Sermon Tone Analysis

A HEALTHY CHURCH    part 3     ACTS 2:41-47

 

            Many years ago, Thomas K. Beecher once substituted for his famous brother, Henry Ward Beecher, at the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, New York.

Many curiosity seekers had come to hear the renowned Henry Beecher speak.

Therefore, when Thomas Beecher appeared in the pulpit instead, some people got up and started for the doors.

Sensing that they were disappointed because he was substituting for his brother, Thomas raised his hand for silence and announced, “All those who came here this morning to worship Henry Ward Beecher may withdraw from the church; all who came to worship God may remain.”

The example of godly leaders is helpful, but only the Savior is worthy of our worship and devotion.

Today, I wonder if many in the church have forgotten why we gather on Sundays.

It appears that for many in the church, worship is about us rather than God.

Some church leaders are more concerned about what people think about their worship rather than what God thinks about their worship.

We are asking the wrong question when we ask, “What did you think of today’s worship?”

The appropriate question to be asked is “what does God think about today’s worship?”

I want to illustrate what I am talking about when it comes to worship.

A recent article in /The Wall Street Journal/ described one well-known church's bid "to perk up attendance at Sunday evening services."

The church "staged a wrestling match, featuring church employees.

To train for the event, 10 game employees got lessons from Tugboat Taylor, a former professional wrestler, in pulling hair, kicking shins and tossing bodies around without doing real harm."

Another noted pastor of a very large church, for example, boasts about the time his staff staged a pie fight during a Sunday morning church service.

A large church in the southwestern United States has installed a half-million-dollar special-effects system that can produce smoke, fire, sparks, and laser lights in the auditorium.

The church sent staff members to study live special effects at Bally's Casino in Las Vegas.

The pastor ended one service by ascending to "heaven" via invisible wires that drew him up out of sight while the choir and orchestra added a musical accompaniment to the smoke, fire, and light show.

It was just a typical Sunday show for that pastor: "He packs his church with such special effects as. . .

cranking up a chain saw and toppling a tree to make a point. . . the biggest Fourth of July fireworks display in town and a Christmas service with a rented elephant, kangaroo and zebra.

The Christmas show features 100 clowns with gifts for the congregation's children."

As you can see some churches go to great links to attract people to its church, but is this really why we gather on Sunday mornings?

Is Sunday a time to see how great the entertainment can be or is it a time to worship the Lord?

I believe it to be the latter.

We are here on Sundays at Marble City Baptist Church to worship God.

God thinks highly of the worship that is offered to Him.

Twenty-five chapters in the book of deal with the building of the tabernacle and the worship which is to take place there.

The entire book of Leviticus deals with worship through burnt offerings, grain offerings, peace offerings, sin offerings, and guilt offerings.

It also addresses those that God accepts for worship by the ritual of cleansing.

The Book of Psalms is a 150 hymns dedicated to God through prayer, praise, and thanksgiving.

This past Wednesday, I read a passage in which Jesus explained to the Samaritan woman at the well what true worship entails.

God is seeking worshipers who will worship Him in spirit and truth.

This is the only time that you see in Scripture where God seeks something from one of His children.

He desires our worship.

In John 4, Jesus said worship is not in a place, but in the heart.

It is an internal activity rather than an external activity.

So we must worship Him in our heart.

Worship is not just a matter of the heart such as experience or emotion, but it is also a matter of the mind.

So we are to worship Him in truth.

We will become better worshipers of Him when we gain a better knowledge of Him.

Therefore, we must worship in spirit and truth.

So as you come into this place, ask yourself, “Why am I here?”

Am I here for me or here for God?

So what is worship?

Worship, in simplest terms, is acknowledging and thanking God for all He is and all He does.

All through Scripture, the people of the Bible recite the attributes or characteristics of God.

Also, they thank Him by reciting what He has done in the past from creation of the world to the leading the nation to the Promise Land to the works of Christ to the Second Coming of Christ and eternal glory.

Worship is acknowledging and thanking God for who He is and what he has done.

Over the past several weeks, we have been studying the second chapter of the book of Acts, particularly verses 41-47.

So if you will open your Bibles to Acts 2:41-47 and follow along as I read again this passage.

This passage gives the essentials for a healthy church.

In other words, this was a church on a fitness plan of God’s choosing.

They were a W.E.L.L. church.

We want to be a W.E.L.L. church.

The past two weeks, we have taken the last two letters of this acrostic and discussed them thoroughly.

The first essential we discovered about the first church is that it was a learning church.

It was a church built on the Word of God.

The apostle’s teachings was the foundation of the church, not wisdom or philosophy or tradition.

The early church built upon the pillars of truth given by the apostles.

The second essential discovered about the first church is that it was a loving church.

It was a church united and in perfect harmony with one another.

In other words, there was genuine fellowship among this group of believers.

So we have the ministry of downreach in the apostle’s teaching and the ministry of inreach in fellowship and today we are going to notice the ministry of upreach in worship.

Worship was an essential part in the life of this early church and it should be an essential part at Marble City Baptist Church.

In fact, it is the ultimate priority of all believers.

We have discussed the ultimate purpose of the church in making disciples, but the ultimate priority of true disciples is worship.

So how did the early church worship.

We have already noted that they worshiped through the means of teaching or preaching God’s Word and through fellowship.

But they also worshiped through breaking of bread and prayers.

BREAKING OF BREAD

            *They were continually devoting themselves to the breaking of bread*.

Many scholars have debated over the years exactly what is meant by the term breaking of bread.

For some it was a common meal shared among the early followers of Christ.

But in both ancient and modern times the tendency has been to view this term as referring to the Lord’s Supper.

I believe that this is correct because in the Greek a definite article is used before breaking bread.

Literally, it reads, “the breaking of bread.”

There is an emphasis placed on this part of worship by Dr. Luke to help us understand that it is more than just sharing a meal together.

When we come to take the Lord’s Supper it should be one of the most solemn occasions for which we meet.

Why?

It is because it is a time to reflect upon the sacrifice of Christ.

This is why we have done the Lord’s Supper, a whole service is built around it.

It is not something we tag on at the end of a service and say we did it because Christ commanded us to do so.

I hope it is a time of deep reflection upon the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

It is a time to consider the greatness of our Lord, the mystery of the providence of God in calling us out of sin and into His grace.

It is a time to consider the depth of our unworthiness and the solitary worthiness of our great God.

In the Gospels, we read that the Lord instituted this new ordinance at the Passover meal.

The Lord’s Supper is to the church what the Passover was to the faithful Jew.

It was a memorial for what God had done for them.

The Passover remembered the bondage of the nation of Israel for 430 years in Egypt.

It was a memorial to God’s miraculous rescue of His chosen nation from the bondage of slavery.

It reflected upon the faithfulness of God when they put the blood of the sacrificial lamb on the doorposts and lentils of their homes and the death angel Passover, not killing their firstborn Son.

It was a night of redemption, a night of God’s redeeming grace and power.

Well, the Lord’s Supper is a memorial to what Christ did on the cross.

He literally became sin so that you and I could be declared righteous.

So every time we partake in the Lord’s Supper it is to be a reflection on what Christ has accomplished for those who believe in him.

Another thing about the Lord’s Supper that I think is important to know is that it is a proclamation of what Christ has done for us.

Paul said that by taking the Lord’s Supper we proclaim His death until the Lord comes again.

It is a declaration to a lost world as well as to ourselves that Jesus is the Lamb that takes away the sins of the world.

There is redemption offered to those who turn from their sin and put their trust in Christ.