DaveTrenholm.com

As of today we are half way through our Whole Church Initiative for the summer. As you may recall, we started off in May by focusing on Engaging with God. We talked about how the first step is simply acknowledging God and submitting ourselves under his authority. We talked about why and how we worship God. And we talked about prayer and how it allows us to be constantly connected with God and how our relationship with Him grows as we constantly see Him answering our prayers.

Then we began to focus on Engaging with God’s people – the Church. That’s the reason  we’ve been enjoying all these ‘engagement parties’ over the past month. We started by looking at why God gives us this new family when we become disciples. We also looked at some of our responsibilities and some of our roles in this family. Then just last week we looked at how God uses the more spiritually mature members of our family to help us grow and develop in our Christian life.

And now today, we begin a third focus. For the next few weeks, we want to focus on  engaging with our community.

Now if we were living 100 years ago, we probably wouldn’t have to talk about this. Back then, the church was the central point of the community. Community events were church events. They didn’t have community halls, they had church buildings. Leaders in the church were looked to as the leaders in the community.  But things have changed over the years. Now the church is seen as it’s own separate society. These days church and community typically don’t mix.

And that creates a problem for us. The Bible tells us that one of our main responsibilities as a church is to “go into the world and make disciples”. To be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. If the church is over here and our community is over there…
…How is our community going to hear the Gospel?
…How is our community going experience to God’s love?
…How will our community come to know and love the Lord Jesus?

They can’t! As long as we are over here and they are over there, they’re not going to hear the Gospel, they’re not going to experience God’s love, and they’re not going to come to know and love the Lord Jesus.

Somehow we need to bridge the gap. Somehow we need to get the church back into the community. But how do we do that?

This a huge question – and it’s probably one of the most important questions that the church today needs to answer.  So I think the next few weeks are going to be quite significant and quite exciting for our church. Because not only are we going to search out some Scriptural principles for connecting church & community, we are also going to put those principles into action. But I’ll give you more information about that a little later on.

For now, this morning I want to look at and compare two passages in the Bible. The first is in John 4 where we read about the Samaritan Woman at the Well and the second is in Matthew 9 where we read about Jesus having dinner with Matthew the tax collector and several of his friends. So let’s start by reading John 4:1-10.

Jesus knew the Pharisees had heard that he was baptizing and making more disciples than John 2 (though Jesus himself didn’t baptize them—his disciples did). 3 So he left Judea and returned to Galilee.
4 He had to go through Samaria on the way. 5 Eventually he came to the Samaritan village of Sychar, near the field that Jacob gave to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob’s well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. 7 Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Please give me a drink.” 8 He was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food.
9 The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?”
10 Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”

Ok, keep that in mind while we look at Matthew 9:9-13.

9 As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at his tax collector’s booth. “Follow me and be my disciple,” Jesus said to him. So Matthew got up and followed him.
10 Later, Matthew invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. 11 But when the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with such scum?”
12 When Jesus heard this, he said, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.” 13 Then he added, “Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture: ‘I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.’ For I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

These two stories are actually very similar. There are some common threads that weave through both stories. And I think we can use those common threads to bridge the gap between the church and the community.

Common Thread #1. Jesus met them where they were.

You’ll notice in both of these stories that Jesus was not in the local synagogue. He wasn’t at the temple. If he had been, I’m pretty sure that He never would have met that Samaritan woman or those ‘other disreputable sinners’. From the sounds of it, these people were not your regular church-going folks. But that didn’t stop Jesus. He met them where they were.

Let’s look first at the woman was at the well. In case you didn’t know, Jews & Samaritans did not get along. In fact, most Jews would avoid even walking through a Samaritan town. So when we read that Jesus went into the village of Sycar – a Samaritan village – that’s a little odd. Odder yet, is that Jesus talked to the Samaritan woman. For a Jewish man to talk to a Samaritan woman, that was completely unheard of. So if Jesus had followed the cultural norm, He never, ever would have had this life changing conversation with this woman.

And to eat with tax collectors – that was a serious no no by anyone who considered himself a good Jew. So for a Jewish rabbi to eat with ‘disreputable sinners’ – that was scandalous. But yet Jesus did it anyway.

He knew that these people would not be found in a temple or synagogue, so He went to where they were.

And that’s what we need to do too. We can’t expect people to come to the church, we need to go to them. We need to meet them where they are.

I was recently talking with a friend of mine who has a passion for sharing Christ with his community. And I think he has a great evangelism strategy. His strategy is not to invite his community to church service or a big outreach event. But instead, his strategy is to become involved in his community. One thing he did was he volunteered to help at the local rodeo. And by doing that, he was meeting people where they were. He didn’t have to convince them to come to church or anything – He brought church to them. That’s not to say that He stood around preaching or passing out tracts, but by simply getting involved with the people in his community, that begins to build relationships and open doors and create opportunities to share Christ that he may not have otherwise had.

Another example is the ladies from our church that are involved in the pancake breakfast at the Jolly Seniors each month. By meeting people where they are, they are being salt and light to our community. And that’s exactly what we need to do.

So I would encourage each one of you, if you are not already involve in someway with your community, get involved. Join a sewing club or coach a sports team or just sit have have coffee with people down at the restaurant, but go out and meet people where they are.

Common Thread #2: Jesus had compassion on them

Now we didn’t read the entire story of the woman at the well, but if we had, we would have discovered that she had been married five times and that she was now living with a man who was not her husband. And judging by the fact that she came to draw water from the well at noon – in the heat of the day, instead of the morning or evening when all the other women would be drawing water – it seems to me that this woman did not have a great reputation in her village. She would probably fit in quite well with Matthew’s dinner guests – tax collectors and ‘other disreputable sinners’.

And yet, how does Jesus act towards her? Well, really, the same way he acts towards us. Mercy.

He did not treat her with contempt. He didn’t look at her in disgust. But instead, he offered her mercy.

Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.”  John 4:10

Jesus is not only willing, but he seems eager to give her this gift of eternal life. We see the same attitude in Jesus in our story of Matthew’s dinner guests.

12 When Jesus heard this, he said, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do.” 13 Then he added, “Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture: ‘I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.’ For I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”  Matthew 9:12-13

Jesus doesn’t see sinners as enemies. He sees them as people with a life-threatening disease. Isaiah 61:1 gives us some further insight as to how God views sinners.

1 The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,
because the LORD has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners,

Poor. Broken-hearted. Captives. Prisoners. And even in our own church language we call them lost or unsaved. So to me, that doesn’t sound like we’re talking about enemies. It sounds like their on the same side. Maybe they’re even our friends or family.

So if that’s the case – why do we so often treat them as lepers? People to be avoided. Like the Pharisees we ask “Why does your teach eat with such scum?”

But that should not be. We will not be able to connect church & community unless we see them through eyes of compassion.

Remember, at one time, you were them. You were lost. You were deceived by sin. And only by the grace and compassion of God are you here today.

I don’t remember where I heard this, but recently I heard someone refer to the lost or unsaved as “pre-Christians”. And I think that’s a great term. They aren’t Christians yet, but I’m going to treat them like they soon will be.

Do you remember the Apostle Paul? At one time he was a pre-Christian. I wonder how the other Christians viewed him before he was saved? After all, he was going around throwing Christians in prison and He was even responsible for the deaths of some Christians. I wonder if they looked at him with eyes of compassion.

So maybe that would be a good exercise for us. Think of the worst sinner that you can think of. It’s probably someone that really bugs you. They do things that are annoying or even hurtful to you. But then consider that that person might just be a pre-Christian. They might one day be the next Paul. The next Billy Graham. The next Chuck Swindoll. If you knew that that ‘sinner’ would one day become saved and that God would work through him in such a way that thousands would come to know Christ – would that change how you treat him today?

To close this morning I want to tell you about something that I am very excited about. In three weeks, on August 8th, we are going to have an opportunity to put all that we’ve talked about into practice. This is probably going to seem rather strange, but on that Sunday, I invite you, please “Don’t come to church – Be the church.” Instead of our regular Sunday morning service, we are going to gather together to go out and serve our community. We want to meet people where they are and we want to serve them out of compassion. There will be no sermon. No offering. No Sunday school. But we are going to go out and serve our community in a variety of ways. I think this is going to be great for us as a church and it’ll be great for our community too.

I will be giving you more information at the time draws nearer. I’m in the process of gathering projects for us to do on that Sunday, so if you have some ideas, please talk to me so we can get things lined up.

But until then, I encourage you to go out and meet people where they are and show them the compassion of Christ.

For a long time, my brother lived the bachelor life. He drove truck – coming and going as he pleased. He ate those frozen “Hungry Man” tv dinners. He painted his house Smurf Blue on the outside and John Deer Green on the inside. But all that changed last summer when he got married to his sweetheart.

Now he’s looking to settle down and buy a farm in Saskatchewan. He eats three full, healthy meals a day. And the John Deere Green has been replaced with Cornflower Blue. Yes, things have changed for my brother.

And things will be changing even more, because earlier this week he called me up to tell me that they are expecting their first baby in March. So things are going to be very different for my brother. It’s a very exciting time in his life, and a very challenging one – as any parent knows.

Being a parent is a huge responsibility. It’s very daunting and very humbling. For myself, its hard to even comprehend that God has entrusted me with three little lives to be responsible for, to protect, to teach, to shape who they will ultimately grow up to be. Why would God ever do that!? Doesn’t He know that I’m prone to failure – that I make mistakes and poor choices? And yet it’s my job to help my children grow up so that they will know and love the Lord Jesus. That’s God’s design for the family.

And believe it or not, that’s also God’s design for the church – To help children to grow up to know and love the Lord Jesus. Now, when I say “children”, I don’t just mean people under the age of 18. Everyone of us is a child of God. We’ve been talking a lot about family over the past month. How we, as a church, are a family. How every believer in the world is part of God’s family.

And just like God has designed the family to help children grow up, so He has designed the church to help believers grow up.

Now, what does that mean? What does it mean to help believers grow up? Why do we need to grow up? I mean most of us here are adults. Most of us don’t live with our mom & dad anymore. We don’t need other people to tell us what to do. So what do we mean by “growing up” as a believer in Christ?

When you first become a Christian, we say that you are “born again.” That comes from Jesus’ discussion with Nicodemous when He said,….

3 “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
4 “What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”
5 Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. 6 Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.
John 3:3-5

So when we accept Christ as our Savior, it’s like we are being spiritual born. We are spiritual babies.
And just like physical babies need to grow and learn and develop, so do spiritual babies. We need to grow in our faith & in love & in our knowledge of God. We need to learn about living life as He intends us to live. We need to develop the gifts and abilities that God has given to us to do His work. God does not intend for us to stay as spiritual babies. He wants us to grow up. 1 Peter 2:2 says…

Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation. 1 Peter 2:2

And the same idea is in Ephesians 4:11.

11 Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. 12 Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 13 This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.
14 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. 15 Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. 16 He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.
Ephesians 4:11

Clearly, God wants us to grow up in our Christian life. To become spiritually mature. You know, you can be 100 years old physically, and still be a spiritual baby – be spiritually immature. But we don’t want that to be said of us.

We want to be… “mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.” We…  “we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ.”

But how do we do this? How do grow up spiritually? How do we keep from staying as spiritual infants?

Well, in a nutshell, we follow the pattern that God has laid out for us in the family. It seems pretty clear that God’s design is for the church to function as a family. Just look at the language the Bible uses in describing how we should act towards each other.

1Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, 2older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity. 1 Timothy 5:1-2

As a church, we are to function as a family. Now in our physical families, we have a variety of roles throughout our lifetime. For example, I started off as a baby. I was also a brother. Before long, my brother grew up and had a baby, so I became an uncle. Then I got married and had three kids of my own, so now I’m a father. And hopefully somewhere down the road, I’ll get to be a grandfather or even a great grandfather.

And in the church, we have similar roles. We have spiritual babies – those who have just started their life with God. We have brothers and sisters – those who are about the same spiritual maturity as we are. And we have spiritual moms & dads – grandmas and grandpas – those who clearly have a much deeper and more mature relationship with God than we do.

Now, of course in our physical families, it’s obvious who is the parents and who is the baby and who is the grandparents. But in our spiritual families, it’s a little harder to tell who is who. You can’t tell by how old they are, because some people don’t start their walk with God until they’re senior citizens. You can’t tell by how long they’ve been a Christian, because people mature at difference rates. Sometimes a person who has been a Christian for five years is more spiritually mature than a person who has been a Christian for twenty-five years. Everybody’s journey with God is different.

So how do you tell? How do you know how spiritually grown up and mature a person is? Well, with a little observation, I think the answer becomes obvious. Look at their life. Do you see them living out the fruit of the spirit? Galatians 5:22 says…

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Galatians 5:22

When you see those things in someone’s life, that’s evidence of spiritual maturity. And when you don’t see those things in someone’s life, that’s evidence of spiritual immaturity.

So why am I telling you all of this? What’s the point of it all?

Look around this room for a minute. Over the years, you’ve gotten to know these people  fairly well. You’ve had opportunity to observe their lives and get an idea of where they are in their walk with God.

Some people in this room are spiritual grandparents – having walked with God for maybe fifty or more years. They’ve grown greatly in their relationship with God. They’ve learned what it means to walk in close fellowship with Him. They’ve developed their spiritual gifts and have used them to build up the body of Christ. You can clearly see the fruit of the Spirit in their lives.

There are others who are spiritual youngins’ who have just started walking with God. They are just beginning to learn what it means to live this new life. They have yet to discover all their spiritual gifts, and the fruit of the Spirit is just beginning to show up in their lives.

Then there is the rest of us who are somewhere in the middle.

Look around the room for a minute and try to figure out in your mind who might be your spiritual elder and who might be your spiritual younger.

The point is, In the family of God, we have those who are our spiritual elders – those who are ahead of us in spiritual maturity. And there are those who are spiritual younger – those who are coming up behind us. And we have responsibilities to both.

To those ahead of us, we have the responsibility to seek out their leadership and wisdom and guidance – taking advantage of their experience.

And to those coming up behind us, we have the responsibility to bring them along, encourage them, teach them, help them up when they stumble.

As a Dad, I have the responsibility to my children to make sure they grow and learn and develop into maturity. Each of us has that same responsibility to those in the church who are spiritually younger than ourselves.

Jesus said in Matthew 28:19
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. Matthew 28:19-20

He didn’t say just to get ‘em saved and leave them to fend for themselves. He said to “make disciples”, “teach them to obey”. In other words, help them to grow up into maturity.

So I ask you this morning, are you doing that? When you look around this room and you see people who are spiritually younger than you, what are you doing to help them grow up? How are you being a spiritual father or mother to those people? Don’t under-estimate the impact that you can have in in their lives.

My parents were Christians and so while I was growing up physically, they also helped me grow up spiritually. But they weren’t the only ones. In the little church that I grew up in, I had lots of “Aunts and Uncles” that weren’t real aunt & uncles, but they had an active part in helping me grow up spiritually. And when I was in my teens, another Christian man who didn’t even attend my church, took it upon himself to make sure that I grew up and developed into Christian maturity. And I would not be here before you today if those people had not taken my spiritual well-being as their responsibility.

So I challenge you this morning, no matter where you are in your walk with God, look for  people who are coming up behind you. Get involved in their lives. Adopt them as your spiritual sons or daughters. Watch out for their spiritual well-being. Offer them encouragement. There may even be a time when you must confront them if they go astray, but love them enough to get involved. We must not neglect “making disciples”.

I want to end this morning with something a little bit unusual. I’ve brought my camera and I want to take a family picture. Now I realize that not everyone is here, but that’s ok. The point is not to look at this picture and say “Here’s all my family”. The point is to say “Everyone in this picture is my family. I have a responsibility to these people.”

So I’m going to take this picture, and as long as it turns out half-decent, I’ll make enough copies for all of us to take home, put up on our fridge, and be reminded that we have the responsibility to help those in our family to grow up into spiritual maturity.

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve been on a quest to find out how to live as the family of God. Last week we looked at some of our responsibilities that we have as members of God’s family. There were actually 32 in our list, but we looked specifically at three. We have the responsibility to encourage one another, to live in harmony with each other, and to love each other – not just with our words, but with our actions as well.

So today as we continue looking at how to engage with God’s people, we want to take a look at one of the earliest examples that we have of a local church.

We read about this church in Acts chapter 2 and we’re going to start reading at verse 36, but before we do, let me give you some of the background.

It’s been just 50 days since Jesus died on the cross and came back to life. And although the Bible doesn’t give us the exact details, it may have been only a day or two since Jesus ascended into heaven. All the believers were meeting together in one place, and for the first time in history, God pours out the Holy Spirit on every believer. Now before this, the Holy Spirit had come upon a few individuals and usually, only for a certain time. But now, God sends the Holy Spirit to dwell permanently in every single believer. This was a huge life-altering, world-changing event.

As this was happening a huge crowd gathered to see what was going on, because these believers, enabled by the Holy Spirit, were talking and people from all different nationalities could understand them in their own language. So with this huge crowd gathering, Peter stands up and  preaches God’s word to all that had gathered. And we are going to pick it up at the end of Peter’s sermon in verse 36.

36 “So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah!”
37 Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?”
38 Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 This promise is to you, and to your children, and even to the Gentiles—all who have been called by the Lord our God.” 40 Then Peter continued preaching for a long time, strongly urging all his listeners, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation!”
41 Those who believed what Peter said were baptized and added to the church that day—about 3,000 in all.

42 All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.
43 A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. 44 And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. 45 They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. 46 They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity—47 all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.

To me, this paints a picture of an incredible church! Can you imagine being part of that very first church? Being one of the few people in the history of the world at that time to have the Holy Spirit come down and live right inside of you! That was totally unheard of! God was doing a brand new thing.

As you read through the text, you can feel the buzz in the air. The excitement of what God had done and what He was doing! No wonder the church was growing daily! These guys were bursting with joy and life! And you can tell by their actions that this wasn’t just an act. This “being a Christian” thing wasn’t just a hobby or a new fad. This was a total world changing, life altering, new way to live!

Look at what they did. Verse 44.

44 And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. 45 They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. 46 They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity.

This is some radical stuff. Imagine what your family would think if you sold your house and your tv and your car and you gave the money to the mustard seed in Calgary? Or if you started going to worship services every single day? I mean really. People would think you were a fanatic.

And in verse 42 it says….

42 All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.

They devoted themselves to those things. You know how dedicated Olympic athletes are – training for eight or more hours a day… Just like those Olympians devote their lives to their sport, these guys devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to the fellowship, to sharing in meals, and to prayer. For them, that was life.

Are these guys crazy or what? I mean, why didn’t they just get together for worship on, say, Sunday mornings for an hour or so? Or why didn’t they just read their Bible and pray for 15 minutes each morning? Or why didn’t they just give 10% of their pay cheque to the local temple? Wouldn’t that be simpler? Less fanatical?

But I don’t think these guys could have done that. You see, to them, this new Christian life that they were living wasn’t just another activity to add to their routine. It wasn’t a hobby, or a charitable act to make them feel good about themselves. To them, this is what life was all about. Living to enjoy God. To know Him and to make Him known to the rest of the world. To celebrate God with all the others in His family!

Is that what we live for? If someone where to watch you for a week, would they conclude that you live to enjoy God? That you live to know Him and to make Him known to the rest of the world. That you live to celebrate God with all the others in His family!?

When I began to prepare this message, I had in mind to point out the four things that the believers were devoted to in verse 42.

42 All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper), and to prayer.

So I was going to encourage you to devote yourselves to the Apostles teaching (which is the Bible), to fellowship (as we’ve talked about for the past couple of weeks), to sharing in meals (including the Lord Supper), and to prayer. I was going to urge you to do these things so that we too could have that explosion of Life like we see in the church in Acts. So that we too could see people being added to the church daily, just like the church in Acts did.

But I don’t think that would address the real issue. I don’t think that forcing ourselves to do more and do better would give us that explosion of Life like what we see in the Acts church. But if that’s not the answer, then what is?

How can I live my life like those early Christians? How do I get to the point where my life is all about living to enjoy God? Where my life is all about knowing God and making Him known to the rest of the world? Where my life is all about celebrating God with my spiritual brothers and sisters?

I’m not sure there are any easy answers, but I think that we might find a few clues by digging a little deeper into the lives of these early Christians.

First of all, these believers had seen first-hand with their own eyes just how real and how powerful God is. Two months ago, they had seen Jesus do miracles. He walked on water. He fed 5,000 people with just one lunch. He healed the sick. He raised the dead. And they saw Him do it with their own eyes. They even saw Him die on a cross and then be raised to life again! And now, they got to experience the coming of the Holy Spirit as God came to dwell right within them. There was no doubt in their minds of how real God is.

And because of that, they had no doubt in the power of God. And they had no doubt in the Word of God. And that’s why…
That’s why they devoted themselves to prayer – because Jesus said that they could pray for anything in His name according to God’s will and it would be done for them – and they believed it.
That’s why they sold their possession to give to those in need – because God said that He would provide for all their needs – and they believed it.

Do we believe the word of God? Do we believe that God will do what He says? Do we believe that God will keep His promises?

Because when we believe 100% that what God says is true, when we actually live by the principles that God lays out in his Word, when we take God’s promises to the bank, our life will start to look a little fanatical. We’ll do things that seem a little weird to the world.

I mean, selling your house and your possessions to give to those in need seems pretty weird – unless you believe that there is a lot more to Life, than just living on this earth.
Devoting yourself to praying to a God that you can’t see with your eyes or hear with your ears seems pretty weird -  unless you believe that the God who created & who sustains the universe hears and answers your prayers.

If we started to live like the Bible was true – really true – then I think our lives would look a lot more like those ‘fanatical’ Christians we read about in the book of Acts.
We would live to enjoy God. We would live to know God and to make Him known to the rest of the world. We would live to celebrate God with the rest of our church family.

This morning we are going to share in communion and the Bible tells us that every time we share communion together, we are making a proclamation.

For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. 1 Corinthians 11:26

When we share communion, our actions proclaim what we believe. They proclaim that we believe that Jesus Christ, the sinless Son of God, died on the cross in our place to pay the price for our sins and that three days later, He rose from the grave and is now alive and well sitting at the right hand of God. And because of that, we can have a relationship with our Creator and we can experience true life – both here on earth and forever in heaven with God.

We proclaim it, because we believe it.

And just like our actions in communion proclaim what we believe, the rest of our actions through the rest of our week also proclaim to the world what we believe. So what are your actions proclaiming? What message are you sending to the world through the way you live? I’m going to invite Jim to come up and lead us in communion this morning, and let’s let this be the first of many actions this week that proclaim the truth of God to our world.

I want to begin this morning with a question: What responsibilities come with being in a family? If you’re in a family, what is expected of you? I’m going to give you just a minute or so to discuss this with the people sitting around you and then I want to hear some of your answers.
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It’s tough to come up with one conclusive answer because all of us have grown up in different families. And different families do different things. And sometimes they do the same things, but in different ways.

But despite these differences, there are some universal, core responsibilities of a family. For example: A family shares. They share a home together, they share food together, they share money, they share time and experiences. Sharing is a universal, core responsibility of a family. No mom or dad would refuse to share their home with their kids. No mom or dad would refuse to share their food with their kids. Sharing is just part of being a family. It’s one of those universal, core responsibilities that comes with being in a family.

So this morning, I want to look at some of the universal, core responsibilities that come with being part of the family of God. How are we to function as members of the family of God? What is expected of us? Even though different churches do different things in different ways, what are those things that are expected of every person in every church? Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve been talking a lot about the word “engaging” recently. And before we go further, I want to refresh our memory on the  definition of the word “engage” so we don’t get lost in the jargon.

Engage Defined:

• To become involved in or participate in
• To pledge or to promise
• To assume an obligation
• To become meshed or interlocked
• To draw into

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been looking at how we engage with God and I realize that we’ve only just begun to just touch on what exactly that involves, but I trust that God has stirred your heart a little so that you will continue to explore what it means to engage with God in a deep, significant way in your own life.

But now, once we’ve begun to engage with God, the next area we want to look at is engaging with God’s people. So here are our goals for the next month. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the past few weeks we’ve been looking at “Engaging with God”. We started by giving a basic definition of worship – and that is simply saying ‘Thanks’ to God for who He is and what He’s done. And as we express that thanks, we realize how great our God is and how He is infinitely more He is than anything we could ever imagine. And that causes us to approach God with an attitude of humble submission.

Now a lot of what we’ve talked about so far has been kind of the prep work of engaging with God. Adjusting our perspectives – changing our attitudes. And of course, doing all those things is all part of the process. But today I want to get down to the meat of the issue. I want to talk about actual actions. Day by day, real life engaging with God. Like we talked about at the beginning of this series – becoming interlocked, like a jigsaw puzzle piece with our God.

Because I think that’s really what each of us want. We want to connect with God. We want God to be as real and active in our lives as He was with the heroes of the Bible. We want God to actually make a difference in our lives.

I guess I can’t speak for you, but I’m not content to stay like I am forever. I’ve got too many faults and flaws in my character. I want to engage with the One who created me, so that He can make me into the person He intended me to be, so that I can do the things that He intended for me to do. I want to engage with God.

And unless I’m wrong, I think that’s what most of you want too. So how do we do it? Once we’ve got that attitude of thankfulness and humble submission before God, then what? How do we engage with God on daily, real-life basis?

Well, the answer probably isn’t as complicated as we might think. Read the rest of this entry »