Local Outreach

Good morning church!

If this is your first time worshiping with us, we are so pumped that you are here! You are our special guest today and we have a gift to give you. If you will take the card from the back of the seat in front of you, fill it out with as much info as you feel comfortable with and carry it by our Next Steps booth, they will hook you up with a free Lindsay Lane East tshirt on the spot!

If you are watching online for the first time, we invite you to fill out our connect card as well! The link to that is listed in the description of this video.

Today, we dive into week 3 of our study through the book of Acts. We asked the question, “How are you going to partner with God in 2021 for your spiritual growth?” on week 1. I also introduced you to the statement that will drive much of what we do this year, “The glory of God in us our neighbors and the nations!” And last week, we looked at the US part of that. What does it look like to do life together as a church family? And I told you that our Groups were a huge part of how we accomplish that here at East!

And 90 people showed up on Wednesday night to come alongside one another and begin growing towards God and towards others. Y’all.... That’s awesome! 14 of those were adults and kids who had never been in a group before! How great! That’s a blessing to me as your pastor to see so many of you willing to step into a group! That’s so cool!

Last week’s sermon was on Acts chapter 2. I want to pick the story up from there and begin to talk about how this early group of Jesus followers began to establish good practices and habits that you and I should take note of.

Let me read the last two verses of chapter 2 again, we will pray and then start breaking this guy down some.

Let’s do it!

Acts 2:46–47 CSB

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, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

PRAY

Acts 2 from last week showed us a huge jump in the group size of this early church. They went from dozens to over 3,000! That’s quite a revival service!

We saw so many good things last week from those last few verses about how they loved and cared for the other believers, but there is one little phrase that we skimmed right over without a comment from me. Look back at verse 47.

They were praising God and.... What? Enjoying the favor of all the people.

These earliest believers were living in such a way that many of their neighbors were appreciative and interested in their life change!

The way we will word it is...

1. They WON OVER their neighbors

One of the commentaries I read this week was from a Scottish pastor from the late 1800s. He had this to say on this verse...

wherever there is a little knot of men obviously held together by a living Christ, and obviously manifesting in their lives and characters the likeness of that Christ transforming and glorifying them, there will be drawn to them souls that have been touched by the grace of the Lord, and souls to whom that grace has been brought the nearer by looking upon them. Wherever there is inward vigour of life there will be outward growth; and the Church which is pure, earnest, living will be a Church which spreads and increases.

You see, we are being sold a narrative as believers that our country is anti-Christian and that people don’t want to see or hear about Jesus or his teaching. Those that are buying into this narrative have nothing left to do but become combative and defensive. However, I must argue that historically and biblically, God will continue to use faithful, loving servants to reach their neighbors.

They will not be won over in arguments over theology and politics. They will be won over in love and hospitality! May this church be known for that for the sake of our neighbors!

The pastor from early continued his message...

...Depend upon it, brethren, that, far more than my preaching, your lives will determine the expansion of this church of ours. And if my preaching is pulling one way and your lives the other, and I have half an hour a week for talk and you have seven days for contradictory life, which of the two do you think is likely to win in the tug? I beseech you, take the words that I am now trying to speak, to yourselves. Do not pass them to the man in the next pew and think how well they fit him, but accept them as needed by you.

I don’t know this guy, but I like him! That’s good stuff!

The way we treat our neighbors as a church will affect whether they are open to the Gospel or to coming to church!

So, the first step that all of us can take in this effort is to live lives of love towards our neighbors.

We also need to be hospitable. We know that the early church was opening their homes to each other from Acts. But this hospitality leads to growth in the body, so it seems that they were not inviting ONLY believers. They must have been inviting believers alongside their neighbors who did not believe. Your home is a great tool for evangelism!

Some of our neighbors may not show up at our house next weekend, but they may very well show up here. How hospitable are we as a church? How hospitable are you at church? Do you speak to the same people every single week!? Do you come in sit down, sing, listen, sing, listen, go home?

One of the things we are talking about is ramping up our guest experience here at East! I can’t wait to get some of those things ready to show you! It’s gonna be awesome!

But for guests to be here, they are most often invited by someone they know. And we haven’t had good invite cards here. Well we do now baby!

Daniel Herman came by the office last week and talked with Kenny and I about ordering some invite cards. So we tasked him with it. He worked hard to draw up some plans, and after a few rounds of back and forth, HERE THEY ARE!

Today, we are giving every family five cards to invite people this week or to keep with you for random encounters you have with people in the coming days. We will pass these out today, but they will always be available at the Next Steps Booth going forward.

This is one simple way we can see the glory of God in our Neighbors, amen?

This is not the only thing we see this group doing to reach their city. One of the biggest things they did was...

2. They MET THE NEEDS of their neighbors

Let me read to you some verses that follow verse 47 of 2.

Acts 3:1–10 CSB

Now Peter and John were going up to the temple for the time of prayer at three in the afternoon. A man who was lame from birth was being carried there. He was placed each day at the temple gate called Beautiful, so that he could beg from those entering the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to enter the temple, he asked for money. Peter, along with John, looked straight at him and said, “Look at us.” So he turned to them, expecting to get something from them. But Peter said, “I don’t have silver or gold, but what I do have, I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk!” Then, taking him by the right hand he raised him up, and at once his feet and ankles became strong. So he jumped up and started to walk, and he entered the temple with them—walking, leaping, and praising God. All the people saw him walking and praising God, and they recognized that he was the one who used to sit and beg at the Beautiful Gate of the temple. So they were filled with awe and astonishment at what had happened to him.

Peter and John see a man in need, and they do what they can to help him. I love the words in verse 6, “Hey guy, we don’t have any money, or we would help you there. But we have something better than money!” And they heal him!

Now, you and I may not be speaking to the lame and seeing them jump up and walk, but we can reach out and help when we see needs in our community!

Both our Mens and Womens ministries are engaged in this type of work. Just for instance… our ladies cook meals every time there is a death in a family. In fact, they are dropping food off somewhere today after church! This is such a blessing to people!

Our men have met on more than one occasion in the last 6 months or so to help family with some house problems. They have resealed a leaky roof and replaced a kitchen sink cabinet that was rotten and unusable.

These two ministries will continue to do work in our community to meet the needs of the people we encounter.

But we also want to have partnerships with organizations through which we can meet needs.

We know that hunger is a real need in our area. If you don’t think that is so, then you need to do some research. Tonight, too many kids in our area will go to bed hungry for my heart to handle. How can we the church see this great, basic need in our own community and not try to meet it!?

That’s why we partner with House of Harvest. This local organization has as its mission providing food and sharing Jesus with this community. We know the founder well. We trust him and we want to do what we can to help his ministry thrive!

The way he has told us to do that is to serve the first Saturday of every month at the distribution site which is currently Harvest Elementary. We will continue to fill these needs through our Groups Ministry. My foundation group will be taking February 6th!

Another set of local missions partners I get excited about is our schools. If you think any of our local teachers and administration get all the moral support, financial help, and volunteers they need, you crazy! There are always things we can be doing to come alongside them and help them be successful. In most of my emails to the principals of our schools I tell them that they get 35+ hours with the kids in our community every week. Mrs. Terry, our kids director is lucky to get 2-3!

You better believe I want them to know that we are here and we are for them! When they have a need or an idea, I want our church to be the first phone call they make!

We already do Christmas House through the schools in December, but we are currently discussing ways that we can partner with these schools on a more regular basis! If you hear of needs let us know, but at least be willing to pray for us as we seek to strengthen our relationships with the three schools closest to our church this year!

Not only did the early church win over their neighbors and meet the needs of their neighbors, they also...

3. They SPOKE TRUTH to their neighbors

Let’s look at this…

Acts 3:11–13 CSB

While he was holding on to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astonished, ran toward them in what is called Solomon’s Colonnade. When Peter saw this, he addressed the people: “Fellow Israelites, why are you amazed at this? Why do you stare at us, as though we had made him walk by our own power or godliness? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our ancestors, has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and denied before Pilate, though he had decided to release him.

After the man is healed, Peter and John begin to get asked the question, why and how did you do that?

Their response is much longer than these two verses and they later get to speak to the Jewish council in chapter 4. But when put on the spot, they speak loving yet REAL truth! They want those who witnessed the lame man now walking to know why he was now walking! It was all because of the power of Jesus!

Peter and John don’t take any credit here. They do not allow themselves to be built up as powerful magicians or healers. They simply make it clear that Jesus has done it! And in so doing, he is the only one who gets the glory!

The same must be true for us! We cannot do things for our schools and look for the pat on the back! We cannot do it to grow our church. The reason we want to partner with schools and with the house of harvest is because we are all about seeing the GLORY OF GOD in our NEIGHBORS! We want to see needs met and lives changed! Right?

Here’s what you need to know too… We cannot do everything as a church. I wish we could make an impact through every organization and meet every single need in our community no matter the category. But at the end of the day, we believe that these two partnerships will be our major focuses right now. We are always open to pray through others, but we only have so much money and so much time. We will use that wisely so as to make the biggest impact we can!

Here’s the questions...

1. Are you winning over your neighbors and your community? Are you known as a person of peace or conflict? Do you show hospitality towards others? Do you contribute to us being a welcoming church by speaking with guests when they arrive?

2. Are you helping to meet the needs of our community? Have you been to House of Harvest? Are you willing to help us serve at the schools when we are given an opportunity? One of the areas I have been praying about is foster care. Is opening up your home to child in need that a way that you can help this community? If so, there is a process and training I could help you find.

3. Are you speaking the truth of God in your community? When you go to work, do you shy away from religious discussion? Do you find yourself avoiding conversations that might lead to Christ? We must be willing to stand and declare the reason for our love and hospitality towards our community! And it isn’t because we are trying to build a bigger kingdom for ourselves here! It’s that God has redeemed us and saved us to grow HIS KINGDOM!