Ahealthychurch

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A HEALTHY CHURCH         ACTS 2:41-47

            Today, it seems that everywhere you turn people are talking about getting fit. Almost every single night on the news, we get a report about the bad health that Americans find themselves in. Just in the past several months, there has been two television shows to help those that are overweight shed their excess pounds. Also, I heard the other day on the radio that a certain health agency was going to deduct $5 for people who smoke to go toward their insurance. And those who were overweight would have $30 deducted from their salary to go toward their insurance.

            We are constantly bombarded with images of movie stars and athletes of how we need to look. So every year we make a New Year’s resolution of how we are going to exercise more and eat healthy foods. We start off well, but somewhere in the spring we lose willpower and if we are fortunate to get through the summer, we will blow it come Thanksgiving time and Christmas. I know this is not what you came to hear just before lunch. Now, you might feel guilty and will go home to eat a salad and fruit. I doubt it because I will not go home to do that even though I should.

            Far more important than bodily health is spiritual health. Paul told Timothy, “for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds a promise for the present life and also for the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8). I believe what is true for the individual Christian is also true for the church.

            At the end of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus gave us the one mission for why we are left on earth after salvation. That mission is to make disciples. So Marble City Baptist Church exists for the purpose of making disciples. We are to be a witnessing community, ambassadors for Christ in Sylacauga and the surrounding areas. This is why we exist.

            So if we are going to make disciples, then we need to know what a disciple looks like. Over the past couple of weeks, I preached on who are true disciples and I pray that everyone in this room is one or will become one. So now that we know what the mission is for the church and what is a disciple, that leaves me with how do we go about the process.

            Since the middle of January, the Lord has placed on my heart the issue of becoming a healthy church. I have been to a conference on church health and have read a half a dozen books on church health and a few of our church members took a survey to determine the health of our church. In all of those things, I have concluded that a healthy church is a disciple-making church. This is why I have preached a series on the Great Commission and spent two weeks discussing true disciples. In fact, the Lord has given me a mission statement for fulfilling this mission. I believe it is simple for anyone to repeat, clear for everyone to understand, and biblical for God to be glorified. The mission statement is REACHING SYLACAUGA TO LOVE GOD AND TO LOVE OTHERS.

            So if we are going to be a healthy church and fulfill this mission statement, then we need to know is there a passage in Scripture that teaches us to do that. Does God give a blueprint for church health? Does He give us guidelines that only He will bless? I believe He does in the second chapter of the book of Acts. So if you will turn in your Bibles to Acts 2 beginning in verse 41.

            Before we get into our text, I want to remind you of a promise that Jesus gave Peter when he made the great confession that Jesus is the Christ. If you will turn to Matthew 16 and let me read this account. Matthew 16:13-18. In verse 18, Jesus promises to build His church and Satan will not be able to destroy it. What Jesus is saying is that what He builds, no one will be able to conquer, not even the devil. But I believe the church must be built on God’s principles not man’s philosophies. This promise is nullified if we find another way to build God’s church other than the one laid down in Scripture.

            There are churches all over the world that have proven this to be the case. They have allowed philosophies of the world to rule the agenda of the church rather than God. They have become more secular than Christ-like. They would rather be accepted by the world than by God. I read articles all the time of churches that contradict the things of God. Mainline denominations are seeing a steady decline in attendance because there is no standard; moral absolutes. Folks, where there are no morals, then what’s the point of going to church. If the church is going to look and act like the world, then why not just stay in the world.

            In fact, you can go about thirty to forty years after Christ ascended into heaven in Acts 1 and find churches that have strayed from God’s blueprint. If you will turn in your Bibles to Revelation chapter 2 and 3. In Revelation 2, we read about the church at Pergamum who was enduring the teachings of Balaam and Balak because they taught Israel to eat things sacrificed to idols. Also, this church was holding on to the teachings of the Nicolatians. In other words, the church was straying from the Word of God which is the only foundation in which the church must be built. So Jesus says that your teachings are not solid or sound. It is shaky ground on which you are building into the lives of the people of the church.

            Another church mentioned in Revelation 2 is the church at Thyatira. Here was a church who was tolerating a false prophetess, who was leading people into immorality. In other words, the standards of the world had come into the church and it seemed not to bother the people in the church.

            If you move on to Revelation 3, we read about the church at Sardis. Jesus tells this church, “I know your deeds, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead.” In other words, Sardis had many programs, they had countless activities, but they were dead. They were a busy church, but there was no life in the church. Then you have the church at Laodicea who was described as being lukewarm. They thought they had it all and needed nothing. All they needed was to depend on themselves.

            Pergamum was a doctrinally unsound church, Thyatira was an immoral church, Sardis was dead church, and Laodicea was a lukewarm church. All of them in some form or fashion neglected the blueprint that God provided for His church in Acts 2.  A church that abandons the design for church forfeits the promise of Christ building the church. In other words, Satan is allowed to come in and counterfeit what is real and destroy the work which God wants to accomplish in and through His people.

            Let us turn back to the second chapter of Acts and see the blueprint that is spelled out in these verses. This is the first church in history. It is only a few hours old, since Peter preached his message to those gathered for the Feast of Pentecost. This was the first local church that Jesus built. It was pure, uncorrupted and untainted by the things in the world. It was the church in its purest sense. When people came to this church, they did not go to a denomination. They were just coming to the church Christ built.

            So Luke gives a look at what they did. We need to remember that there were no other churches around to model or copy. They were it this church in Jerusalem. But in our verses, God gives a blueprint of what they did. In fact, I believe it is the fitness plan for the church to stay healthy and as a result growing. There is an acrostic that can help us through the passage. The acrostic is W.E.L.L. W is for worship, E is for evangelism, L is for love, and L is for learning. God wants His church to be well.

            Beginning in verse 41 we read so then those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. After Jesus ascended into heaven in Acts 1, there were 120 people sitting in the upper room praying and all with one mind. Peter stood up and spoke to the group about the replacement for Judas Iscariot. In chapter 2 we read about the event called Pentecost. Peter again stood and preached to the Jews about the Messiah and they were convicted and asked “what shall we do?” And Peter told them to repent and three thousand did.

            Now you have the 120 plus three thousand born-again believers living in Jerusalem. Jesus was building this church. Folks, God can still do the same today if we will work on His blueprint for the church. He can do it for Marble City Baptist Church. Who knows in 5, 10, 20, 50 or a 100 years from now God could double or triple or quadruple the size of the church. Only God knows that, but we can follow His fitness plan for the church.

            I want you to notice that this was a church saved by grace. Where do you get that? In verse 42, they were continually devoting themselves to worship, evangelism, loving and learning. One of the marks of a true believer is that they persevere. Salvation is not a passing fad that here today and gone tomorrow. Salvation is a life-changing event that transforms a person from the inside out. Billy Graham says that if up to 40 percent of their converts are real and follow through that’s considered high. In other statement, he believed that over half the people on church roles are lost. Amazing, isn’t it? That half of those on church roles are not going to heaven.

            But you do not find that here in Acts 2, it says that 3000 souls were saved and 3000 souls continued in the faith. This would be a pastor’s dream come true, but it could also be a nightmare to think you were responsible for all those souls. Yet, these were genuine born-again believers because they continued in the faith. Listen to a few verses about continuing in the faith. “Then when [Barnabas] arrived and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord” (Acts 11:23). “So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.’” (John 8:31-32). “But we are not of those who shrink back to destruction, but of those who have faith to the preserving of the soul” (Hebrews 10:39).

            Yet, this is not true of everyone who names the name of Christ. There are many who say they are saved but are not as attested in the Scripture. Listen to a couple of verses from the Word of God. “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting  Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel” (Galatian 1:6). “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out so that it would be shown that they all are not of us” (1 John 2:9). These verses testify to the parable of the sower which Jesus told in the gospels.

            So the first church started with a fully regenerated group of people. This was the church in its purest form. As I said earlier there was no corruption, no problem that existed yet in the church. But as you read through the book of Acts it does not take long for Satan to counterfeit what the Lord was doing in His church. Problems began to occur and all the letters that Paul wrote to the churches addressed a particular problem the church was having at the time. Now, I am not saying that the church is perfect because it is not, but I do believe that God gives a fitness plan to help churches get healthy. If we will follow the blueprint laid out in this text, then we will be a church that is well and as a result will grow.

            I will give an outline for approaching these verses but it will not be in the order that I mentioned. We will take each of the letters from the W.E.L.L. acrostic and look at them in a different order. Each will be mentioned as we walk through the passage. I will begin with the last letter L, which stands for learning.

            In Acts 2:42 we read and they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teachings. They were a church that taught the word of God.  The word of God was not yet written.  They didn’t have a Bible in terms of a New Testament.  But the apostles’ doctrine was the word of God.   

                  In 1 Corinthians 15:37 Paul says, “If any man claims to be spiritual let him acknowledge that the things that I say are the commandments of God.”  Jude says remember the things that were spoken by the apostles.  Why?  Because God gave his word through the apostles verbally then and now for us the apostles’ word is written down in the books of the New Testament.

            In the Gospels Jesus spent three years with His disciples teaching them from the Old Testament and how He came to fulfill the prophecies, He taught them about different characteristics such as humility, love, forgiveness, and grace. He taught them about topics like marriage, money, the world, the flesh, and Satan. He taught them how to discern between good and evil, holy and unholy, and even warned them about those things which are false. He taught them through His actions with the woman at the well, the woman caught in adultery, Zacchaeus and others. He taught them in His prayer in Gethsemane and on cross. Jesus told the apostles that the Holy Spirit would help them remember these things.

            We live in a day where the evangelical church often minimizes and even disdains sound doctrine. Instead, it emphasizes emotional experience and feelings. Several years after I was in the ministry, I audited a church growth class offered by a nearby seminary. The professor had traveled around America in a motor home, visiting many large, growing churches. He came up with a list of 15 characteristics of growing churches. Conspicuously absent from the list was solid biblical preaching! When I questioned him about this, he shrugged and said that it didn’t seem to be a prominent factor in these growing churches!

            There is a great aversion to doctrine in our day. People are afraid of doctrine. But understanding Christian doctrine is essential to knowing God, delighting in Him, and obeying Him. You cannot get anywhere in the Christian life without knowing doctrine. You cannot grow without growing in your doctrinal understanding of the Word.

A George Barna report indicates a great deal of ambivalence among Americans with regard to their beliefs. For instance, while 62 percent of the respondents said they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ, 65 percent said the term “born again” does not apply to them; fewer than 50 percent strongly agreed that the Bible is the written word of God and is totally accurate in all it teaches.

We have gotten accustomed to the blurred puffs of gray fog that pass for doctrine in churches and expect nothing better. From some previously unimpeachable sources are now coming vague statements consisting of a milky admixture of Scripture, science, and human sentiment that is true to none of its ingredients because each one works to cancel the others out.

Little by little Christians these days are being brainwashed. One evidence is that increasing numbers of them are becoming ashamed to be found unequivocally on the side of truth. They say they believe, but their beliefs have been so diluted as to be impossible of clear definition. Moral power has always accompanied definite beliefs. Great saints have always been dogmatic. We need a return to a gentle dogmatism that smiles while it stands stubborn and firm on the Word of God that lives and abides forever. (A.W. Tozer)

But when you turn to the last three letters that Paul wrote to his younger pastors, Timothy and Titus, you find him emphasizing again and again the need for sound doctrine (1 Tim. 4:13, 16; Titus.1:9). In his final appeal to Timothy, just before his martyrdom, Paul gives the strongest possible admonition: “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word” (2 Tim. 4:1-2a). He goes on to warn Timothy that the time will come when people will not endure sound doctrine, but will accumulate teachers who tell them what they want to hear.

The responsibility of those who are preachers and teachers in the church is to dig deeply themselves into the riches of God's Word, then break open the Word to those under their charge. They are to concern themselves chiefly with the exposition of God's Word, which will in turn unfold the manifold doctrines and principles of the Word. We are not to just teach facts as if we are in an ongoing history class. We are to teach the life-giving, pulsating doctrines and principles of the Word of God!                                                                          Those who are being taught must do everything they can to be good learners. You must realize that the Holy Spirit is the One who ultimately gives us understanding of the Word. Therefore, you are not to be a 'teacher-follower' or 'preacher-follower', but dependent upon the Spirit of God. You must discipline yourselves to be learners. Learning best takes place when you are doing some digging into the Word on your own. A big part of learning the Word involves a right attitude toward the Word, a willingness to obey the Word, a submission to the Spirit of God as He applies the Word.                                             Attention to learning demands consistency. That's what marked off these new believers, "they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' doctrine." A hit or miss attendance at church will not do. A casual attitude with sitting under the Word will not do. A neglect of reading and studying the Word on your own will not do.                                                        John MacArthur writes, "A believer should count it a wasted day when he does not learn something new from, or is not more deeply enriched, by the truth of God's Word....Scripture is food for the believer's growth and power--and there is no other."                                                                            The best antidote to this kind of inconsistency is first, making sure that you are born again. Many people are inconsistent because they have never come to saving faith in Christ. Second, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. The Christian life, when lived rightly, is a disciplined life. No wonder that the early Christians were called 'disciples'. They were constant learners, followers of Jesus Christ, who gave themselves unreservedly to knowing Him and following Him. May we go and do likewise!

           

           

           

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