Dent County Annual Meeting Message

Introduction

It’s a blessing to be here with you all tonight - my name is Joel Hayworth and I have the honor of serving as the Senior Pastor at FBC Salem. I’m still relatively new and have been here for about 10 months now and I hope to get to know many of you and serve alongside you in the years to come because we’re all on the same team! I’ve been a member of 800 person churches and 30 person churches and I genuinely mean it when I say that we’re all on the same team and we can’t do what we do as an association unless we’re working together! Whenever Ed asked if I’d pray about preaching tonight I prayed that God would lead me to the text that He desired me to use and I kept coming to the book of Acts. By conviction I preach verse by verse through books of the Bible more often than not and a couple of years ago began to preach through the book of Acts and was struck by how the Lord used that study to change my life and the life of the members of the church I was pastoring at the time. Acts tells us so much about the early Christians and how the Gospel spread throughout much of the Roman world. We see good times and difficult times. We see powerful people and powerless people. We see faithful people and faithless people. Ultimately, though, we see God’s perfect plan as the Gospel is faithfully proclaimed and lives are forever changed.

We are people created to live in community with one another. We see this in the Garden as it was not good for Adam to be alone - likewise, it’s not good for any of us to be alone either. We need community. We need one another. What we need more than anything else, though, is we need the body of Christ to be the body of Christ. We need Christ-Centered Community where we can have fellowship, worship, prayer, missions, and unity. I am thankful to be apart of this type of community, but there is always more to be done. Let’s read about what this type of community looks like this morning!

Acts 2:42–47 CSB

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. 44 Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. 45 They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 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, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Christ-Centered Community Involves Fellowship (42)

Again, we are created to live in community and one of the sweetest things about the body of Christ is that relationships deepen and flourish because we get to do life with one another and we regularly fellowship as a group.

If you look at verse 42, you see 4 specific things that the early church did: there was teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. Do we still do these things in the church 2000 years later? Yes, we do! Certainly COVID-19 has impacted many things, but we can still do these things effectively in the church. We teach, we talk, we take communion, we tell one another our concerns and we lift one another up in prayer! Christianity is a personal relationship with Christ, yes, but Christianity has never been and will never be individualistic. We are meant to be a corporate group. A hand is not a body… A hand is a part of a body. Likewise, a Christian is not the church. A group of Christians make up the church. This is the way that God set up the church. We need one another! We need fellowship.

What does fellowship look like, though? In the Greek, the word for fellowship is one that we’re at least kind of familiar with, “koinonia.” This word in the Greek means to share with someone or to give someone a share in something. Now, we all know people who don’t share very well. Now there are some things that have no business ever being shared. Did you know that 1 in 10 people share a toothbrush? I love each of you, but if you try to share a toothbrush with me, I will walk to the Walmart before we share a toothbrush! That’s just a little weird.

There are other things, though, that we have in common with one another that we are called to share. In Scripture, we see that we are called to help meet the needs of other people - we see this in the Old and New Testaments time and time again. James says this,

James 1:27 CSB

27 Pure and undefiled religion before God the Father is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained from the world.

James 2:16 CSB

16 and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, stay warm, and be well fed,” but you don’t give them what the body needs, what good is it?

We are called to help one another out. Part of doing that involves sharing! Whenever my wife, Lindsey, and I first got married, I had about a dozen gray t-shirts from mission trips of youth conferences that I had collected and Lindsey quickly realized that she didn’t have a single such shirt! Not every couple can do this, but Lindsey and I roughly wear the same size shirt, so do you know what happened over time? My shirts continued to disappear and low and behold, I found them in Lindsey’s closet! She had more or less stolen my shirts - now it wasn’t that big of a deal or anything, but in being together, we shared what we had. While I don’t recommend stealing other people’s shirts without their permission, the idea of sharing things should be natural in the Church because we fellowship with one another!

As Baptists, we enjoy our fellowshipping, and as great as fellowship is, there are other important things to be done as well. Believe it or not, there are things at church more important than potlucks! Rather than simply feeding your stomach, we are tasked to teach and feed the soul as well!

Hebrews 4:12 CSB

12 For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

The Word is powerful and we are in the wrong if we don’t preach and teach the Word each and every time we gather. For pastors and teachers who interject stories and thoughts and fail to proclaim the Word, they will have a day in which they face judgment for that

James 3:1 CSB

1 Not many should become teachers, my brothers, because you know that we will receive a stricter judgment.

We teach what the Bible says - nothing more and nothing less! Not our opinions.

We fellowship and live life with one another!

Third, we break bread - which means that we participate in the Lord’s Supper with one another. Some churches do this weekly, others do it yearly, and some do it quarterly, but the important part is that we do it and remember what Jesus has done for sinners like you and I.

Fourth, we pray. Prayer is so important in the life of the church as it is our communication with the Father through what the Son has done. Prayer is an act of worship!

Consider your private life. Consider your prayer life. Would you say that you are someone who spends a satisfactory amount of time in prayer on a regular basis? We all have some room to grow in this regard! We have room to grow in this regard as a congregation as well! Just as the early church was eager to devote themselves each and every day to the teaching of the Word, to fellowship, to observing the Lord’s Supper and to prayer, let this be what we strive to do each and every time we gather as well!

Christ-Centered Community Involves Unity(43-45)

Why should we gather and do these things in the first place? We see in Scripture that we are born again and adopted into a family as Christians. As a result of this, a fundamental question can and must be asked: what holds the church together?

Think about this for a moment. To some churchgoers, they would answer by saying a person holds the church together - perhaps a pastor, deacon, leader, or parent. Friends, if a person held the church together we’d all be in trouble because people are people, even if they’re a great person! Thankfully, what holds the church together, what unites us, is the Holy Spirit. Listen to what Paul notes about the importance of unity in the church

Ephesians 4:1–3 CSB

1 Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

Keep the unity of the Spirit! What does this tell us? The Spirit is the source of our unity and He can make the fiercest of enemies the strongest of friends. Have you ever experienced this? Maybe not in your own life but in the life of others - have you seen people who used to not get along very well suddenly become friends thanks to Jesus Christ? There was a movie that came out not too long ago called Woodlawn and it told the story of Tony Nathan, a star running back at Woodlawn High School. As the movie depicts, the team had a guest speaker come and share the Gospel in the midst of segregation and in a season of anxiety and tension. The Gospel got ahold of this team and they were a shining light in a dark, dark world. As time went on, though, the chaplain who came in to share the Gospel with their team also shared the Gospel with their rival high school, a team whose coach hated Tony Nathan, and lo and behold, this team too experienced spiritual revival to the point that these two fierce rivals held a joint offseason football camp because these enemies and competitors had been turned into the best of friends. How did this happen? Because of the unity created by the Holy Spirit of the living God!

Do you see the division in the world today? We see it all around us and for many people, even in the Church, they think that things are beyond repair because of the anger and frustration that exists everywhere! Friends, the Gospel can change anybody, anywhere, at anytime. The Gospel can turn enemies into friends. The Gospel can take two people who think completely differently about everything and unite them to the point that they are closer than family. How can this happen? Because the Holy Spirit literally changes everything about us!This is what we need in our community. We need Christians, pastors, and churches who come together under the unity of the Holy Spirit and the inerrant Word of God and do Gospel work together.

We see in our text that the apostles performed signs and wonders that left “everyone” - the non-believers - in awe. Even if people do not have the Holy Spirit in their life, they can tell whenever there is something different inside of your life than inside of their own life! Whenever you respond with grace whenever someone chews you our or disrespects you, that stands out in the eyes of others! Whenever you praise God in the midst of suffering, that stands out in the eyes of others! Whenever God uses you to do His work, that stands out in the eyes of others! In the book of Acts we see that God uses His followers to do signs and wonders in several instances - one of which is found in Acts 3:1-10. This causes the people to be filled with awe.

Consider, when was the last time that you were filled with awe at the thought of our God? We see in Hebrews that we are called to worship Him with reverence and awe

Hebrews 12:28–29 CSB

28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful. By it, we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.

Whenever we remember who our God is and all that He has done, we too should be filled with wonder and awe!

The result of what God had done in their lives was that there was unity. They had unity to the point that they gathered together and held all things in common. What does this practically look like? It doesn’t mean that the early church practiced communism or anything of the sort! It means that they were faithful to meeting the needs of those in the congregation and beyond and the means that they used to meet those needs was by holding all things in common and even selling their possessions if that is what was required of them. Was this just a once in a while type thing that they practiced? No. We see throughout the book of Acts that the church was unified in mind and in practice - even with their money and possessions!

There weren’t large scale government programs to help those in need back in this day and age… There was the church. The church faithfully served others and helped meet the needs of those who had no where else to run, even if they weren’t Christians! Do you see a need for this sort of thing to continue today? Certainly this need still exists! How can we continue this task? By being good stewards who give what we have in order to help those who are in need. How much should we give? Whatever it takes! Notice, these people didn’t stop giving once they had reached 10%. They held all things in common, they were united, and as we know full and well, a giving church is a dangerous church.

Christ-Centered Community Involves Worship (46-47)

The early church didn’t just fellowship occasionally and give funds, they met routinely and praised the Lord together. In our world, we are busy people and it seems like some days we have a billion things to do and a billion and a half places to be and we have 24 hours to get it all done! It can feel impossible because it simply is. In the ancient world, times were a little simpler. You rarely traveled long distances, or if you did, it wasn’t like you did this every day. You woke up, went to the market, worked at your booth, sold your goods, went home, had food, visited with family, and went to sleep. Because of this, people could truly gather to worship with one another in person each and every day. We know that today things are sadly a little different. Just because we don’t come to the church building everyday, though, it doesn’t give us a license to not worship each and every day. We certainly worship at home, but is that all we are called to do?

There has been a growing number of people who say that worship is no different at home than it is corporately at church. This is a lie. In Scripture, worship is something that is for the everyday life, but it is also something done with others. Why does this matter? Because there are some who have bought the lie hook, line, and sinker that says that I can permanently do house church, worship God by myself, and as a healthy person who goes to Walmart, sends my kids to school, and attends other events in the community, live in good conscience the rest of my life in isolation on Sunday morning. You can receive from home… you can consume content from home… but you cannot serve during corporate worship from your sofa.

Why does God demand our worship? Because as humans, we all worship something. Many people worship themselves or things of their own creation. Others worship people or ideas or hobbies. We all worship something and we must ensure that we are worshiping the only One worthy of our worship! We are called to gather together and as we do this, to praise God and enjoy all that He has done for us with one another! This is the joy of corporate, Christ-centered community!

What is the result in our text of such a community that lives out these things? We see that the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. What does it mean to “be saved?” We often think of salvation in a past tense as in, “I got saved at age 12.” And this is right! However, salvation is also a present reality as the Holy Spirit works out our sanctification of being made to look more like Christ each and every day. This is an active process that will continue each and every day of our lives. As we gather, worship, pray, teach the Gospel, our prayer is that the Lord would bring people who join us, who would come to know Christ as Lord and who are ‘being saved’ just like we are!

What is the only appropriate response to what God has done and what He continues to do in our lives? To praise Him. To worship Him corporately and privately each and every day of our lives because He is worthy. Biblically sound worship is a mark of a community of people who are Christ-centered. Because of this, we should all ask ourselves, do we enjoy worship?

Worship is more than songs. It is more than baptism or the Lord’s Supper. It is more than prayers. It is more than giving to God with our finances. It is more than the preaching of the Word. Worship includes all of these things, though. Do you enjoy worshiping the Creator of the Universe? Does this bring joy into your heart? If it does not. If you don’t like singing songs of praise. If you don’t like reading the Word. If you don’t like gathering with one another or praying, then you seriously need to check your heart and evaluate who you are worshiping in the first place. To quote Daniel Block, “True worship involves action.” Are you living a life of worship inside and outside the walls of the church today? Are you giving God the glory and honor that He and He alone deserves?

Conclusion

In a world that values and promotes all sorts of things that keep us divided, Christ-Centered Community stands out like an oasis in the middle of the Sahara Desert. How was this early church able to experience this type of unity? On one hand, because they were still in the infancy stage of things. They were still in the honeymoon period, so to speak. They hadn’t experienced life and death persecution or been slandered by other Christians to this point. While this is true, they were united, though, because they kept things in their proper perspective. They relied on the Holy Spirit’s guidance and leading each step of the way. They were generous with those who had needs because they understood what the Bible taught about God being incredibly generous with us as He sent Christ to die on the cross for our sins. We can do these things as well!

There are 4 signs of this type of community in our text and I want you to consider how you can apply these to your life and in the life of our church.

Biblical nourishment - they taught the Word to others and allowed the Bible to change their lives. Are you reading Scripture? Are you repenting whenever you come across something in Scripture that you are not doing properly? Are you sharing the Word with others? We must love the Word of God and we must meditate on it day and night. Pastors, we have been called to preach the Word - not to proclaim our opinions or give motivational messages… Preach the Word and feed your flock faithfully from the meat of God’s Word!

Loving fellowship - this early church loved being with one another. Do you enjoy gathering with your brothers and sisters in Christ? Do you know the needs of people in the body of Christ? To quote Bonhoeffer, “The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer.” I’m thankful in talking with other pastors that there are multiple churches in our association that enjoy to fellowship and spend time together under the Word.

Vibrant worship - this early church understood the privilege it is to worship Jesus Christ. They came to worship expectantly and with great joy. Are you excited to gather and worship the King of Kings? Our churches don’t need more gimmicks, we need more of the Gospel - and this extends to our worship. What songs do we sing? Why do we sing? What is our attitude when we gather? It must all point to Jesus, not to a person or a place.

Gospel-saturated outreach - the early church met the physical needs of others but they also shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with them because only Jesus can meet our greatest need, our sinfulness. Are you helping others with your actions? Are you sharing Jesus Christ with them with your words? Both are incredibly important! There are at least 11-12 thousand people in our county who don’t go to church on a regular basis. I’m going to be honest with you, there is no single church large enough to accommodate that large of a number. What does that mean? It means that if we take Jesus’ words seriously and we strive to fulfill the Great Commission and make disciples of our neighbors and the nations, we’re going to need to get ready to work together. Walking Faith can’t do this alone. New Harmony can’t do this alone. Grace Community can’t do this alone. New Home, Montauk, Second Baptist, and definitely First Baptist can’t do this alone! We need one another as we work as a united body of Christ - not small silos - to share the Gospel and make disciples.

This was a church that had Christ-Centered Community. My question for us is this: What is keeping us from experiencing Christ-Centered Community?