Sermon Tone Analysis

It Takes a Church

If you were to ask me, "What is the greatest spiritual lesson that you learned"?

It is the fact that Christ lives in me by His Spirit.

That the Christian life is not my human effort or my self effort but it is yielding to the work of God's Spirit in me.

And it is the appointment and the anointing of God's Holy Spirit upon my life that fuses me with spiritual power, the strength to go on.

We're commanded to be filled with the Spirit of God.

And that all was made possible by what happened in the second chapter of Acts beginning in verse 1, "When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.

And suddenly..."

Have you ever noticed in your life how the Spirit of God moves suddenly and quickly when maybe you lest expect it?

We ought to always expect God to move in our lives.

We ought to always come ready when we worship Him for God to do something special, something supernatural.

But God so often suddenly and sovereignly moves in ways that we did not know or could not expect.

And I'm praying that happens in your life today.

"And suddenly their came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind", they're in the presence now of the supernatural.

There's this powerful wind like a tornado.

And the wind is a symbol of the breath of the Holy Spirit.

But this was a physical supernatural miracle that took place, "and it filled that entire house where they were sitting.

And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them".

Again, like human candles.

They were ignited and infused with divine power!

"And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit", that is, they were immersed in the Spirit, they were baptized in the Spirit, "and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance".

And let me tell you what happened from here.

As they began to speak in these languages people who had gathered from all over the world for the Pentecost feast of the Jews heard the Gospel in their own language!

It was a miracle of speaking; it was also a miracle of hearing!

They heard in their own language the message of Jesus Christ!

And so having seen this and heard this, they came running up, rushing up to this little band of believers, just 120 of them at the time, and they say, "What's this all about?

What's this all about"?

And Simon Peter, formerly the coward, now the courageous spokesman, filled with the Spirit of God, stands before them and tells them what it's all about; that this is the promise of God, the coming of the Holy Spirit, and then he preached the message of Christ.

He preached the message of the Gospel.

And then down in the last part of chapter 2, look at verse 40 of chapter 2, "And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them".

Some of you will go out, saying, "That's what the pastor did today" "With many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, 'Save yourselves from this crooked generation.'"

The word there actually means save yourself from this generation that's going nowhere, a generation without God, a generation just going nowhere!

Just falling into eternity without hope, and living life without meaning.

He said save yourself!

It's interesting when you read Peter's message here.

There's not a lot of generic "we".

You know, sometimes in preaching and communicating today there's a lot of "we" and "us", and "everybody", you know.

But in Pentecostal preaching there was "you"!

You crucified the Lord of Glory!

Save yourself from this crooked and perverse and toward generation!

We need more You preaching!

And that brings conviction because they were convicted and they said, "What must we do"?

And Peter said, "Save yourselves".

And so "those who received his word were baptized".

This is another kind of baptism.

We've seen the Spirit baptism takes place when the Christians were immersed, baptized in the Spirit, the Spirit of God now enveloping them.

But this is water baptism.

And so they were then: "baptized and there were added to them that day about three thousand souls".

On the blast-off, the birthday of the church, the very first day - three thousand people confessed their faith.

And from there it was just as Jesus had promised and commanded.

They went to Jerusalem and saturated that city with the message of Christ.

They went to Judea, Samaria and on to the uttermost parts of the earth.

And today in America alone, 100 million people will go to church.

I'm not saying that everyone who goes to church knows Jesus because we know that's not true.

But the fact is in the name of Jesus 100 million people every week in America!

That's more than all the football games on any given Sunday.

And then around the world the church, it was birthed; the church that was born that day has expanded to the ends of the earth, just as Jesus promised.

"Lo, I'm with you always as you go into all the world and preach the gospel".

What an incredible story!

And I stand here today as the witness of the blessing and the benefit of God's church.

Now, please, don't hear me preaching churchianity, I've never preached quote churchianity.

Other words, just get in the church and you're good.

But real Christianity includes the church!

And not just includes the church but the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, the true church is a vital connection that every true believer embraces.

I love the church.

Since I was a baby in my mother's womb, since I was a child taken to the nursery of the church and to little Sunbeam groups we called them, and RA's and... I'd have gone to GA's if they'd have let me!

That's Girls for those of you who didn't grow up in that era.

But I got to church and I loved the church!

It was in church that my family and I worshiped together.

We're talking about spiritual connections and family connections, so the reason we're putting this message in the series on home and family is it takes a church!

We're in this together.

And some of my happiest memories are even falling asleep in my mother's lap in the church on a pew on Sunday night, knowing the security of my family there together.

I understand that not everybody had that experience but I'm just telling you my testimony.

And to know that I had this spiritual heritage, that I came to personal faith in Jesus Christ in God's church.

I was baptized at the age of eight in God's church!

It was in God's church that along with my parents, I learned how to love God and to sing songs of faith and to worship God!

It was in the church that I learned to love God's Word and read God's Word and hear the great stories of faith in the Bible!

And it was in church that I was called to preach and I discovered by life purpose in a great student ministry group and a wonderful pastor and a student minister.

And it was in church and in the fellowship of God's people and my friends at church, it was in that environment and that atmosphere that God's Spirit spoke to me and appointed me and anointed me to preach the Gospel, Church.

It was in a church May 22, 1970 that I stood with my bride Deb Graham and she's still my bride.

And it was in church that I stood at an altar and promised to love her and honor her and cherish her, and she as well to me, and we've been sharing this life together.

All of this love was launched at church!

And then our children came along and they were dedicated in the church, and then they came to faith in Christ in the church.

And now our grandchildren are coming along.

I can't imagine life apart from the church.

That's why I have one goal in my life as far as my calling in ministry and that is to be a pastor, just to be a pastor.

You've given me that privilege to be your pastor.

It's a good thing I am the pastor because if I wasn't, I would drive the pastor crazy, I'm sure!

I just don't understand people, forgive me for saying so, but I just don't understand people who don't love God's church!

I can't wait to get together with you each week.

I think about it all the time.

It's been that way throughout my life.

Not everyone, of course, is called to serve the church as I am and others who pastor and lead and serve, but we're all called and commanded to love the bride of Christ which is His church and to serve Him with His people.

You know, they say there's no 'I' in team; well, there's no 'I' in church either!

Now there is a "u" but that would be the collective "u", all of us together sharing the Lord, sharing His life, sharing His Spirit, sharing this common hope and this bond and this contagious faith, this joyous faith that we have in Christ.

There are many words that describe the church in the Bible.

It's a study in and of itself.

For example, if I gave you a word association and I said "church" what would be your association?

Maybe you would reflect something like I just reflected briefly, but maybe you would have to say, "Well, church is where I go on Sundays now and again.

Church is where I go on Easter".