Welcome to church.
My name is Renee and along with Dave and Mark and several other men and women, I am one of
the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church and I am really super glad that you guys are here
this Sunday.
I want to invite you to take out of your bulletins the message notes that look like this as we
conclude our three week series called Breakthrough and this morning let's talk about how to have
a breakthrough for lasting impact because I want to have an impact with my life, don't
you?
Let's talk about how both as individuals and as a group, as a church, we can have impact
in our culture and society.
Now as we start and as you kind of get your Bibles and your notes and your pencils or pens
ready to take notes, you know a lot of times we like to start out with something a little
bit funny, a little bit lighthearted and I got to show you something that I saw on YouTube.
It has to do with, well it has to do with Justin Bieber is what it has to do with and
I want to ask you a question, how many of you will admit, you'll just admit you have
no idea who Justin Bieber is, let me see your hands, you have no idea?
Look at all those hands, okay, you guys are out of it.
How many of you are willing to admit that you do know who Justin Bieber is, can I see
that show of hands?
How many of you are willing to admit that you've listened to an entire Justin Bieber
song all the way through, okay, good, all right?
Any fans of Justin Bieber here, really, seriously, okay, for those of you who don't know who
Justin Bieber is, for people of my generation, think Donnie Osmond, all right?
He is the new Donnie Osmond or David Cassidy, he is the latest teen singing sensation and
I'm telling you, he's all over the place, he's causing girls of all ages to just practically
swoon and scream, it's like Beatlemania all over again and if you don't believe me when
I say girls of all ages, watch this clip.
Cody's very sad today, Cody, why are you so sad, honey?
Because.
Because why?
Because I love Justin Bieber.
I can't hear you.
Because I love Justin Bieber.
You're crying because you love Justin Bieber?
Yes, I ran in my room.
You ran in your room and cried because you love him?
Yeah.
Does that make you sad?
Yes.
Why does it?
Because you don't get to see Justin Bieber all day.
Because you don't get to see him all day?
Yeah.
Why do you love Justin Bieber?
Because he loves me back.
Because you know he loves you back?
Yeah.
Honey.
Love me.
We don't have to cry because we love Justin Bieber.
Yeah, we do sometimes.
Well, what makes you cry?
Justin Bieber always makes me cry with his songs.
He always makes you cry with his songs?
Yes.
Okay, this goes on like this for about four more minutes.
And before you get on the mom's case, I mean, she tries to get the daughter to stop.
She's like, I'm going to stop videotaping her.
Please just stop crying right now.
This is getting ridiculous.
But the girl just keeps crying and talking about her undying love and devotion for Justin Bieber.
And this is how it ends.
Watch the screen.
You want me to keep recording you?
Yes.
Well, all you're doing is crying about Justin Bieber.
No, I won't.
I bet that Justin Bieber.
Oh, boy.
Well, while I was watching that, I thought about this and I thought, how does this happen?
How do things that nobody knew about a year ago suddenly become just phenomena that spread
across the globe, you know, Bieber mania, beetle mania, viral videos?
How do movements reach a tipping point where they have a breakthrough and suddenly they
have impact all over the globe?
And as I'm thinking about this, it occurs to me that long before technology, long before
mass marketing, there was a tiny grassroots movement that shot to the world's attention.
It's shot to a global history changing level and nobody has seen anything like it before
or since.
And of course, I'm talking about the Christian church.
I want you to check this out.
I've been reading the book of Acts.
That's the book in the Bible that describes what happened in the first generation after
the life of Christ.
And I want you to look at some excerpts from Acts that are in your bulletins.
Look at the box that's at the top of your notes there.
The book of Acts traces the history of the church.
And I want to look specifically at how it traces the growth of one church, the church in Jerusalem.
There's regular kind of attendance updates throughout the book.
Like when we first meet this church in Acts 1, verse 15, there's about 120 people in the church.
Max, 120.
Next update, Acts 2, 41.
Peter gets up to preach about a 20-minute sermon.
And this verse says, those who accepted his message were baptized.
And about how many people?
3,000 people were added to their number that day.
So it's an instant mega church on the first day.
Next update, Acts 4, 4.
It says the number of men grew to about 5,000.
And that's just men.
Generally speaking, where you find 5,000 men, about how many women are you going to have?
About 5,000.
And you're probably going to have maybe 30 to 40,000 children, maybe more.
So right here, this is just the fourth chapter of Acts.
And the church in Jerusalem is already at about 30, 40, 50,000.
And the growth rate just keeps exploding.
Now fast forward to Acts 21-20.
The apostle Paul is visiting this same church in Jerusalem.
And as they tell him, you see, brothers, how many thousands of Jews have believed.
The word thousands there in Greek is myrias, from which we get our word myriad.
Now to put this in perspective, most scholars that I read or read about this past week,
looking into this, believes that by Acts 21, there were about 60,000 to 100,000 believers in Jerusalem.
Now the entire population of Jerusalem at this time was only about 200,000.
So up to 50% of the city's population was going to this church.
And it just keeps on accelerating.
By the end of the book of Acts, this one group that could have fit into a single room,
in fact, did fit into a single room at the beginning of the book of Acts,
has expanded to 32 countries.
54 cities, nine islands, and the capital of the Roman Empire in 25 years.
Amazing.
I mean, Jesus was bigger than the Beatles at this point.
How did that happen?
You read this and you have to ask, what caused that impact?
And could it happen again?
Could it happen here?
I mean, could it happen here?
I mean, could it happen in Santa Cruz County?
You read further and it says that they successfully were attacking poverty in their city as a church.
Can it happen again?
I mean, 50% of their city attended church.
Can that happen again here?
It says they grew in favor with the locals.
Can that happen again?
As my friend Ray Johnson puts it, can we have an Acts 2.0?
2.0 right here today.
You've got to ask, what fueled the breakthrough of the early church?
What did they run on?
What was behind this world impact, this accelerated growth?
And can we get some of that?
Well, think first of what they didn't have.
They did not have unlimited financial backing, great buildings, flawless administration,
a stable economy, favorable government conditions, supportive media.
They didn't have any of that.
Sometimes I think we Christians here in Santa Cruz excuse ourselves.
We let ourselves off the hook a little lightly.
When we say, well, we just don't have a very supportive culture.
There's a word for a friend who says, there's a seafood word for it.
It's what you get when you cross a crocodile with an abalone.
It's a crocabalone.
You know what people say that?
Because neither did they for much of the first 300 years, they were illegal.
Being a Christian was not a way to get ahead.
It was a way to lose your head.
So what did they have?
What did they do?
One of the best descriptions of these early believers, and this really gets me fired up,
is in Acts 2 verses 42 through 47.
Those verses are printed there at the bottom of your notes,
but they're a little tiny there to fit on the bottom of your front page.
So I'd encourage you, if you have a Bible, flip them open to Acts 2 starting in verse 42.
And let me just say this as we explore this passage.
There are a lot of people today who are claiming to be Christians.
You can turn on the news and there's a lot of weird stuff being done in the name of Jesus Christ
that I think God would say, what?
You have got to be kidding me.
I have nothing to do with that.
You see it on the news all the time, pastors preaching hate.
And maybe you've had some kind of weird experience with church in your past.
So what I want us to do this weekend is I want us to look at the real deal.
What were these early followers of Jesus Christ like?
What was in their DNA that caused this accelerated growth even in the face of persecution?
Because I want to be like that.
And I bet you'd like to go to a church like this too.
It says they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship,
to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
Everyone was filled with awe and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.
All the believers were together and had everything in common.
Selling their possessions and goods they gave to anyone as he had need.
Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.
They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.
Praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.
And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Now I want you to look at that first phrase they devoted themselves.
Circle those three words and stay there on page one of your notes for a minute.
Because I want you to ask yourself to what?
They devoted themselves to what? What were they devoted to?
What did they care about?
What didn't they care about?
What were the basic non-negotiables that the early Christians were devoted to?
Because listen, we're launching a new season in the history of our church.
As Mark and Dave talked about during announcements, fall has started.
I want to give you kind of a fall preview this weekend.
And I want to say every single thing that we are doing this fall has come out of a sincere desire
to want to be more like this description of the early church.
Because I sincerely believe that the more we as American Christians and Christians and Santa Cruz
reflect what this early church was like, the more what happened then is more likely to happen now.
And let me just challenge you, if you're looking at that going, well, that could never happen here.
Us, enjoy the favor of all the people.
Us, grow to a point where 50% of our city, you know, at Aptos is 9,000.
Where 4,500 people come to church here.
Santa Cruz is what, 55,000? Where 27,500 people go to church here.
If you're at the point where you're going, well, of course that could never happen here.
I want to challenge you on your faith level.
Because as Christians, I think we can legitimately expect that what we see the Holy Spirit doing,
now I'm not saying that if that doesn't happen, that means the Holy Spirit's not here.
I'm not saying if that doesn't happen, we're not in God's will.
But I think we can have some reasonable expectation that we're going to experience
some of what the church in Acts experienced.
Certainly there's no reason not to devote ourselves to the same things that they devoted themselves to.
So let's unpack this passage and see if we can look at the strands of their DNA
and really commit ourselves as a church to being more like this.
Flip over to page 2.
I want to look at two sets of two things that I see in this passage.
Number one, their emphasis.
And then secondly on page 3, their environment.
What did they emphasize?
What were the kinds of things you were going to hear them talk about
when you went to church in Jerusalem?
Well clearly, when you look at the book of Acts, they talked a lot about politics
and what was wrong with the world today.
No, just kidding, they don't talk about that at all.
What do they talk about?
Number one, they emphasize the good news.
The good news.
And we need to do the same.
There is so much bad news in the world.
The last thing you need to do is come to church and hear more bad news.
I mean, I could stand up here every single weekend and tell you
everything that I think is wrong with the world.
And I think there's a lot wrong with the world.
Why in the world would I do that?
You could turn on CNN or Fox or MSNBC and see all that for yourself.
You come here for the gospel.
And the gospel is literally good news.
Now the passage we just looked at says they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching.
What does that mean?
What was the apostles teaching?
If you kind of think of that as kind of a long list of like 262 do's and don'ts,
or you think all kinds of random stuff that's in the epistles,
you're missing the big picture.
They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching.
What was the apostles teaching?
Every time you see the apostles teaching in the Book of Acts,
they are teaching the same thing without exception.
Tell me if you see a common thread in these stories.
In Acts chapter 2, the apostle Peter preaches a sermon.
And it's full of good news.
It's nothing but good news.
He says God has heard your cry as prophesied.
You matter to God.
That's really good news.
He says Jesus came as the Messiah, the Son of God.
That was proven by all the miracles.
That's super good news.
And it gets better because he died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sin.
That's great news.
And it gets even better because the power of God made sure he was risen from the dead.
And that means that you can be risen from the dead too.
That is awesome.
His message is all good news.
And that he ends with the best of all because it says all the people were cut to the quick
and said, what must we do?
And Peter says, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Story number two.
Later on in Acts, people try to complicate this simple message.
They say, you're making it too easy.
Make the new converts keep more rules.
And the apostles at the church in Jerusalem have a meeting.
And they say, no, we believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we're saved.
Starting to see a pattern here.
Story number three.
The apostle Paul and Silas are in prison.
And at midnight, there's an earthquake and the jail opens and the jailers afraid that all the men have escaped.
And then he sees that Paul and Silas have kept the men there safe in the prison.
And then he thinks to himself, I better pay attention to what these guys have been preaching.
And it says the jailer called for lights rushed in and felt trembling before Paul and Silas.
He then brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved?
Now stop right there.
Because I just want to kind of call an audible here and put this message on pause.
Because I was thinking about it this weekend.
Some of you might be asking this same question.
Very simple. You came into church this morning not thinking, how can I make a lasting impact?
You're thinking, what do I need to do to be forgiven?
What do I need to do to make sure that when I die, I go to heaven?
What do I need to do to make sure that the last time my eyes close here on planet earth,
that they open up to the light of God's love?
What must I do?
Well, what's Paul's answer?
He says, well, there's some rituals you have to perform.
And there's some things you have to do.
And there's some books of doctrine you have to learn.
And there's a church you need to join and give your money to.
Now he doesn't say that, does he?
Now let me be frank. There's a lot of people these days who will say that.
I mean, I don't want to pick on anybody or offend anybody.
But you could turn on the TV like I did this morning.
And heard a pastor talk about all the things you have to do to be saved.
You could answer the door to some people who come around.
And they'll tell you all the things you have to do to be saved.
All the rituals, all the doctrine.
But what does Paul say?
Period.
Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.
What was the apostles teaching to which the early church was devoted?
Literally every other sentence the apostles said in all their epistles and all their sermons was an explanation of that.
Was how does that happen?
And what does that mean?
But this was the central teaching of the apostles.
Let me show you a metaphor for this.
Do you remember this? This happened during the baseball playoffs last year.
Watch the screen.
Well, he just missed that ball as he fouls that ball.
Oh, nice grab.
That's a really good grab.
She says, well, let me have it.
Let me have it, dad.
Thanks.
Well, here it goes.
That little girl is going to be looking for a baseball against the game.
That guy probably dreamed for 35 years that he was going to catch a foul ball and not only does he catch it,
he makes just an amazing grab and he has it for one second before it's gone.
Let's look at this again from another angle.
Look at this.
Here's the guy and he's fist pumping the guys there next to him, hands it to her.
She says, whoops.
And then she looks at him like, uh-oh, do you see that switch in her demeanor?
She suddenly, her body language is like, oh, I did something bad, didn't I, daddy?
And you can imagine if you saw her face, the tears would start to kind of be brimming their inner eyes.
And the big question is, what does this dad do next?
Well, what you saw already was funny enough for it to make the highlights on a sports show.
But what he does next made him a national sensation because, watch, roll it.
He gives her a big hug and he smiles and he says, that's okay.
It's all right.
I forgive you.
And they try to go back to the game, but what was happening up there is way more interesting than the game.
And so they go back to the stands as he's just hugging her and he's just loving on her and she's trying not to cry.
And he's saying, I love you.
Well, you know what?
That is a great picture of grace.
That is an awesome picture of the good news.
Because you and I messed up and we turned to our Heavenly Father expecting only punishment.
And what does he do?
He gives us a big hug and he says, you're forgiven.
This is what the early church knew.
The early church knew that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and what Jesus Christ taught
means that even if you've thrown your life away, the Heavenly Father stands ready and willing to welcome back all the prodigals.
Man, that is great news that God wants to wrap his arms around you.
And the early church knew, wow, that means not only me, but God wants to wrap his arms around every single member of my family.
And God wants to wrap his arms around every one of your neighbors.
And God wants to wrap his arms around every single person who lives here in Santa Cruz County and every person who lives in the world.
This is what propelled them.
This is what motivated them.
This is why they went worldwide.
God is waiting to just love on you.
And I want to say right now, maybe you are in the Philippian jailers space right now.
And I don't just want to address this before we go any further.
Maybe last night, maybe tonight at midnight, you'll lie in your bed and you'll look at the ceiling in your room
and you'll just wonder, what must I do to be saved?
How do I feel cleansed?
How do I know I've got a fresh start?
And the message of this church, which is devoted to the teaching of the apostles, is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and you will be saved.
And I just want to give you an opportunity to just settle that issue in your heart right now.
What I'm going to do in a moment is I'm going to ask us all to bow our heads in prayer and then I'm going to pray a prayer out loud.
And if it reflects the feeling of your heart, if you can identify with that man, then I want you to just follow along silently as I pray.
So would you all just bow your heads with me right now?
And I'm going to pray out loud.
And if you want to settle this and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ today, here's what you can do.
Just say something like this silently in your heart.
Lord Jesus, thank you for loving me.
Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins.
I believe you rose from the dead.
Right now I choose to follow you as my Lord.
God, I run to your open arms.
Now, love me as my Father into the person you want me to be.
Now, if everybody's head's still bowed, if you prayed that prayer, I just prayed just now this morning.
I'm not going to call you out, but I want to pray for you.
I want to pray that God would just blow your mind with his love.
So if you just prayed that prayer, would you just slip up your hand for me right now?
We've had all kinds of people in the services, lots of hands going up all over the place.
God, would you just wrap your arms around these men and women?
And may they experience your love, your forgiveness, your power.
May this moment be the start of an impactful Christian life.
And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.
I tell you what, if you were one of the people who raised your hand,
when you go to heaven, you can look up that Philippian jailer and go,
it was your story that made me cross the line.
You know, give him one of those little baseball fist pumps.
Yeah, you know, because now you stand with him as one of the redeemed.
But right now I want to talk to the Christians here who've been Christians for maybe 20 years.
You prayed that prayer when you were a little kid.
Rewind back to Peter's sermon there in Acts 2.
He quotes the prophet Joel and he talks about what it's supposed to be like for us
if we believe the good news.
He says, because of this, my heart will be glad and my words will be joyful
and I will live in hope.
Look at that verse. Christians, sincerely, do you need to be more glad?
You need your words to be more joyful?
You need to live in hope instead of dread?
If you really understand and believe good news, it'll do that to you.
So why do Christians not have words that are joyful
and hearts that are full of hope and gladness?
You know why I think it is?
It's because we forget how good the good news is.
And that is why in just a couple of weeks we are launching the grace immersion here at this church.
This is something that we wrote.
It's not some curriculum we bought from somebody else,
but it's something we wrote because we feel like this is something our church could really use right now.
A reminder of the goodness of the good news.
What's it all about?
For 50 days we want every man, woman, and child here from the nursery all the way up to the oldest senior citizen.
You just immerse yourself in the Apostles' teaching about the grace of God.
We just got the books in a couple of days ago.
They look great and they're filled with two-page daily devotions that last for 50 days.
And there's more on our website, graceimmersion.com.
And there's seven small group lessons.
We'd love for every single person here, even if you've never joined a small group before,
to get into a small group.
There's daily readings, the messages, the songs, the testimonies every weekend will be about grace
all the way through till Thanksgiving.
Why?
So you can remember how good God is.
And you're going to get so inspired and so filled and so revitalized, so excited by grace
that you can't hold it in anymore and you just overflow with good news.
It's funny, I was talking to Laurel LeBaron who works with our children.
She was interviewing some of the kids who are going to be baptized today at the beach baptism.
And she sent me some of the responses and I'm going to be sharing them at the beach baptism.
But she said, Rene, it's just so exciting to see how consistently the answer of these third and fourth
and fifth graders about why are you being baptized was, well, because I'm on God's team
and He saved me and I ought to tell people about it because that's really good news.
They're just overflowing with joy and exuberantly they want to share the good news
and that ought to be the posture of this.
This was a non-negotiable for the early church.
They were just flat out excited about the goodness of the good news.
And by the way, one thing that happens in the book of Acts, very interesting.
First miracle of the church is what?
In Acts chapter 2, Peter preaches a sermon and because there were no UN translators,
because there was no technology at the time, supernaturally what happens?
God allows every single person there to hear the sermon in what?
Their own language.
Suddenly it strikes me this week looking at that passage.
That must be really important to God to let everybody hear the message in their own language.
And so I thought, well, there's one simple step that we can take and that is this.
Let's start offering simultaneous Spanish language translation in our services.
And what we're going to do is we're going to get kind of UN style headphones
and we're going to have translators sit up behind those glass booths in at least one service.
And I'm hoping eventually all three services of the weekend,
those translators are going to get a manuscript of our sermons,
no matter who's preaching, Mark or I or whoever else,
and they'll be able to translate the announcements and the message
so that an Acts chapter 2 thing can happen here,
because I think that's important to God.
So here's what I want you to do.
Take one of these welcome cards.
If you are skilled in translating Spanish,
now I don't mean you had two years of high school Spanish.
That's awesome for you, but if you're really, really fluent,
because I can just imagine the funny stories that could come out of this,
did you know what the translator said you said, Renee?
But if you're fluent in this, we would love to kind of audition you for this.
It's something that we're going to have to audition people for just like we do for the praise team,
because this is a unique skill.
But I'd love it if you would like to participate in this ministry,
put your name, a contact info and write Spanish on the welcome card,
put in the offering when it comes around,
so that we can also help Spanish speakers in our county be excited about the good...
I've had so many people tell me,
wow, you know what, I'm a second generation,
Mexican or Guatemalan and my parents would love to come with us
and be with their grandkids, but they just don't speak any English.
I think it's going to really bring families together.
So they were devoted, by the way, aren't you excited about that?
Does that sound exciting to you guys?
All right.
So, they were devoted to the good news and second,
they were devoted to good deeds, to good deeds.
Watch, these are stunning verses in that same passage in Acts 2.
It says, selling their possessions and goods,
they gave to anyone as he had need.
What if our church did this?
Because there's a very spiritual word actually for what happens here in our culture
and it's this garage sale.
So, let's do a 21st century version of this.
Call it the world's biggest garage sale.
We even had Kevin Deutsch put a logo together for us
and we got the website, world's biggest garage sale dot org.
And so, we're excited about that, going to put details up on that website.
Why? Listen, we've set records the past three years raising food for second harvest,
but times are tough right now, so we were brainstorming.
How can we freshen this up for people?
Well, why don't we do what the church in the book of Acts did?
Let's do what the early church did and see if what happens to the early church
can happen here.
Imagine people coming to these yard sales thinking they're a church fundraiser
and then you say, actually we're not keeping a dime of this money.
Our church is giving it all away to the poor.
I think that can be very, very powerful.
Now, I know you got some questions about this,
so I'm going to give a quick 60 second blitz interview
to one of the people that's running this for us, Dan Baker's wife,
Gwenda Baker.
Gwenda, where are you?
Come on up to the stage here.
Let's welcome Gwenda as she comes on up.
Okay, Gwenda, how are you doing?
Really good, thank you.
First question.
Very quick.
People have been confused.
They're going, so is it one giant garage sale here
or is it garage sales all over the county?
What is it?
I don't know why the subject of an octopus keeps coming to my mind,
but I'm picturing the Twin Lakes Church as the head,
and that's only if you can't be one of the tentacles out there
in Santa Cruz County doing your own home yard sale.
So we're going to have people all over the county doing garage sales
in their own home in addition to maybe somebody lives in an apartment
or they live way up on a rural road somewhere where it's hard to get to,
or maybe they just have like one pair of skis or something to sell,
and they can bring it here to the church.
And we're going to have a church yard sale.
We're going to have dozens of yard sales all over the county.
We're going to provide them with signs that match this logo
with direction signs, with sheets of tips for garage sales.
It's going to be very exciting.
And what's the date for this?
The yard sale itself is October 16th, Saturday, October 16th.
So every single yard sale takes place on that same day.
And is it a church fundraiser?
That was another question.
No.
It's a second harvest fundraiser.
All the money goes to the second harvest.
Now you said something in the, pardon me, the last service
that I think was very motivational to people
for putting together their yard sale,
and I want you to share that with us too.
It had to do with your amazing ability to find bargains at garage sales.
Yes.
Well, I want you to know that I got this dress at a garage sale.
All right.
How much was this beautiful black dress you've got?
$2.
What?
That's incredible.
And my vintage Judy Lee...
Wait, wait, wait.
Hang on here.
Hold the applause.
We don't have time.
Judy Lee Bracewood for $0.50.
$0.50?
She's a garage sale queen right there.
So she knows how to do it.
She's going to give you tips.
How many people are thinking, I'd like to participate with that.
Let me see a show of hands.
Okay, we've got dozens of people in this room.
As we add up all of the stuff, I hope we can come up with an amazing total
that is the biggest total ever achieved in a garage sale.
Let's thank Gwenda and her whole team for what they are doing in this.
It's going to be great.
And we're doing it to be like the first century church.
And by the way, let me just say, I think this is one of the most generous churches
I've ever had the privilege of being involved with.
You already know about the offerings for Katrina for the Indonesian tsunami
and so many other things.
But there's all kinds of little ministries like this going on all the time.
Wednesday I grabbed my cell phone, took a picture of one of these people's pantry barrels
that you see out in the lobby.
Many of you come into church as you worship, you drop some food in those barrels.
You know what happens to those things?
I went over there and took a shot of the people's pantry volunteers
putting grocery bags together.
They put together bags full of balanced meals.
And every week they feed 120 to 130 families with bags of food.
That's about 500 to 600 families a month.
And that is just one ministry at this church very quietly doing what the first century church does.
Why do any of this?
Here's the strategy.
Jot this down any notes. Good deeds create good will which brings openness to the good news.
Does that make sense?
Good deeds create good will which brings openness to the good news.
And that's why we're doing all those other things this fall
that are there in the box at the bottom of page two on your notes.
So look at this so far.
We're doing a lot of activity this fall but it all boils down to two things.
Good news and good deeds, period.
It's funny to me how often churches can get distracted from this very simple equation.
Good deeds, good news.
But page three and we'll go through this very quickly.
It has to happen in an environment of first loving support.
Loving support.
Ten times in the first five chapters of the book of Acts it says they were together in one accord.
And it's not talking about a Honda.
Here's what it is talking about.
Look at all these verses that talk about this in Acts, verse 42 of Acts two.
They devoted themselves to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread.
The CEV translates it, they were like family to each other.
Verse 44, all the believers continued together in close fellowship.
The message puts it like this, they lived in wonderful harmony.
Skipped to verse 46, they broke bread in their homes and ate together.
In the Living Bible it says they met in what?
Small groups in homes.
Really?
That's one reason why we're launching all these church-wide small groups next weekend
because that's how the first church did it.
It's so important for us not just to have a big gathering but also these small group gatherings.
Doesn't that all sound great?
Harmony?
Living together like family?
But listen, it takes devotion to this.
It says the early church devoted themselves to the fellowship.
Let me just take a risk here and talk about a pet peeve of mine.
Some of you are going, uh-oh.
It's always risky when the senior pastor goes, let me just talk about a pet peeve.
But it's this.
In this country we have created a generation of Christians who are devoted to Jesus
but are not devoted to the fellowship.
They'll self-identify as Christians.
In fact, there was an article on the religion page of the Sentinel about this just two weeks ago.
They'll say, I am devoted to Jesus Christ but not the church.
I love God but I just don't like His people.
Jesus is awesome but I quit going to church.
That was not the lifestyle of the early Christians.
I want to tell you something very personal.
I love the church.
I mean, I really do.
When my dad died when I was almost four years old and my mom who wasn't even a citizen of this country yet
was left as a single mom to raise two little kids,
you know, the food that people gave to help us and the support people gave to help my mom,
the social uplift that we got, that came from one place, the church.
Saved our family.
When I was growing up, the men who were father figures in my life took me to ball games
and taught me guy things, came from one place, the church.
The church helped sharpen me as a Christian.
The church helped me discover my gifts and encouraged me to go to seminary when I just wanted to be a DJ.
It was at seminary that I met someone else who got me even more interested in being a pastor
and that was Lori who's now my wife.
The church is the reason that I'm married.
The church is what helped me sharpen my idea of marriage
which I didn't have a very good idea about what's a father supposed to be like
because I didn't grow up with a father when I was a small child.
And I'll tell you something, as a father of three,
my wife and I have raised or are raising three kids.
They're now 20, 18, and 12 years old.
And not one of those kids stands embittered with their arms folded like some burned out PK,
pastor's kid. Those kids are all loving church.
And every single one of those kids without my wife or I even asking has rolled up their sleeves
and has plunged into ministry.
They love doing ministry.
Why? Because they've seen it here from you.
And so I have to thank you for being the kind of church that many pastors just dream of.
But I have to tell you, I love, love, love the church.
So often churches get short shrift and get criticized.
I love the church.
My family's life has been completely blessed and blessed and blessed because of the church.
Now, I'm aware that not everybody has had an experience like this.
In fact, let's just do a mass confession right now.
How many of you would say that at some point in your life you've been involved in a church?
Maybe this church in the past that has gone through a church split
or there's been some kind of church disharmony.
Can I see a show of hands?
Wow, look at that.
Two things.
First, if you were somehow involved with that, please do not do it again here.
I don't want to ask you that right now.
But second, why not be part of the solution?
Why not say, I don't want that to happen again.
I want to be part of the solution.
And that means not just coming to church on Sunday morning.
It means saying, even if you've never been involved before,
I'm going to get involved with a small group.
Maybe I'll even start a small group with the guys that I work with
or the guys that I work with at school or at work.
You can pick up more information on that at the information desk this morning
and say, I want to be part of the solution.
I want to offer loving support.
I'm in.
I'm all in.
And that would be awesome to be in a church like this.
And finally, they had an environment of supernatural power.
It wasn't marketing, it was supernatural power.
They didn't just talk about God, they experienced God.
It says they devoted themselves to prayer.
48 times, in fact, in the book of Acts, it says they prayed.
And they saw God move. They expected God to move in amazing ways.
People filled with awe, many wonders, miraculous signs.
You know, that still happens.
We've seen miracles at this church, miracles of healing,
miracles of marriages healed, not just physical healing,
financial miracles, all kinds of miracles.
Now, it doesn't happen all the time. That's why you call it a miracle.
But I'd like to see him more often, wouldn't you?
Can you devote yourself to prayer?
Can you expect God to move here with supernatural power?
The early church was fueled because God lit the fires in their hearts.
They weren't just trying to make something happen in their own strength.
So here's my question.
Do you think if we as a church were devoted to this, good news, good deeds,
in an environment of loving support and supernatural power,
do you think if we did that we could reach more people for Jesus?
Without a doubt.
That, right there, that's a church worth dying for.
And in fact, that's exactly what they did.
The early church was devoted to this vision.
The big question is, what am I devoted to?
Think back on the little girl who cried for Justin Bieber.
From your perspective as an adult, you might think she's childish
with her devotion to some pop idol.
But from God's perspective, what about you?
What are you devoted to?
What are you giving your breath for?
What are you giving your life for?
Well, let me ask you this.
What is Jesus devoted to?
He's devoted to, he gave his life for his bride, the church.
And I urge you, as the body here at Torn Lakes Church,
as we move into the fall, give that same thing your 100% devotion.
Just as the early church did, that is how to break through into our world
with real lasting impact.
Let's pray together. Would you bow your heads with me?
Heavenly Father, as we move into the fall, please bless this church.
Let us be a place of good news, good deeds, loving support,
and supernatural power.
Lord, rule here in this church and reign in our hearts.
Have your way in us. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
