00:00: in between when your cell phone doesn't work.
00:00: That's where we were.
00:00: It was dairy farming country, and of course with dairy farming, other farming as well.
00:07: I remember one fall, a lady in the church came to us and said to me, our sweet corn is about ready for harvest.
00:14: Would you like some?
00:22: I said, well, that'd be very kind.
00:22: Sure, thank you.
00:22: And she said, well, how much would you like?
00:26: Now, our kids were younger at the time, didn't eat as much.
00:26: So I said, eight, ten years, something like that, and she just started laughing at me.
00:32: No, no, no.
00:32: I don't mean like for a meal.
00:32: I mean like so that you can save it and eat it over this coming year.
00:39: I was like, that's a thing?
00:39: How does one do that?
00:47: I didn't know anything about that.
00:47: And so she brought us bags and bags of ears of corn, and you have to blanch it.
00:54: That's a thing where you drop it in boiling water for a brief amount of time.
01:02: Then you put it in cold water to stop that.
01:02: And then you have to cut all the kernels off, and then you freeze it.
01:07: And it's a learning process for your children.
01:07: One of my daughters said, mom, corn has hair.
01:16: I'm shocked.
01:16: I'm totally shocked.
01:16: So obviously, we were city people living in a farm area.
01:26: But we didn't know what you do with a harvest back then.
01:26: And we've had to learn.
01:34: That's what we're dealing with this morning.
01:34: What do you do with the harvest?
01:34: If you think back to where we've been in the book of Acts, Jesus was on earth post-resurrection.
01:41: He gave his followers final instructions.
01:48: He says, wait in Jerusalem.
01:48: Don't go out and just do whatever yet.
01:48: Wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to come so that you are empowered for witness about Jesus.
01:52: Then Jesus ascended.
01:59: They wait.
01:59: They pause to replace Judas with Matthias as one of the apostles.
01:59: And then we saw that the coming of the Holy Spirit took place on Pentecost.
02:09: And Pentecost is not simply a New Testament thing like, oh, well, that's a fancy word for the day the Holy Spirit came.
02:16: No, it's a specific time in the Jewish calendar.
02:21: In the Old Testament, there was Passover when the Jewish people would celebrate the passing over of the Israelite households in Egypt when God took the firstborn from the other houses, the Egyptian families, and he passed over on account of the blood, the Israelite houses.
02:41: And every year after that, they were supposed to celebrate and there was a Passover sacrifice made.
02:46: Well, 50 days after Passover comes in the Old Testament Jewish calendar, the Feast of Tabernacles, which is essentially their harvest festival.
02:54: And so they would do this year after year.
03:00: Well, you get to the time of Jesus.
03:00: Passover comes at the time of the cross and the death of Jesus.
03:06: And then 50 days later, on the Feast of Harvest, the Holy Spirit comes.
03:06: And last week, we saw how when the Holy Spirit filled the apostle Peter, he preached publicly in Jerusalem in the power of God's Spirit, which even enabled the apostles to speak in various languages to the folks gathered.
03:27: And as we heard at the beginning of the passage, 3,000 new believers in Jesus Christ were brought into the kingdom of God that day.
03:33: Well, try to put that in context.
03:33: How many folks were there believing in and following Jesus before Pentecost?
03:40: If you go back to chapter 1, verse 15, there's a mention that there were 120 of them gathered together.
03:49: Now, that may not be exhaustive, but 120-ish.
03:58: And then 3,000 new believers in a day.
03:58: The first mega church comes into existence.
03:58: And they've got to deal with this massive, divinely given growth in believers.
04:06: What do you do with that kind of harvest?
04:13: What do you do when the harvest is just overwhelming?
04:13: Well, you do the same thing that you do when the harvest is small or medium or large or venti.
04:19: It doesn't matter, right?
04:19: Any of these sizes, you still need to process the harvest rightly.
04:25: What did that look like back then?
04:25: What does it look like today?
04:31: Well, our passage this morning tells us what it looked like and how they dealt with that spiritual harvest.
04:37: Notice verse 42.
04:37: And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.
04:37: These new believers in believers in Jesus weren't like, yay, I got my fire insurance.
04:45: I'm saved.
04:45: Don't need to worry about anything else.
04:50: I'm just going to go back to my old life and be confident that hell's not for me.
04:55: No.
04:55: They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.
04:55: Well, the apostles were firsthand eyewitnesses of Jesus.
05:03: Jesus had chosen them on the front end of his ministry that they might be with him and that he might send them out to represent him.
05:09: That's what scripture tells us.
05:09: And so they say, hey, you guys who were right there with Jesus, who got the special tutoring sessions, who had Jesus explain to you what the point of some of those weird stories were, tell us what do we need to know?
05:28: And they didn't just go listen to them.
05:28: They didn't just endure it.
05:28: They devoted themselves to it.
05:37: This is a big deal.
05:37: They want to know what the apostles have to share with them because it makes a difference.
05:42: We're going to see it later on in our study in the book of Acts.
05:42: Acts chapter 4, Peter and John are out preaching Jesus and the Jewish leadership in Jerusalem does not like it at all.
05:54: And so they haul them in and they get in trouble, so to speak.
05:54: But they're kind of limited what they can do to them because they have the crowds on their side.
06:00: But it says this, Acts 4.13.
06:04: Now when they, Jewish leadership, saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished and they recognized that they had been with Jesus.
06:21: You see, Peter and John didn't have advanced seminary degrees.
06:21: They didn't go through preaching cohorts and whatnot.
06:26: But when they taught, there was something extraordinary that was happening.
06:33: And they realized, Jesus gave us problems.
06:33: And so are the people who follow Jesus.
06:39: They've been with Jesus.
06:39: That's why they're like this.
06:39: So it makes sense that we, like the early church, should heed and soak up and be devoted to the apostles' teaching.
06:45: We should be about learning, serious learning.
06:54: The early church was a learning church.
06:54: A learning church.
06:54: Now, we can't do it in the same way they did.
07:02: They got to show up and hear from the mouths of the firsthand eyewitnesses, the apostles.
07:07: But God didn't leave us without that witness.
07:07: The New Testament is the record of the apostolic teaching.
07:14: If you want to know the stuff that God says we need to know, that the apostles shared with folks, go to your New Testament.
07:21: That's where we need to go.
07:21: Right there.
07:21: The Christian life is a learning life, especially through a New Testament perspective.
07:28: The Christian life, lived in the Spirit, is not in conflict with learning.
07:35: I've encountered folks that say, well, you need to be filled with the Spirit, so don't bother with books.
07:40: That's not true at all.
07:48: I've seen some people that are so into books, they don't pay attention to the Spirit.
07:48: Well, that's a problem.
07:50: That's not okay.
07:50: But being filled with the Spirit and being a learning, reading person, let's go hand in hand.
07:57: When Jesus was asked which Old Testament commandment was the greatest, his answer was Deuteronomy 6.5.
08:07: Now, he didn't say Deuteronomy 6.5 because the verse numbers were added later in history.
08:14: But he cited what we call Deuteronomy 6.5, which says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
08:26: Except, he didn't quite say it that way.
08:26: In both Luke and Mark's Gospels, they quote Jesus having modified it.
08:34: Jesus modified Scripture.
08:34: He actually does this quite a bit.
08:34: He would say things like, you've heard it said, but I say unto you.
08:41: And he would give his own teaching as on the level of God's Word.
08:49: Because Jesus is God.
08:49: And when God speaks, it is God's Word.
08:49: Right?
08:49: So when Jesus repeats Deuteronomy 6.5, he tweaks it.
08:55: He says this, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.
09:01: He adds mind in there.
09:01: He says, use your brains.
09:08: Think.
09:08: Put on your thinking caps.
09:08: Desire to understand.
09:08: Desire to comprehend.
09:18: It's a big deal.
09:18: There's a reason that at this church we tell you over and over and over and over, read your Bibles.
09:25: Because God intends to do good work in our lives through His Word in ways that aren't going to happen any way else.
09:33: I know that culturally, reading is on the decline.
09:33: That people are more and more attached to screens and videos and games and so on.
09:39: But you've got to be readers as well.
09:46: We've got to be people of the Word.
09:46: Read your Bible.
09:46: Study your Bible.
09:46: Memorize your Bible.
09:55: See in verse 42, they were devoted to the Apostles' teaching.
09:55: Now, I've emphasized the New Testament.
10:04: I don't mean that at the expense of the Old Testament.
10:04: The whole of Scripture is God's Word to us.
10:12: The whole of Scripture, 2 Timothy 3.16 tells us, is useful for correcting, teaching, rebuking, and instructing in righteousness.
10:25: Training in righteousness.
10:25: You guys know what I'm talking about.
10:25: We got it.
10:33: The whole Bible.
10:36: In fact, the New Testament talks about how what was written back then is for us in the church age today.
10:43: But here's the catch.
10:43: We've got to understand the Old Testament through a New Testament lens.
10:49: Because the Old Testament builds to Jesus and is understood best and most completely and accurately and fully through the lens of who Jesus is and what he's done.
10:57: And so we need to understand it in the context of the New Testament.
10:57: That's key.
11:03: I want that for this church.
11:03: I want us to be devoted to the Apostles' teaching.
11:10: I want us to be people of the book.
11:10: I want us to be a learning church devoted to what God has revealed to the Apostles.
11:19: They were not only a learning church, they were a loving church.
11:21: You see that all throughout this passage.
11:23: For example, verse 42.
11:24: They devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching and the fellowship.
11:28: To the breaking of bread and the prayers.
11:33: Fellowship is community life.
11:35: That's doing things together.
11:36: We often use the word fellowship in a, hey, we're having a social gathering.
11:40: We're having a potluck.
11:40: We're having a barbecue.
11:43: And those are good things to do.
11:44: And fellowship can happen at those.
11:46: But fellowship is something a little more than just hanging out.
11:50: It's about life on life.
11:53: Connecting in a way that is significant.
11:56: And it's especially in a Christ-centered orientation.
12:01: We are called to life together.
12:05: If you are trying to do the Christian life as a solo affair, you're doing it wrong and you're going to fail.
12:13: So, the Christian life is personal and corporate.
12:20: Both.
12:22: And we have to have a hand on personal and corporate.
12:26: It's great to be involved in church and to be plugged in in all the ways that are available.
12:33: But if you're not walking with Jesus personally, outside of gathering together with other believers, there's something very, very wrong.
12:39: And it's great to have your personal Bible reading time and private prayer times and so on.
12:44: And that's good and right and healthy.
12:46: But if you're not also connecting with the larger body of Christ, something is broken.
12:51: We need both.
12:54: Talks about the breaking of bread.
12:56: Well, is that talking about observing the Lord's Supper?
12:58: Is that talking about sharing meals together?
13:00: I don't know.
13:02: Probably both.
13:03: Probably both.
13:04: Because Jesus had commanded them to do the Lord's Supper as often as they do it in remembrance of Him.
13:10: Probably they were doing that right out of the gate.
13:12: But just like when Jesus did it with them, it was part of a larger meal.
13:17: So it's quite likely they were doing meals together and as part of that, observing the Lord's Supper.
13:23: Probably both at play here.
13:26: Meals together are a great time to connect with folks, aren't they?
13:30: We had someone over to our home last night because we were doing hot dogs over a fire in the little fire pit in the driveway.
13:39: And I tell you, there was so much laughter.
13:44: Much of it geared at me, which is fine.
13:46: I get that.
13:48: I was a little bummed that it wasn't when I was trying to be funny.
13:51: But, you know, hey, I'll take the laughs whatever way I can get them.
13:53: But it was a time of connecting, bonding with brothers and sisters in Christ.
14:00: It's a beautiful thing to do that.
14:02: Notice verses 44 to 46.
14:04: And all who believed were together and had all things in common.
14:10: And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.
14:16: And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with gladness and generous hearts.
14:24: Again, a clue that the breaking of bread is probably also meals together.
14:27: They're sharing.
14:29: They're saying, if I've got stuff and you don't, I'm sharing.
14:33: Even to the point of selling stuff, if that was needed to help those in need.
14:39: When I was in college, the older student who mentored me, a guy named Graham, he lived this out well.
14:45: I knew pretty quickly after he began mentoring me that if he had something that would be useful to me, it was mine to borrow.
14:56: I didn't have to wonder, like, well, would he maybe lend me that for this or this other thing for that?
15:01: The answer was going to be yes, guaranteed.
15:04: It ought to be that way.
15:06: Right?
15:06: Like, we ought to say, hey, I've got an opportunity to love my brother or sister in Christ.
15:10: Of course I'm going to seize that opportunity.
15:13: Why wouldn't I?
15:14: We want to be the kind of folks that say, if I can meet the need of a brother or sister, of course I'm going to do that.
15:25: Probably, this is referring to selling both land and specific items that they owned.
15:31: We're going to see in Acts chapter 5 another account of people selling land and sharing with the church.
15:38: But that other passage, which we're going to get into more detail when we get to Acts 5, is actually really helpful to think about here.
15:45: Because you could look at Acts 2 and say, hey, look, Christians have to be commune hippies.
15:49: They have to live apart from everyone else and sell everything and only have common property.
15:54: And that's a distortion of what this is saying.
15:57: Because we still see in this passage that there was folks that owned houses.
16:00: It doesn't say that everyone sold everything that they had immediately.
16:04: And when you get to Acts chapter 5, you find a husband and wife that sell some stuff and they give a portion of the proceeds to the church.
16:10: But they pretend like it's the whole selling amount.
16:13: And they get in trouble for the deception.
16:16: And Peter says, you didn't have to sell it at all.
16:20: And even when you did sell it, you didn't have to give the whole thing.
16:23: You could have given whatever you wanted.
16:25: So why are you deceiving?
16:26: Why are you pretending something that's not true?
16:29: That's the gist of it.
16:30: And so we know then that communal property is not an absolute commandment of Scripture.
16:38: This is one of those places in the Scripture where it's helpful to remember that not all Scripture is prescriptive.
16:45: Sometimes Scripture is descriptive.
16:48: Sometimes it is prescriptive.
16:50: When it tells us that Judas went out and hanged himself, it is describing what happened.
16:55: It is descriptive.
16:55: It's not saying go and do likewise, which would be prescriptive.
17:00: When it says that Solomon took lots and lots of wives and concubines, it's descriptive, not prescriptive.
17:08: One is your limit.
17:11: And as a married man, one is all you want.
17:14: Okay?
17:15: One is the perfect amount.
17:16: And all the men of God said?
17:19: All right.
17:23: Prescriptive versus descript.
17:25: Now what we dare not do is say, oh, I don't like that part, so I'm going to call that descriptive so I don't have to do it.
17:30: No.
17:31: We need to carefully read everything in context.
17:35: Look at it in the light of the rest of the Scripture and say, what's going on here?
17:38: I would say of this passage, the specific way they handled their finances is descriptive.
17:45: But the heart behind it is prescriptive.
17:48: They were generous.
17:49: They were loving.
17:50: They were saying, I'm going to love my brothers and sisters through whatever means I've got available.
17:55: That kind of heart is prescriptive.
17:57: That's the way that we today are to love and serve one another.
18:02: As any had need, it says.
18:04: When you see a need in your fellow believers, let's grab hold of that divine opportunity to love and to bless.
18:12: Let's renew our commitment and practice of loving our brothers and sisters in Christ well.
18:17: Even the brand new ones, right?
18:20: Whether it's a brand new Christian or somebody who's new to this congregation, it ought not be hard to get sucked into the life of the body.
18:27: It ought to be hard not to in our church.
18:29: So if you see anyone who is not very plugged in, you end that for them.
18:36: And if you're not very plugged in, don't be resistant anymore.
18:40: Come on in.
18:41: Be part of this church family.
18:43: That's what God intends for us anyway.
18:46: So they were a learning church.
18:48: They were a loving church.
18:49: It makes sense that they'd be a loving church.
18:51: Because isn't that what Jesus commands us to do?
18:53: I love the scene in John chapter 13, the foot washing scene.
18:59: And as part of that scene where Jesus is washing the feet of his disciples, he says, verses 34 and 35, a new command I give you.
19:07: Love one another.
19:09: As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
19:14: By this all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.
19:19: Jesus designated the way that we love each other, specifically in a sacrificial way like Jesus loved us.
19:27: That kind of love is a hallmark telltale sign of being a Jesus follower.
19:33: That's not my preference.
19:34: That's Jesus' instruction.
19:36: So let's lean into that all in.
19:38: How many people like being loved?
19:43: Right?
19:44: Nobody wants to raise their hand.
19:45: You feel like, well, yeah, I do like that.
19:47: I'm a little embarrassed to admit it.
19:48: No, everyone likes being loved, right?
19:50: Of course, God made us for a relationship with himself and one another.
19:55: It was a learning church.
19:56: It was a loving church.
19:57: And it was a worshiping church.
19:59: Verse 42, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
20:07: Prayer time together.
20:08: They were devoted to this.
20:12: I know that praying out loud is scary for some folks.
20:17: I'm going to make two requests.
20:19: Number one, if you are together with fellow Christians and somebody prays in a way that seems immature or awkward or so on, don't laugh.
20:32: Don't look down on that.
20:35: Love that.
20:37: Love that they're stepping out and taking a risk in front of folks and say, thank you for praying.
20:44: Love that you joined us and participated in prayer.
20:46: Thank you for that blessing.
20:48: That's what I'm asking the more experienced prayers to do.
20:52: And if you're the less experienced prayer or at least the less experienced out loud in a group prayer, join us.
21:00: Join us in prayer.
21:01: It's going to feel a little awkward for some at first.
21:04: But this is biblical.
21:06: This is good and right that we pray together.
21:09: Let's do that.
21:10: Let's join together in prayer.
21:13: That's part of what it looks like to worship God.
21:15: Verses 46, 47.
21:18: And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God.
21:29: They're at temple regularly together.
21:32: They're gathering in homes together.
21:34: They're praising God together.
21:36: They're making much of the God who has saved them.
21:39: They're making much of the God who made them, redeemed them, and sustains them.
21:44: They're saying, how great is our God?
21:47: And if we understand the gospel, if we understand the good news of who Jesus is and what he's done for us, how can we not say the same thing?
21:53: How great is God that he would love us?
21:56: Right?
21:56: Romans 5, 8.
21:58: But God shows his own love for us in this, that while we were yet sinners, he sent Christ to die for us.
22:06: What a great reality.
22:08: What an amazing truth.
22:11: We ought to worship him.
22:13: I like the way that Ephesians chapter 1 repeatedly, three different times, talks about how God has worked in salvation in this sort of way for people.
22:20: And it says, to the praise of his glory, or to the praise of his glorious grace.
22:24: Like, God works in such a way that we should be wowed, jaw dropped, and say, hallelujah, God is great.
22:32: We ought to have that heart.
22:34: Now, it's good and right to sing that on a Sunday morning.
22:38: But if you're singing it like, hallelujah, dude, I might have to put you in a headlock, give you a noogie or something.
22:46: Because that is not how this needs to go.
22:48: Like, we should be boisterous.
22:51: We should be excited.
22:52: We should be like, yes, yes, yes, I am all in.
22:55: Of course I want to sing God's praises.
22:57: He's too great not to.
23:00: Romans 12, 1 tells Christians, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God.
23:06: Like, in light of God's mercy to you, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
23:20: That is to say, the way that we live day by day, the way that we use our bodies to live is the necessary right way that we spiritually worship God.
23:30: So let's do that.
23:31: Worship God today with what you do today.
23:34: Worship God tomorrow with what you do tomorrow.
23:37: And even when the holiday weekend's over and you go back to work, worship God there in what you do and how you do it.
23:45: Let's worship God because he deserves it.
23:49: Let's live in light of his mercy toward us.
23:52: Or we could look at 1 Corinthians 6, verses 19 and 20, which keeps coming up in this act series.
23:58: We've seen it referenced in a number of different ways.
24:00: It says, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?
24:07: You are not your own, for you are bought with a price.
24:11: So glorify God in your body.
24:14: He's saying, Jesus bought you at the price of the blood of Jesus Christ.
24:17: When he saved you, he purchased you.
24:20: So you don't live like you're the boss of you.
24:22: You live like he's the boss of you.
24:24: You live in such a way as to honor him.
24:26: Here at Faith Chapel, we say that our purpose is that we exist to worship God.
24:34: And the rest of it's details about that.
24:36: We exist to worship God.
24:38: We believe that God's purpose in creating human beings, God's purpose in redeeming or saving human beings, is that he get the glory.
24:50: You can insert the word worship, honor, glory.
24:53: That's what we exist to do toward God.
24:57: We exist to worship God.
24:59: Well, how?
25:00: By enjoying relationship with him and one another.
25:06: Through Jesus Christ.
25:09: We worship him by all day long, every day, throughout whatever we're doing, doing it in relationship with God.
25:16: Saying, okay God, what do you got for me at church today?
25:18: Okay God, what do you have for me this afternoon?
25:20: How can I be part of what you're up to today?
25:23: Hey God, I got a knock on the door.
25:25: Let's see what you've got in store.
25:27: Right?
25:27: We can say it in a way that almost sounds silly, but it's not.
25:31: There's no part of your day that isn't to be offered as an act of worship.
25:34: And there's no part of your day where God is not sovereign and working out his good purposes.
25:40: So we enjoy relationship with God and one another.
25:44: Again, you can't do the Christian life in isolation.
25:47: The Christian life lived in isolation is the Christian life lived in sin.
25:54: We enjoy relationship with one another.
25:56: And the kind of relationship we enjoy with one another and the kind of relationship that we enjoy with God can only be had through Jesus Christ.
26:03: This is a distinctive kind of relationship.
26:07: People that don't know Jesus cannot have relationship with God.
26:10: People that don't know Jesus can't have with each other the same level of connection and relationship that God enables believers to have with one another.
26:19: You ought to experience better, deeper, more life-giving, more joyful, more Jesus-centered relationships with fellow Christians than you have ever had with anyone outside of the body of Christ.
26:32: And there's a real unity between this worshiping and life together.
26:39: I like the way that Hebrews 10, 24, and 25 says it.
26:43: Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.
26:53: And all the more as you see the day drawing near.
26:56: That is the day of Christ's return.
26:59: We are supposed to poke each other and prod each other and stir each other up.
27:04: You should be riled up in a good way by interacting with each other when we get together in such a way as to motivate you towards loving and doing good works.
27:16: That's what should be happening.
27:17: It's not like, here I show up, we sing some songs, I listen to Pastor Dylan for a while, and then I get to go home.
27:22: I've done my duty.
27:23: No.
27:24: Get in each other's lives.
27:26: Get to know each other.
27:28: I want, and I believe God wants this, I want for every person in this church who is a believer in Jesus Christ to have others that know you so well that if something's off, they can tell.
27:41: And they care enough to engage.
27:44: Maybe to encourage, maybe to serve, but in some way to help you.
27:49: And that when things are going well, they can see that and they can say, keep going.
27:53: Don't give up.
27:55: Keep at it.
27:55: Let's do it.
27:56: We're following Jesus together.
27:58: That's what we're called to.
28:03: A learning church.
28:04: A loving church.
28:05: A worshiping church.
28:08: And an evangelizing church.
28:10: Notice that the passage, as we read aloud, began with verse 41, 3,000 new believers.
28:16: Now technically that's the previous paragraph, but it's all one story.
28:18: This all goes together.
28:20: And then it ends, verse 47, they're praising God and having favor with all the people.
28:27: And the Lord added to their number day by day those who are being saved.
28:35: This was not an inward focused church.
28:39: It was an inward and outward focused church.
28:43: They were headed both directions at the same time.
28:46: There was inward.
28:47: That is the learning, the love, the worshiping.
28:52: That's more the church, taking care of the church and doing life together.
28:57: But they were outward as well.
28:59: They were out and about engaging with the people around them and sharing Jesus.
29:05: A church that is not a healthy balance of inward and outward is an unhealthy church.
29:13: When the church is for me, the Christian, but not for thee, the unbeliever, something is wrong.
29:20: Now, I do believe that our worship services are primarily oriented for the believer.
29:27: But they ought to be intelligible to the unchurched when they come and join us.
29:32: And the church as a whole, not just church services, but the church, the people who love Jesus and are following Jesus are called to say, I love my neighbor.
29:42: I love my bank teller.
29:43: I love my gas station attendant.
29:45: I love my mailman or mailwoman or whatever it is.
29:48: Whoever those people are in your life and say, I want them to know about Jesus.
29:51: Jesus is so good in my life.
29:53: How can I not want that for others?
29:58: Anybody that knows you decently well should have heard the gospel.
30:06: Just about any case.
30:07: If you have an existing, decent relationship with somebody over a length of time, they should be encountering the gospel.
30:13: Because they should be encountering it through you and through me.
30:18: We say here at Faith Chapel that our mission is to worship God through our relationship with God and our relationship with fellow believers through Christ.
30:26: But our mission is for every believer to become, make, mature, and multiply fully surrendered disciples of Jesus Christ.
30:36: What we have to be about as believers is to help people become followers of Jesus, help them to learn, remember that learning concept again, to learn what it is to follow Jesus, what God is like, how he works, and then to multiply.
30:51: For them to repeat it and say, now you invest in others.
30:54: This is not my plan for church growth.
30:58: This is Jesus' plan for church growth.
31:02: That's what we're supposed to be about.
31:03: And yet, we've got to make sure we're not hypocrites, right?
31:05: I can't be like, hey, you need Jesus.
31:07: I mean, I don't, but you do, right?
31:09: We ourselves have to become increasingly fully surrendered disciples of Jesus and as we're doing that, we're sharing with others when they embrace the gospel, we don't just say, congratulations, bye, right?
31:22: Like, no, we're supposed to make disciples.
31:23: We're supposed to teach them, grow them, mature them with God's help.
31:29: In Matthew 28, we read the Great Commission where Jesus said to his disciples, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
31:40: Temporary prayer phase might be like, I'm the boss.
31:44: There and here.
31:46: God says so.
31:48: Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, all peoples, right?
31:53: Everybody.
31:54: Make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.
32:05: Different translations, it'll say something like, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you or to observe or to keep my commands, all the commands I've given you.
32:14: The idea is that we don't just learn it, we live it.
32:17: It goes in here so that it can come out here.
32:20: We have to put it into practice.
32:24: There is a joy that Christians experience when they do what God calls them to do and God blesses it.
32:31: That you can't have just with mental awareness of, hey, God can do this.
32:36: When you actually get to see God doing it and you get to participate in what he's doing, it's way better.
32:44: You married people.
32:46: Try to remember back to single days.
32:49: You were probably aware of something called dating, maybe from movies, maybe from TV shows, maybe from friends getting to do that.
32:57: It sounded appealing.
32:58: It sounded like a good thing.
33:00: But then you had that someone that asked you out or you asked her out or whatever it was and you had your own boyfriend or girlfriend.
33:09: It was totally better, right?
33:11: It was so much better when you actually got to experience it.
33:15: Now, Carrie may be an exception, might have been a little rough on her.
33:19: But for most of it, like, yay, great, right?
33:22: We're excited about that.
33:23: To actually get to experience it is amazing.
33:25: When you obey Jesus, when you walk in the Spirit and live out what he's calling you to live out, you will have a greater degree of satisfaction and joy than you can ever have otherwise.
33:46: And I believe that the more you experience Christian community in the fullness of God's design, the more you're going to want it.
33:55: The more you're going to say, I don't want to go back to the old way of living.
33:58: I want more life with my fellow believers.
34:02: I want more being part of the family of God, living it out, learning.
34:07: And I guarantee you, nobody in this room knows Jesus well enough, understands the Bible well enough that you have tested out.
34:15: Guarantee it.
34:19: Loving.
34:19: We've got some amazing, loving people, but nobody who's maxed out on loving either.
34:26: Worshiping.
34:27: That's not a one and done.
34:28: That's not a, hey, I finally met that and I'm done.
34:31: I can move on to other things.
34:32: No.
34:34: And evangelizing.
34:36: If there are unbelievers in the world, our job's not done.
34:41: Let's be the loving, learning, worshiping, evangelizing church that God intends us to be.
34:51: Let's pray.
34:53: God, help us to take seriously what needs to happen after the harvest.
35:00: Help us to do this well for our joy, for the sake of the health of your church, but also so that you get the glory as we do this, that you get the honor that you deserve, and so that as you give us a harvest, as people in the Green Bay area come to know Jesus, they have a church family to plug into and to experience the fullness of God's love for his people and his provision for his people.
35:30: Father, I think that we are doing some of these things well by your grace.
35:37: Help us to recognize that and to say, keep us going, God.
35:41: Help us to keep doing what we're doing well, but where there's room for growth, and we know that's there too, show us, reveal it, not with condemnation, that is not your way, but with conviction and give us a hunger to go deeper into your purposes for us.
36:02: In Jesus' name we pray.
36:04: Amen.