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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?
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