Characteristics of a Healthy Church

When Kim and I came to this area 11 years ago, Murfreesboro was a close church.

Our average attendance was 50 to 55. We met at some, well, it's campus life. That's right, campus life. And we were there for a while, then we had to move to another place, and then to another place. This is the fourth place we've been to in 11 years. And God's always blessed us. But it was interesting. That group of people, for years, some people would die, some people would move out of the congregation, some people would move into the congregation, brand new people would come. But for years we stayed at average attendance was 55. You go up a little bit, you go down a little bit, you know, one week, hey, we reached 63. The next week it was 45. You know, but it always averaged. At the end of the month, the average was 55, basically. And we were that way for years. COVID hit. We had a lot of deaths. You know, we had about three or four people die there within a year or so.

And then in 2024, we had more people coming. We had some new people. We had people moving into the area. And we went from 55 to 65 to 75. And there was a growth that was taking, going on. We've now had some of our brethren who have decided to come and be part of us. And I am impressed with how easily this has happened. It's just we're all brothers and sisters, and we're just so happy you're here.

But all of a sudden now we're averaging over 100. And so in two years we've gone from 50, we've doubled in two years. That's a blessing from God. There's also growth brings its own set of issues, right? Its own set of problems. Its own set of what do we do next. And that's what I want to talk about today. I'm going to be giving the same sermon in Nashville because the congregation has been so traumatized by leaving a place they've been in for so long that we need to discuss what it is, why they should still be a congregation, why they are a congregation. They've gone through a similar situation. We came here, there was probably average attendance, there was 110. And they drifted down, it got smaller and smaller, people died. We had a lot of deaths there. We had people move out. It was amazing. We had like five families move out of the area at one point within a year. And we were down, average attendance was 70. And now it's moving up, average attendance is 90. It's headed in a different direction. We got lots of babies. We got some brand new people coming into the church. So they're going through a similar situation, but their trauma is the building right now. So we got to talk about in both places, what is a congregation? You know, the church, well, use that word church. It's not a building, and it's not an organization. It's the assembly. It's the people who gather together to worship God every Sabbath. We are the church.

And so what does that mean? We are the church. How do we deal with, we've had to deal with some loss, and now we're dealing with growth. Those patterns will repeat over and over again. I've been in the ministry over 40 years, and I've watched that pattern over and over and over again.

So we have an opportunity here to really have God working us in a special way.

So where do we go to answer the question, what do we do next? It was actually in Acts 2. Many of you have been around a while. You know that I like to, I don't do it every year, but around the Feast of Tabernacles, I like to give a scripture that we focus on until Passover as a focal point. How do we focus for that time when we're not looking forward to a holy day? And so I give a scripture, and I put it in the pastor's update, I talk about it from the pulpit, and we go back to it every once in a while. I have a scripture that is going to be what I would hope, and I'm encouraging all of us, that this is what we're going to focus. This isn't the only focus. I mean, you know, we have the whole Bible study, but this is a congregational thing that we are going to focus on on a regular basis between now and Passover as a group, as a group. This scripture and what it means. I'll be talking about it from time to time. Obviously, it's not going to be every sermon. I encourage you all to talk about it, to discuss it. I encourage the speakers who give the sermonettes and the split sermons and the sermons that they find bits and pieces of this, and they put this scripture, principles in this scripture, into their messages over the next six months to focus us in on being prepared for what we're supposed to be as a congregation, people who come together. We're all here because we want to be here. What we're going to look at is the very first congregation.

And I could give the whole history of that very first congregation, but it would take literally two or three hours to do it because the book of Acts has a lot of information. I'm going to look at how they started, because how they started and the things they went through are very important to understand. And it's also important for us to understand. This congregation within 40 years didn't exist in the city anymore. People had fled and existed someplace else. The congregation was even there. But what a 40 years they went through. So let's go to Acts chapter 2.

I'm not going to give you all the answers. I'm going to give you points in this passage. And after every point, if you keep notes, write down action plan. The action plan is what you have to create. You have to do this. You have to, on your knees and before God, and in the scripture, you have to say, how do I now participate? What is it I do here? And like I said, I hope you all discuss it. I hope there's discussions over the next six months and messages.

Where we keep going back to this focal point, what is God doing with us? What does He want us to be? We have this example. This church formed in a dramatic way. Pentecost pouring out of God's spirit. People saw it. And they grew by huge numbers. I mean, numbers that we've never experienced. May probably has never happened since this point. And this is another thing we're going to realize, too. As we go through what they went through, there are things that were unique to them because of what God was doing. Very unique to what He was doing with them. And so if we pick this up in verse 40, Acts 2, 40 through 47, is our focal scripture. That's what we want to really look at, be thinking about. And I just encourage all of you over the next six months to keep going back and get immersed in this. Get immersed in this. And in your prayer, God, what do I do here? How do I participate? What's my responsibility? What am I supposed to do?

Verse 40, let's talk about Peter. Peter's instructing people there at the temple. And with many other words, he testified and exhorted them, saying, be saved from the perverse generation. And then we start to see what happens. They receive the Word of God. The Holy Spirit's been poured out on people. And something happens. Very first statement. That those who gladly received His Word were baptized, and that day about 3,000 souls were added to them. That hasn't happened since or before. So that was the only time you can find anything like that happening. We're going to see miracles. There's all kinds of things that happen here, because God is setting the template up.

And we live in this, and we're supposed to follow this model in the world that we live in. Many were baptized. This is the first thing we begin to understand about the first congregation. They were a covenant people. That's what baptism is. Baptism is the covenant God makes with you. Just like circumcision was the covenant God made with ancient Israel, we enter into a covenant with God.

Baptism is the outward sign that you have entered into that covenant. And these were covenant people. They wanted to come into a covenant, a relationship with God. And they were baptized. And of course, then they received God's Spirit, because the new covenant offers us the indwelling of God's Spirit.

And so that was given to them. But they were a covenant people with God. You and I must understand that we are a covenant people. Each of us individually, God made—we didn't make it, he made it—we just said yes, right? God made a covenant with each one of us. And then brought us together into an assembly to say, you are my covenant people. It's an identity. And they had a covenant people's identity. They just didn't say, everybody come off the street and come join us, and it's okay. No people are saying, we want to be part of what God is doing here. We want Him in our lives at this level.

We accept Jesus Christ, because they were learning who Jesus Christ was. Most of them have seen Him. They knew Him or heard of Him. And they say, oh, we know who He is. We go to the Scripture. And so they want to enter into this new covenant. That Christ said He brought.

The Old Testament prophesied. Now I want you to remember something. At this point, they have no Scriptures except the Old Testament. Nothing in the New Testament is written yet. They have nothing of what we call the New Testament. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, hadn't been written yet. This is the beginning of Acts. It was years later before Luke would finish this book and write this book. That's all they have is the Old Testament. They're looking at the Old Testament. They're looking at the power or the pouring out of God's Spirit.

And they're looking at what's happening and saying, yes, this is prophecy. God is doing this. We want to be part of this covenant. We are a covenant people. Now if you haven't really thought about that for a while, this next comes this one point where you say, okay, what's your action plan? Well, the first thing I think you should do is go read the New Covenant booklet again. I won't ask you how many have read this recently.

For most of us it's been years. I have to admit, it's been a long time since I've sat down and read all of it again. I've read parts of it. But not just read the booklet.

Read the scriptures. The booklet is just an attempt to explain the scriptures. It's the scriptures that God talks to us in. That's the way He reaches to us. So take this, all 170 pages, and study it. Now, you may decide, I would like to do something else or whatever. I'm just saying, at some point, if we're going to do this, you're going to have to come an action plan. And I'm just going to show you a few ideas.

You're going to have to make up your action plan with prayer and thought and reading Acts 2 and reading through this and saying, what am I to do? Well, how am I to participate in what God is doing? So, first thing is, there are covenant people. That's a whole sermon. Every point I have is a whole sermon. I will try to get done in 55 minutes. But you need to make your action plan. Now, you may go home and say, that was sort of interesting or that was boring. I'm not going to make an action plan, but you're missing the point.

It is your responsibility to look through this and say, God, what is it that I am supposed to do and participate? How am I supposed to do that as a covenant person? Because we are here because we're covenant people.

God made a covenant with us. Okay, first point. Well, that wasn't so hard, was it? Well, point number two, verse 42. And they continued steadfast in the apostles' doctrine. Now, it's interesting, they didn't have the New Testament. The apostles' doctrine was their interpretation of the Old Testament. You and I live with the benefit of the New Testament. We also have the apostles' doctrine, which comes right out of the Old Testament. They're connected.

These people believe that coming together in this assembly was more important than just having friends. Now, we're going to talk about the importance of our relationships with each other.

They saw that they came together to learn and live by biblical doctrine.

And it's so easy for us at times to slowly drift from biblical doctrine. It was interesting, we were discussing with one of the halls we'd been looking at in Nashville. It was a minister. By the way, the hall that we have has a small steeple on it, which I wish it didn't, but at least there's no icons inside. There is one cross, but like we ignore this one, you could ignore that one. It's not even where you can normally see it. There is a small steeple outside. But anyways, we were talking about doctrine. He was talking about his doctrines. I shared with him a lot of our doctrines, because if these offend you, then, you know, we understand.

He said, actually, my congregation will be keeping the Sabbath, except I can't get him to do it, because that's what we should be doing. It's one of the Ten Commandments. So, he asked if he could come to our services. I'm sure he can come visit our services.

So, it's, you know, it's interesting. He believes in his doctrines. He does. He's a very, I have, he's a man who is honorable. He believes, but he understands he's wrong with certain things, but he can't change it because of his congregation.

We look at the Scripture, and we're constantly trying to learn the doctrines. Now, there are certain things that are teachings. Now, doctrine means teachings, but there are certain things that are so doctrinal that they're central to what we believe. There's other things that are teachings that we've changed over the years. You know, what does some, you know, what does 144,000, who are they in the book of Revelation? Well, it depends on when you came into the church.

You came in and doing the radio church of God, you had one teaching, the World War Church of God, you had another teaching. There were different teachings about a lot of things. Those weren't doctrines. Those are salvation issues, right?

So, there's a difference between those two things. There are things, doctrines, that we hold to, and we are going to teach, and we're looking for the scriptural basis for it all the time.

These are doctrine-centric people. They look for the full teachings of the scripture.

You know, it's interesting. We always go to the church in Berea, which was right not long after this, right? And these people are applauded in the scripture because they search the Bible to see if what they were taught, being taught, is true.

And being guided by God's Spirit, they had come to the conclusion, this whole group of people there, know what Paul and Peter and James, what they're teaching, that's the truth. And they came to that conclusion. They came, they became an assembly in Berea.

They became an assembly. A group of people called out to come together. And they were very interested, or they were very driven by what are the teachings. You're here for a lot of reasons. One is you believe in the Sabbath, right?

If I got up here and said, we're going to change the Sunday, you know how many people would be here next week? My wife wouldn't even be here, right? Because we believe that. It's not just a teaching, it's a doctrine. So they continued in the apostles' doctrine. Now, that means that you need to be in the Bible all the time. Daily Bible study. You know, people set certain times. It has to be 20 minutes, or a half hour, an hour, whatever. Those are arbitrary. We need to be in the Bible daily to study the teachings of God.

You get a Bible to read the... You get these Bibles where you read through the Bible in one year. If you're interested in that, do that. Read a section of the Bible. You know, read... study the minor prophets. Study the gospels. Just go through the gospels.

Take a subject. Take a subject and look for the continuity in the entire Bible.

I remember when I had a master of college, I even did this for years. They taught us how to find... how to find... to put together the continuity of the Bible by subject, and then color code your Bible.

So faith was red in my Bible. And from Genesis to Revelation, there was all these red verses. Of course, the problem is I ran out of colors, and then I had certain verses that had six different colors.

You know, so, well, I'll do this, and I'll mark these sentences. And in the very same, it was like, this is meaningless. I can't keep it all clear. It was better to write out, type out, okay, the continuity of the subjects. But subjects, the Bible by subject, is a good way. There's a lot of different ways to study, to find the historical background of certain things, why things were said at certain times, to be delving into the Bible we should be doing every day. Harmony of the Gospels. Once again, what's your action plan? Well, you could start with this if you want to, but, you know, that way you're actually doing two action plans at the same time.

But create an action plan that's yours that you create. It also says there, in verse 42, fellowship and breaking of bread.

These people had close relationships and they ate together. I've always said, one of the proofs of the true church of God is potlucks.

We like potlucks. But they spent time together. They were a community of people. They just didn't come together and meet at Sabbath services, say hello to a few friends, and, you know, we're going to have people we're closer to than others. That's just normal, right? That's what we do as normal human beings. It's not wrong. But, and believe me, when 3,000 people are baptized in one day, they didn't know each other. That's a huge amount. There was no way for them to even know each other. You know, studies have shown once a church gets to about 150 people, it breaks up into groups.

Because you can't know each other.

This is a good size right here. You can get to know each other.

So that's why, you know, there's a movement towards mega churches, and there's another movement that once a church is big enough, they create another, what they call campus, and they separate them. They keep the numbers down some. Because they get so big nobody knows anybody. Just depends on what their agenda is, what their goals are. These people cared for each other.

How much do we know each other and care for each other? We're not just a loosely affiliated group of people. You know the hardest thing in my ministry in the last five years? Because of all the other, because of Beyond Today and all these other things I've had to do, I used to know everybody in my congregations. And I don't anymore. I mean, I'd been to their house, they'd been to my house. I just can't do that. And I can't tell you what I miss in that. I miss it.

Because it's just not possible. Well, you can get to know each other.

Those relationships conform. They ate together. You know, something we did a few years ago as an organized activity, maybe I'll do it again or just say, hey, let's do it.

We had a fellowship day in which everybody was supposed to go find somebody they didn't know and have them over their house after services. Some of you remember that?

Have you over their house after services? You didn't go to a restaurant. You went to their house. Some people had to drive an hour to get to somebody's house, because it takes it or whatever, and they would spend the afternoon together. Drive home. Did it in the summertime so you could drive home before dark. If you didn't know or you said, well, I can't invite somebody over my house, but I need somebody to invite me. We just had two sheets of paper. I want to go someplace. I need somebody to come to my house, and we sat down and matched them up.

And you couldn't have three or four families over. You could have one, maybe two, maybe one family and a widow. And that did so much for these two congregations. That was a lot of years ago, because people had to get to know each other, and they ended up, they liked each other.

Relationships were developed because of this. They ate together at their house. No other distraction.

No other distraction. People were driving, they were driving to pick up a widow to bring her to church so they could take her back after she was at their house. They were spending two hours driving that day just to make sure she got there. And there was a change in the congregation. Maybe we'll do that again. Right now, you could take an action step that you're going to begin to build deeper relationships with others in the congregation. That's what they did. Now, it's easier for them, by the way. They all lived within walking distance of each other. We don't. But you know, they also didn't have phones, internet. They didn't have other ways to connect that we do have. And we can't connect each other in different ways.

Now, you say, well, I'm an introvert. That's okay. We just find that we need to find an extrovert to have you over their house. There's nothing wrong, by the way, being introverts. That's just a personality trait. It's not evil. Extroverts think introverts are just, there's something wrong with them. And introverts know there's something wrong with extroverts. People talk all the time.

Now, they're just personality traits.

Fellowship with one another. Okay, verse 42, we have another. And in prayers. And in prayers. The early church was a praying church.

We need to make sure our prayer life is constant. And we need to pray for each other. We need to pray for each other. Just pray sometimes for the congregation as a whole. Please help our congregation do what you want us to do. It doesn't matter whether there's 10 people or 100 people, whatever the congregation, that's an assembly called by God of the people he's working with. And these same principles apply. You know, when Peter was in jail, now we're going to talk about some of the things that happened. We think, oh wow, there was all these miracles, all these good things. From this point on, there were miracles and things for a while, and then it got pretty ordinary, and then it got really bad.

By the time this congregation ceased to exist, when they had to flee Jerusalem because the Romans had it surrounded in 70 AD, there weren't too many miracles going on. They were fleeing for their lives.

The greatest miracle, the greatest miracle, always. It's not healing. I've seen God heal. I've seen God not heal. And sometimes a person's faith wasn't the issue, it was his will.

I've seen God protect people and not protect people. I've seen God make his decisions. And you know, the greatest miracle wasn't the opening of the Red Sea.

That wasn't the greatest miracle. The greatest miracle is a God to take corrupted human beings, put his spirit in them, and change them so that they can receive eternal life. There's nothing greater than that, except for Christ coming. Christ coming is the first greatest miracle. The second one is conversion. That's what the assembly is for. Conversion.

That's why, you know, I've met people who, they just don't like what they call organized religion, so they just stay at home by themselves all the time and keep the Sabbath. And they're missing something. They're missing something. We are the assembly. But you know it's messy being an assembly, isn't it? Sometimes we get on each other's nerves. Sometimes we find out other people's sins.

Sometimes it gets, it is messy. It's always been messy. And when you look here, you see the point where Peter was in jail, in prison, and when he got out, God miraculously performed a miracle, got him out. What did he do? I'm just going through some things that happened in the few chapters after this. He ran to somebody's house in the church, where they were meeting and praying together. And of course, we have the young girl that opened the door, looked at him, and ran off and said, I don't know, I think it's a ghost, right?

It's some spirit or something, because Peter's in prison. They had to go open the door and ask him to come in. He's probably standing out. I don't know whether he's laughing or shaking his head, but it's like, yeah, okay. I just got out of prison through a miracle, and he won't even let me in the house. See, it wasn't always perfect. It was tough in a lot of different ways.

Now, I'm not saying we should always have prayer meetings. That's what I'm saying. I'm saying we should pray for each other. There's a time, you know, wow, we just, I just got an email, someone's so sick, and you're with some other church members, and each of you give a little prayer for that person. That's okay. So I'm not saying, hey, I'm just going to organize prayer meetings. I'm talking about what happens when people are in distress, and they pray, and they pray together. The problem is, if someone tries to say, I'm going to lead us all in prayer, and then I'll assign who prays. That's wrong. This is a very personal thing that happens in the reality of the moment. See, these are real. What we try to do is recreate these things artificially. We're going to have a prayer meeting, and, oh, it's your turn. I've decided I'm in charge, and it's your turn to pray. I mean, I would never do that. Call a group of people together, and maybe have them take turns praying. That's too personal between them and God. It's just wrong. But I've been to cases where someone just, oh no, they, someone just died. Someone said, can we pray? Yeah, sure. They pray. The next person prays. Someone says, hey, no, I'm fine. And a couple people pray. That's just normal. That's natural. That's not play-acting. And they were doing that. That's a little fora-dus. And I'm not saying you should go out and try to make it happen. I'm saying if it happens, it's okay.

So what we're looking at, these people prayed. These people prayed all the time.

And then it says, then fear came upon every soul. Verse 43. So we moved on to it. So you're going to need to make an action plan about prayer the next six months as a rededication to your prayer, your prayer life. I've been doing that. And my, I just, you know, self-revelation. What I've been praying is God help me understand Him more and Christ more. I want to understand more who He is and who Christ is. But I tell you, there's been a few times in the last few months where I've been doing that that I literally felt fear because I, you know, just some realization. Wow.

That's how great God is. I was watching a hummingbird. I was praying and looking at a hummingbird. And there was a little bit of fear. How does He make that? How does He do that?

Now that's not a wrong kind of fear. That's all of God, right? What's interesting here, fear came upon everyone. Now there was this, this is, oh, we're living in absolute fear of God. He's going to punish us. He hates us. No, it's the realization. Remember the Holy Spirit had been poured out. They saw miracles going on. And they said, God is so much greater than we imagined. God is so much greater than we imagined. They also had known about, or many of them had seen Jesus. He was resurrected. And there were hundreds of people saying, I've seen Him. I've seen Him. He has been resurrected. So in the context here, you can see why these people are very humble at this point. It doesn't last long, but they're very humble at this point. And this first congregation.

How do we have an action plan to, to begin to ask God or attempt to understand God more so that we hold Him at a deeper respect and a deeper awe, a deeper feeling of just, before Him, I'm nothing, but He makes me something. See, there's this, if I'm nothing before God, but He loves me and He wants to make me something, that, that makes life worth living. What He does when we submit to it. They were doing that. It says that many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Once again, there are lots of signs and wonders, but there's a flip side to all the great miracles. We find in Acts 6 that one of the first deacons is speaking to a group of Jews, and they don't like what he's saying, and they kill Him.

I don't think anybody wanted to be ordained a deacon for a while.

He's ordained a deacon, and he dies in a violent manner.

In the book of Acts, we can see that they had, just within days and months after this, you know, he dies. They have a major controversy over the taking care of widows. Now, it says in the King James, the New King James, this is the Greeks and the Hebrews, this doesn't mean gentiles and Jews. There were only a few gentiles in Jerusalem at the time. The great controversy was over those who spoke Greek and those who spoke Hebrews. The one who spoke Hebrew was Aramaic was obviously more superior, more righteous. We speak the language of the Bible. Greek was a common language. We know that Stephen was stoned by men who, many of them, spoke Greek. So you have a controversy inside the church. Well, wait a minute, all these things are happening. Well, that's the thing about it. It's always messy. God's doing his work and we're all messed up. And the result is, he does his work in our mess. That's what he does. He does his work in our mess. As a congregation, we have to have such a relationship with God and with Christ that we willingly live in the mess.

Now, I mean, there's certain things you can't take. I mean, many of us had to leave, right?

We left because the change in doctrine was sin and they were promoting sin and we weren't going to follow that. But what I mean is, the day-to-day problems we face, we solve. Well, sometimes we don't solve, we live with as we struggle through this. They did it. They had a problem over widows. Who would take care of the widows? They had a problem with some being a little bit prejudice. Peter wasn't going to baptize Cornelius because he was a Roman soldier.

So God gave him the Holy Spirit anyways. And Peter said, oh, I better baptize you. You're now part of the covenant. He was part of the covenant. He had to baptize him. So that was going on in these early days. You had the first Jerusalem conference in Acts 15 because why? They have doctrinal issues. Gentiles are coming to the church and they don't even know what to do about that.

What do you do with all these pagans that are saying, no, we're giving up our paganism because Paul taught us we want to come into the church, okay, and they were keeping the Sabbath so they would have shown up at Sabbath services. And it's like, oh no, what do we do with these people? Okay, we've got to have some plan because there was all kinds of controversy about it. And of course there were personality conflicts. Paul and Barnabas had a personality conflict over Mark. And Barnabas was right. Paul was wrong. And we brought out in the sermon, Paul was wrong. And later, Paul worked it out between him and Mark, right? In other words, they worked through the mess. They worked through the sticky times. They said, we're called to be together and so we will work it out with God's Spirit and God's help. Do you have a plan for that?

How do we do that? It's never easy.

That's where we better be praying.

But this is what God expects. This is what the example of this first congregation is. And then it says, now all who believed together had all things in common. They sold their possessions and goods and divided them all as anyone had need. Now, this has been used as a belief that the earliest Christians believed in a form of communism. Of course, communism did not exist at the time. I mean, that's a modern invention from the 1800s.

We know that's not entirely true because they were selling things to be together. You have to realize thousands of people had been baptized. People had come in for Pentecost from all over the Roman Empire, Jews from all over the Roman Empire, and including some proselytes, those who had Gentiles who had been converted. They had come in, thousands of them never left. They never went home. And they stayed there to be part of the church. So people were selling things, having people move in with them.

Now, this would cause problems later. We know that within another 10 years or so, you find the church in Jerusalem in poverty.

They ended up in poverty because of this. That doesn't mean what they were doing is wrong. The point he's making is these people were willing to give up for each other. And we know what happens when someone played the game, right? Ananias and Sapphira. This is all in these first, oh wow, everything must be great. No, right here at the very beginning, Ananias and Sapphira decide that they want to be popular like Barnabas because Barnabas sold some land and gave the money to the church. So they sold some land and then pretended that they sold all their land. They just pretended and came in and lied so that they would be popular, so they'd be looked on as someone special. What's absolutely... I mean, every time I read it, it's just like a punch in the gut. God killed them. This is the New Testament. Why? They said, because you're lying to the Spirit of God. These people have the Spirit of God. You're not just lying to anybody. You're lying to people who are the people of God, and you're supposed to be someone is called. You were called to this, and you're lying so that you can have power and control over others, and he killed them.

Boy, I mean, I've never experienced that now, so I'm willing to trade some miracles for not watching someone get killed by God. I'm willing to live with that trade. I mean, I've seen miracles, but you understand what I'm saying. This was such a remarkable time, but it was a hard time, too. All these things that were going on. Verse 46 says, so they continued daily with one accord in the temple.

The temple was the only place for them to meet. Guess what happened when they got kicked out of the temple? They had to go find someplace to meet, and there is no record that they ever could meet together as one group again. Where would you put 3,000 people? Plus more. Where would you put all these people? Plus children. Where would you find a hall for 5,000 people in Jerusalem? So they probably broke up into smaller assemblies. I mean, broke up in competition with each other. I mean, under the direction of the apostles, they probably, and I'm guessing at this, because I don't know where they would meet. Once they were kicked out of the temple, there's no place in Jerusalem for them to meet. So they had their problems, too. And yes, they had hall problems. Verse 46.

So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, every one of these points, by the way, you need to think about. Is there an action plan you need to take? Is there something you need to think about? That's why I'm encouraging all of you to study this, and I'm not going through. Here's six points on how to do this, because we need to work this through ourselves and together, and together.

I mean, the greatest thing that could happen is one of you walk up to another one, you know, a couple weeks from now and say, they were breaking bread from house to house, and they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart. I've been really struggling with what is simplicity of heart. Good.

I hope those kinds of conversations happen. I hope that kind of study happens.

We have a unique opportunity to say, wow, you're blessing us. What is it we are to do? All of us together of one accord. There's a Honda joke in there, but I am going to walk right past it.

Simplicity of heart. This is another action plan, as each of these points, to think about, because I started thinking about that, simplicity of heart. They were not being motivated by the standards of society. These people weren't being motivated by greed and selfishness. They weren't being motivated by a desire to control others' competition. They weren't being motivated by pride. They were just being motivated by the simplicity of a heart that was submitting to the Spirit of God.

I have come to the conclusion, that little phrase there, if we can learn what that really means, you guys want to give a split sermon on this? Simplicity of heart. If we have simplicity of heart, a lot of the daily trials we have will no longer be that important, because we have a simplicity of heart. The early church is known for their simplicity of heart. And then it says, in verse 47, praising God.

We pray a lot. We don't necessarily praise God, probably as much as we should, because we don't always think about his worthiness. God is worthy of worship. God is worthy of praise.

Absolute worship. There's something in the human mind that says, no, absolute worship is wrong. God is worthy of it. God deserves it. And God requires it.

That we see him as worthy of his praising him. Every time we sing, that's what praise is. Worship is different than praise. Every time we sing, we're praising God.

And that has to come from not just reading the words in the hymnal and doing it by rote because we've done the same song forever. We're going to start having our hymn sings more often and try some new songs. Try some new songs. I've talked about this. We need to try some new songs so that we learn to go back. You know, sometimes you're singing a song and it's coming out of you. You know, there's a meaning to it. Other times, you know, by the waters of Babylon has no meaning to me anymore. Except it sort of makes me depressed. I have to really work on that one. Okay. I saw a couple people shake their head yes, okay. We have to praise him because we know who were coming before. And it's amazing. He didn't say, do this alone. Come together. Ah, you won't get along at times. You're not going to understand each other at times. Even in your marriage, you're not going to always have it right. Even among your own family, you're not going to always have it right. But you know, come together because you're going to get it right. Over time, with God's help, we get it right. Over time, He changes us. Over time, He converts us. That's the greatest miracle. The greatest miracle isn't what we see. It's what He does to us and what we see when we're changed. That's the greatest miracle. Opening the Red Sea was child's play to God. It's like playing with Play-Doh. It's child's play. Healing us of cancer is manipulating molecules. To us, of course, it's a miracle because we can't do it. You know what it is to God? It's manipulating a few molecules. That's all it is. It's not like He looks at the angels and says, oh, watch this. Look what I can do. No, it's there. I can do that. He can do all of it. He chooses not to do all of it for a reason. That's another sermon. He chooses not to do all of it, and there's a reason. But we must be praising God. And then the last statement here is very interesting. Having favor with all the people. That's outside the church. You and I will be persecuted for what we believe. If we're persecuted because of our keeping of the Sabbath or our faith or we're persecuted because of that, well, then that's going to happen.

We're told it's going to happen. The first church has page after page of that happening.

But people should be able to say, you know, but they're such nice people. In the beginning of the 100s AD, there is a…it's not the actual letter, but it's a…someone recorded the letter and it was passed on from one of the governors of the Roman Empire sent to one of the Caesars saying, I'm not sure why I have to arrest and prosecute Christians. Basically, they're nice people. And when they…I bring them before me, they just meet together on a certain day. You didn't even know what day it was. And before sun up, because, you know, they're going to get attacked by mobs if they see them, before sun up, usually out in the country, and they are taught not to steal, not to lie, not to cheat, not to kill. And he said, and then they eat a meal, which was, you know, all these proofs of God's church, and there was one of them. They eat a meal. And he says, it's not even some particular food. It's just normal food. And they sing a song.

He said, why am I persecuting these people? And the emperor, I can't remember what…I think it was Hadrian. He wrote back and said, just leave them alone. Unless they're dragged before you, and then we have a problem because they're committing crimes against the state because of this worship of Jesus who we killed. So give them a chance to say, hey, I don't mean it or whatever. But he said, don't hunt these people down. That's how we should be known.

That if we're persecuted, it's because of our relationship with God, not because we're just not nice people. And he tells them that this was what the early church was.

They would be persecuted, but not because of their meanness or their lack of caring for others even outside the church.

They were known for those things. That's a big list, isn't it? It says, it finishes here in verse 47, and the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. He adds to the church.

You know, we look at the Jerusalem church as an example, but you know, I don't know if there's any church of God in Jerusalem today. I do know for, wow, at least 1,600 years there wasn't.

The only people that lived there were basically either Muslims, basically Muslims, for a long time.

So that church reached the end of its life and died. All congregations eventually. Now, this was going to be a long ways to go, and it may go on for, well, I don't know how long before Christ comes back. And he comes back 100 years from now. This church may be here 100 years from now, right? And most, none of us in this room will be here. It'll be a different generation of people. Certain churches go on and on. Corinth died out. Ephesus died out. But there are Sabbath-keeping churches who believe what we believe that we know have existed for a couple hundred years now. Much of what we believe. They still exist. Many of them, though, have changed, and they've lost a lot of truth. 70 Baptists have lost a lot of the truth that they had in the 1600s when they first came here from England. The church goes on. God calls new people. He brings them together, and they have an opportunity to be a family. This church, and the one in Nashville, has lasted for at least four generations now.

It's lasted longer than the Jerusalem church lasted.

Because we've been around for, you know, some of you had grandparents in the church. A few of you had great-grandparents in the church here. That's four generations. Great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, children. Right? These churches have lasted longer in even just a number of years than the Jerusalem church, but it's the example. And it started this way, and ended by fleeing. It's the model that we should live by. We are more than just a group of people that meet here on the Sabbath. We've been called to be here. Every one of you has been called to be here.

This isn't the only congregation you can go to, and still be part of the church of God. It's not the only one.

But it's where we all are. I'm here because this is where I want to be.

And I would want to spend it with anybody but you.

So this is our sort of marching orders for the next six months. To take that passage in Acts, study it, make action plans for yourself. Maybe you won't even tell about it to yourself. And just talk about this. Share this. Bring it up. I'll be bringing it up from time to time. And for the speakers to think about, hey, I'm giving a message. There's one point there I can bring out in this message. Keep putting these pieces out there for us to work on so that God can help us to grow. And God can make us strong, and God can take care of us.

Have a good Sabbath.