God’s Glorious Church
How Do We Measure Our Health?
Acts 2:37-47
Woodlawn Baptist Church
February 27, 2005
Introduction
(See footnotes)
I want to welcome each of you to our services today! One of the greatest joys and privileges we have as God’s people is to gather corporately and join in the worship and adoration of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I trust that you have prepared your hearts for our time together today. We worship best together after we have spent a week in private worship through prayer and time in God’s Word, and I hope that your time here today will be an enjoyable experience, not only for you, but for the God to whom we direct our hearts and minds.
In last week’s message, I dealt with an issue that I believe is all too often neglected in our churches. How does God measure our success, and is it anything to be too concerned about? The answer was yes – God wants us to be a successful church as we fulfill our purpose of glorifying Him by carrying out our mission of reaching the lost with the gospel of Jesus Christ and laboring to see spiritual transformation take place in the lives of those who believe. God measures our success by the degree to which we are faithful in fulfilling that purpose and mission, but that success is a fleeting, moment by moment thing that is continually dependent on us remaining sensitive to what we’re really here to do.
I believe that one of the most difficult things a church can do is to take an honest inward look at itself and decide whether it is measuring up to what God expects. It is like doing exploratory surgery. As we go about our business, perhaps something raises a flag that alarms us, so we turn to the Great Physician and ask Him to examine us. He takes out the scalpel of His Word and makes some minor incisions, looking and probing for possible problems.
If you were to go to your doctor, and he told you that your body had a problem, would you take it personally? Probably not – what would be more important to you is that you enjoy the level of health you desire. What you would focus on would be the immediate problem and what it would take to correct it. Well listen, as I talk about whether our church is being successful or not, and today as I talk about measuring whether our church is healthy, there is no need to take anything personal. I am not attacking you or anyone else, nor am I attacking our church. I know some of you have been here much longer than me, but it is not just your church, it is our church. Any digging and probing that is done, and any problems that might surface will affect us all, and they are things we must all choose to address together, because what we want is to enjoy the level of health that God has in mind for us.
When we think about healthy churches, and examples of healthy churches, the Lord’s church in Acts 2 seems to stand out above others as being descriptive of how the Lord’s churches ought to be functioning. You might think again about a healthy body. Every human being has the same basic systems that must be functioning properly: the respiratory system, digestive, circulatory, nervous system, and the musculoskeletal system. If any of these systems isn’t functioning properly, then no matter what all the rest are doing, your body isn’t healthy. You can have strong bones and muscles, but if you’re not breathing, you’re in trouble!
Can you imagine one of your feet saying, “Hey! Get me some blood down here! I’m gettin’ cold! Help me out! I’m gettin’ numb and need some blood circulation!” It happens doesn’t it? But what if it happened and your hand hollered back, “Those selfish feet! Why is everything always about them? We’re getting along fine up here. They don’t know how good they’ve got it. They ought to be happy they’re part of such a good body.”
I know that sounds silly to you, but it happens every week in churches all around us, and more often than we realize, it happens right here. As we consider our text in Acts 2:37-47, I want to share with you five areas of our church life that must be functioning properly. If we are weak or lacking in any one of these five areas, then our church is not enjoying the health that God wants us to enjoy.
Evangelism
We exist to share the gospel with a lost and dying world! It’s the first part of our mission. No matter how well we do anything else we do, if we’re not an evangelistic church, then we’re not a healthy church. Look at our text. Beginning in verse 37, Luke wrote,
“Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.”
We talk about sharing our faith, about sharing Christ, about witnessing and soul-winning. You can call it what you want – but what we’re talking about is communicating to a lost person the message that without Christ they are dead in their sins and hopelessly lost. They need to know that Jesus Christ is the one and only way to heaven and that they have no hope of enjoying a relationship with God without Christ. They must repent of their sin, and they must trust Jesus Christ and Him alone to save them.
We must be an evangelistic church! It’s why we’re here! It’s the very reason we exist! As long as we know there are people who are lost, then we have a responsibility and the unique privilege to share the good news of Jesus Christ with them. That doesn’t mean it’s always going to be pleasant. The message isn’t always going to be well received, but that doesn’t change the fact that we must share our faith!
Now, by and large we are not an evangelistic church. Most of us do not share our faith like we ought to. If we really believe though that people will die and go to hell without Christ, then we ought to be telling them. It is a contradiction to say that the most important news on earth is the gospel, then never feel burdened to share that news. You must share Christ, I must share Christ, and as we collectively begin to share Christ, then our church becomes an evangelistic church.
Discipleship
The word discipleship comes from the root word discipline. It basically means to train someone. It’s what Jesus had in mind when He said in the Great Commission that we were to train believers to observe all His commandments. Notice what the next two verses say in Acts 2:42-43.
“And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul: and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles.”
Not only do we exist to reach the lost, we also exist to educate God’s people. It is the church’s part of the spiritual transformation that is to take place in your life. Is our church strong in discipleship? Daily these people were meeting in one another’s homes, studying and learning and bringing their lives into conformity with the truth of God’s Words. Do we offer what our people need so they might grow in the Word and get equipped with the tools they need for ministry? Are we effectively using small groups, Bible studies, mentoring relationships and more to facilitate the growth of each church member? Are we specifically targeting those in our church who have special needs? Or are we wrongly assuming that if it appeals to me then it must appeal to everyone? Can the hands really say to the feet that since they are being taken care of everyone else must be doing all right?
If our part is to train, your part is to allow the church, through the Word of God to discipline you, or train you so that you become more like Christ in your thoughts, feelings, and actions. Discipleship is a lot like exercise. If you want to grow stronger, then you need to exercise by lifting weights, getting involved in sports, walking or running or doing some other activity that is going to keep your body active. The same principle is true in the spiritual realm.
Fellowship
If there’s one thing we’re strong in and for which we are well known, it is our fellowship. We are a friendly, loving church. We like to fellowship! The early church did too. Look with me at verse 42, then verses 46-47.
And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers…And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.”
Fellowship is about more than eating meals together. Fellowship is about building and maintaining and enjoying a sense of unity around a common purpose and mission. Fellowship is when we can all sit down at the table and share one another’s burdens, be committed to one another’s welfare, and be willing to lay aside our needs and wants for the benefit of the other.
There are a lot of ideas about how to build a great fellowship, but I believe you can sum them all up in two things. First, there must be people who have a great love for God and are sensitive to how He is working in their lives. Second, those Spirit filled people must spend time together. You can’t manufacture fellowship – it only comes through time spent together with others who share a common love for God, for His Word and for His work. I know a lot of people, but I enjoy the greatest fellowship with those of you right here with whom I share my greatest love.
While we enjoy a great fellowship, it is a limited fellowship. It is limited to the same 30 or 40 people. I had a great time going to Texarkana this weekend with some of you. We had a great time! I know those 9 people better today than I ever have before, but it would never have happened staying at home and wishing I was part of something. I hear people say that they always feel on the outside of the loop, but more often than not it comes from people who sit outside the loop watching and waiting for something to gripe about. You are the only one who can decide to jump in and build the kind of fellowship God wants us to enjoy.
Ministry
Jesus said that we are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. If you look at our passage, you see a people who were hurting and in need, and what they were doing was meeting one another’s needs. We call that ministry. Read verses 44-45 with me.
“And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.”
There are two interesting things that created this crisis in the early church. First, there were about seventeen different nationalities represented in the events taking place in our text. Thousands of people had gathered in Jerusalem at the time of Pentecost, and had made the journey fully expecting to return home in a matter of days. However, when they arrived, they heard the gospel, accepted Christ and united with this body of believers. They were so caught up in what they were doing, many of them didn’t go back home immediately. They weren’t prepared for the extended stay in Jerusalem. The second thing to remember is that faith in Christ was not the popular thing to do. Jesus was hated, and his followers were hated also. This made is very difficult to buy and trade, to travel or to get your needs met.
It is in this context that we find them gathering together with others in their situation, and they begin to share their goods for the common welfare of the group. That’s ministry! But there’s so much more. Ministry is simply meeting the needs of others in the name of Christ. It can be evangelistic in nature, or it can be edifying. In other words, ministry should always be done hoping to lead someone closer to Christ, either in salvation or in spiritual transformation.
We need to minister to all kinds of needs: spiritual, emotional, relational and physical. Jesus said that even a cup of cold water given in His name was considered ministry.
Worship
The last area of body life is worship. In verses 46-47, the Bible says,
“And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved.”
The worship wars are raging in America today. Is our worship to be contemporary or traditional? But listen, that’s faulty thinking. God is a God who has a far deeper understanding of the ways of man than our closed-mindedness allows. Sure worship has to do with a church service, but it goes far beyond that.
Jesus said,
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
That’s worship! Throughout the Scriptures we are commanded to celebrate God’s goodness, God’s greatness, God’s presence, His purpose, His power, His majesty, and so much more! It is our job as a church body to magnify, to make great the name of the Lord. You see, true worship isn’t about the form you use – we must worship in spirit and in truth. Worship is our heart’s response to Christ that grows out of a life of communion with our Father.
Conclusion
How is our health measured? We measure our church’s health when we step back and look at how we are doing in the areas of evangelism, discipleship, fellowship, ministry and worship. If we are weak or failing in any one of those areas, then our church is unhealthy. How healthy are we? As I said earlier, that might depend on who you asked. Some parts of our church are functioning okay, but others are not, so what do we do? What do you do?
You need to be unsatisfied with anything less than good health in our church. It’s not okay to be okay. We want to be healthy, strong, quick, and vibrant: all that God wants us to be, and whether you like to admit it or not – we are not all that God wants us to be. There’s nothing wrong with saying it, nothing wrong with admitting it. Sure it hurts and it makes us uncomfortable, but at least when we admit it and become unsatisfied with it we can address where we are falling short.
You need to move closer in. God wants you to take an active part in your church. If our church is unhealthy, it is because we are unhealthy. Join a small group, take part in fellowship, get involved in ministry. Don’t sit back and wait for an invitation – the believers in Acts went daily from house to house: they were engaging themselves! No one can do it for you.
You need to be committed to the success and health of your church body. You can pray for me and for others. You can pray for God’s intervention. You can pray for the lost heart to be softened. You can attend, or support, or tell others. There’s not a member of this church who is a member by accident. God has placed you here for a reason. If God has put you here, then be committed to our success and health.
If you’re like me, you’ll put off going to the doctor until you just don’t have another choice. It’s no that I dislike them so much as I just don’t like them! What I am beginning to understand though is that churches, like people, will often put off going in for a checkup too, and I think we do it for two reasons.
Number one, we just don’t think about it. Like the feet and hands a while ago, so long as we’re doing all right and our needs are being met and we’re enjoying the fellowship, we don’t pay much attention to the other areas of our church. However, the second reason is more serious; because it says that we don’t want to see what we know is really there. It hurts to be honest with ourselves and say that we’re not healthy, because once we know that something is wrong, we’ve got to begin the process of fixing it, and most of us are content to leave well enough alone.
Today I want to challenge you not to settle for less than the very best here in our church. Things are not all they should be, and the only person who has the power to change it is you. You must begin by being saved. Do you know Christ as your Savior? Have you ever trusted Him? There is no hope this side of eternity except in Jesus Christ. Come to Him today.
Works Used:
Rainer, Thom. Surprising Insights from the Unchurched (Zondervan Publishing)
White, James Emery. Rethinking the Church (Baker Books)
Mims, Gene. The Kingdom Focused Church (Broadman Holman Press)
Warren, Rick. The Purpose Driven Church (Zondervan Publishing)
