are new believers in Jesus. The presence of God is obvious. The promises of God are being fulfilled. The Spirit is fully at work. It’s one of the brightest and purest times of Christianity. So what does that look like? What is the first impulse of this new believer?

What should church look like? What should be our impulse as believers? I believe has that answer:

Chew on this:

READ

In his wisdom, God has crafted a life for us that does not careen from huge, consequential moment to huge, consequential moments. In fact, if you examine your life, you will see that you have actually had few of those moments. You can probably name only two or three life-changing situations you have lived through. We are all the same; the character and quality of your life is forged in little moments. Every day we lay little bricks on the foundation of what our life will be. (Tripp, What Did You Expect?, 58)

Now there were some pretty awesome and exciting things happening there, weren’t there? But did you notice that what the believers were doing was…well kind of boring. It was ordinary. Yes, God really blessed that ordinary but there really isn’t lots of radical earth shattering things happening here in this text. When the presence of God is being expressed in the life of the local church it looks surprisingly ordinary.

Here he is making the argument that we must develop a “little-moment” approach to our marriages. And I think he is right. He goes on to say, “things in a marriage go bad progressively. Things become sweet and beautiful progressively.” We aren’t trained to think this way. The way we often do church doesn’t help with this either. At least in America, I think we are trained to think of church as moving from one big moment to the next. We move from Sunday to Sunday and Wednesday to Wednesday, with each one being a monumental moment. Think about the way we often advertise our Sunday morning gatherings. We don’t want anyone to miss out on the life-changing encounter with God….every single Sunday.

I had someone ask me this question awhile back. Why doesn’t the church today look like the early church? Why don’t we see some of the amazing things happening that we see in Acts? Part of my response is to say that this was an extraordinary time. And when we read Acts we have to understand that some is descriptive and not necessarily prescriptive. Some things which happened in Acts were unique to that time. And so I don’t believe we can just say, “hey guys if we start doing ABC and D then we can expect God to respond with those really awesome things we read in Acts.” It’s not meant to be a formula.

Why do we do this?

At least in America, I think we are trained to think of church as moving from one big moment to the next. We move from Sunday to Sunday and Wednesday to Wednesday, with each one being a monumental moment. Think about the way we often advertise our Sunday morning gatherings. We don’t want anyone to miss out on the life-changing encounter with God….every single Sunday.

But I do believe that we can learn from the impulses of the early Christians. Why did they do these things? And I believe we ought to follow them in that. I don’t know that some of the things in this particular text is able to be exactly lived out in our culture. And we might not see the signs and wonders that they saw there during the foundational stages of the early church. That’s not to deny the Holy Spirit or say the Holy Spirit doesn’t work today. It’s to say that the Spirit—though the same in Person yesterday, today, and forever—works differently at different times.

We are trained to think in big moments. We become wired to think that the way people grow, and churches grow, and pastors are encouraged, and disciples are trained, is by moving from monumental encounter to monumental encounter.

But what if that isn’t how God usually works? What if what Tripp says about marriage is also true of our church and our ministry? Marriages are built brick by brick, day by day, tiny moment by tiny moment. And I’m convinced that our own personal walk with Christ and our churches are the same way. And we see this played out in . God’s presence was moving and what did you see? There are 5 things here that mark and ordinary church enjoying the presence of God.

What would this look like in practice?

Radical, epic, revolutionary, transformative, impactful, life-changing, extreme, awesome, emergent, alternative, innovative, on the edge, explosive breakthrough, whole new level.”

In What Did You Expect?, Tripp gives six commitments that mark a day by day marriage. I wonder if these couldn’t be revamped a bit and put into the DNA of our local churches.

And you’re probably thinking the same thing about your walk with Christ. Man, if I’m going to get serious about God and if I really want to see God work and move then we need things to be radical, epic, revolutionary, life-changing. I need to take this thing to the whole new level. But friends this doesn’t come from the New Testament. That’s not the impulse of the first church. Where does it come from? I think John MacArthur gives a decent summary:

COMMITMENT #1: We will give ourselves to a regular lifestyle of confession and forgiveness.COMMITMENT #2: We will make growth and change our daily agenda.COMMITMENT #3: We will work together to build a sturdy bond of trust.COMMITMENT #4: We will commit to building a relationship of love.COMMITMENT #5: We will deal with our differences with appreciation and grace.COMMITMENT #6: We will work to protect our marriage.

As I read through the book of Acts what I see is something similar. What we read in 📷 looks an awful lot like having a day by day commitment to one another. This is why things like life groups (or small groups) is, I believe, vital to the health of a local church. It creates in us a day by day way of thinking about life together and less about just gathering with a group of like-minded people once or twice per week.

Where does all this come from? Well, the original fountain for this is not the culture. This is a culture of extremes, but that’s not the original fountain for this, though all these things are part of the culture, and in an effort to be extreme and edgy and impactful and relevant, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, the most bizarre elements of the culture are imported into the church. But the origin really goes back to revivalism and goes back to Charles Finney, 1792-1875. It was Finney who decided that religion, to be valid, had to have some kind of high impact, high energy emotional element. It was about methods, feelings, experiences, sentimentalism, and it all trumped sound doctrine and theology. Gradual growth, by the normal ordinary means of grace, prayer, the study of the Word, fellowship was exchanged for a radical experience, the anxious bench, and there was introduced into the evangelical world a restlessness of those looking for something extreme.

Marriages are built brick by brick, day by day, tiny moment by tiny moment. And I’m convinced that churches are the same way. What would it look like for us to adopt this way of thinking in our local church? What would change?

1. God is forming a community committed to His Word

Boy, God’s presence was really here and moving and working. What are you going to see? I’d argue that it’s not necessarily something that you even see happening on a Sunday morning. I’d argue that it’s something akin to what we see in . We see 5 things that mark an ordinary church that is enjoying the presence of God. What I’m trying to do in the next few weeks is answer what type of community is God forming.

1. God is forming a community committed to His Word

The first thing we see is that they devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching. They had gotten saved and so they wanted to learn more. Do you remember this impulse when you first became a believer? I know that some aren’t quite as big of nerds as me and don’t like to read as much. But even if you aren’t immediately desirous of reading you have this impulse to know more about God. You find yourself signing up for Bible studies, wanting to hear more sermons, whatever it takes to know God more. That’s the impulse of a child of God. That’s what we see here they have a hunger for God’s Word through the apostle’s teaching.

Rod Haskins. I want to know God’s Word and in as much as I’m able I want to teach God’s Word to people. But he was dyslexic and reading was terribly difficult for him. So do you know what he did? He woke up earlier. He took small passages of Scripture and worked on memorizing them, and understanding them, and mulling them around. He loved God’s Word and lived God’s Word. This is the impulse of a believer. When God saves someone like we see in there is this drive to be “devoted to the apostles teaching”.

I think Martin Luther does a good job of explaining why this is true:

"The church was born by the word of promise through faith, and by this same word is nourished and preserved. That is to say, it is the promises of God that make the church and not the church that makes the promise of God. For the Word of God is incomparably superior to the church, and in this Word the church, being a Creature, has nothing to decree, ordain, or make, but only to be decreed, ordained, and made. For who begets his own parent?"

God’s Word is what forms the church. If we aren’t committed to faithfulness of God’s Word then we aren’t a church we are a social club. We aren’t a community being built by God we are a community in rebellion to God.

What happens when God’s Word disagrees with us? Do we try to shape the Scriptures, do we change our beliefs to match our actions and the things we hold dear, or do we change in order to line up with God’s Word. Devoted to God’s Word. What does that mean? To be devoted to something means to be given over to that thing. So what if you commit, not some big audacious goal but just something small…I’m going to do the very best I can to read and mediate upon one chapter of Scripture per day.

2. God is forming a community which is committed to one another.

One of the things that is probably the most head-scratching to our contemporary society is this idea of giving away your stuff…having things in common…etc. It sounds a bit like communism and we don’t like communism (and rightly so, given its godless nature). But communism isn’t a voluntary giving away of things…it is state mandated. No, this is something quite different. This is something again that is an impulse for the newly formed believer and community of God. We see it in this word in verse 42…”the fellowship”.

Koinonia. “Self-sacrificing conformity to a shared vision”. This is why they give away their stuff. They are together on this mission of making the name of Jesus great through the entire world. They’ve become convinced that Jesus is the Messiah and the all the promises of God are true in Him. As they are formed by the Word of God they move out into mission and community. They have a desire to know others and be known by others.

This is why they give away their stuff. They are together on this mission of making the name of Jesus great through the entire world. They’ve become convinced that Jesus is the Messiah and the all the promises of God are true in Him. As they are formed by the Word of God they move out into mission and community. They have a desire to know others and be known by others.

I like what Tim Keller says on this:

That means we don’t just share our bucks, though we do. We share our joys. We share our mistakes. We share our sorrows. Now this can be done in a very icky way, and you can very artificially press this kind of community on people. It grows, and it has to grow in an organic, natural way, but I tell you, we in America are absolutely against this. In his book, Habits of the Heart, Robert Bellah says the one thing Americans hold dear is the idea I am not accountable to anybody but myself for the meeting of my own needs.

That, my friends, is worldliness…Worldliness is saying, “I don’t want to be accountable to anybody.”

People who don’t have much else in common but their shared faith in Jesus and this changes everything. Meeting together in homes…this is crazy if you think about who this is? (Also note that they still had their homes…helps us to see that what happened was more like people gathering together and pooling resources to help out…what we see often in our Sunday school classes). Do you believe that you have more in common with a follower of Jesus who radically disagrees with you politically than you do with someone who agrees with you lockstep but isn’t a follower of Jesus? If that’s not the case, then brother you might have the wrong thing as your foundation. Our community is centered on Christ which is the third thing we see with this biblical community...

The community that God is forming isn’t just a place you attend with like-minded people a couple times per week.

3. God is forming a community which is committed to Christ-centeredness

The breaking of bread and breaking bread in homes. There is a bit of a difference here between these two. Many believe that this first, “devoted to the breaking of bread” is talking about the Lord’s Supper and it certainly includes that. I think MacArthur is correct when he points to the cross-centeredness of this community:

That certainly encompasses the Lord’s table. Certainly it encompasses the memory of the cross. But before the Lord’s table was taken, there was generally in the early church a meal, a “love feast” it’s called by the apostle Paul, a supper that culminated in a remembrance of the cross. Certainly, the Lord’s table is critical to the life of the church…The early church sets the pace called to the Lord’s table, called to gather around to take the bread and the cup and remember His death. It’s a cross-centered church. It’s a church that maintains that symbol.

And so what we really have here is a cross-conciousness. They are centering their church around Christ and His accomplishments. It’s a gospel focused church. What does that mean? It’s really about culture. As a community formed by the presence of God gathers it is going to be centered upon God and not man. Jesus is the hero of the church. I appreciate this:

If the pastor’s face is the logo of a church, there’s a chance that Jesus is not the hero. If programs, creativity, leadership savvy, or innovation is your hero, this is a good indication that the church is not centered on the gospel. Jesus is always the hero of a church centered on the gospel.

Have you guys come upon that quote in Creature of the Word yet? go on to say, “Culture typically wins. And only a Jesus-centered culture transforms.”

4. God is forming a community which is committed to prayer.

Communication with God. This makes perfect sense. You don’t get tired of talking. It’s not just asking God for stuff…it’s communication.

Spurgeon’s boiler room

“If I should neglect prayer but a single day, I should lose a great deal of the fire of faith.”

5. God is forming a community, committed to worship, which is His

This is really the first thing but I wanted to end here. Who is “they”.

Those who were added to their number. They are saved. That’s vital.

The Spirit crushes self. That’s what is really happening with all of this. And what it replaces with is worshippers.

It’s all about Jesus not about me. That’s what glues people together. That’s what forms this type of community. Where you have self you don’t have community like this. We are community robbers. Only Jesus and the gospel transforming hearts is a community creator.

-What is your role in this? Are you living out in community or trying to fly solo?

-Do you have a relationship with God?

-Thinking about ways that we can better reflect these things in the life of our church.

Will you commit to an ordinary decade? That means you commit to an ordinary tomorrow. Be those boring disciplines.

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