The Four Essentials of a Vibrant Church

So here we are on the day of Pentecost, celebrating this momentous event. I really appreciated the opening prayer that God would just fill this room. We're not 120 quite, although maybe close. And each year we read this passage. If you want to turn over to Acts 2, we read Acts 2, and we're reminded of the miracles that took place that day.

But my question here to begin with is, well, what was the outcome of all that? What was really the outcome of that day? And we read that outcome in verse 41. Verse 1 to 4, of course, we have this miracle that occurs with the divided tongues of fire and this great noise, this rushing wind, as it were.

And then verse 5 to 13, people are confused, they're trying to figure out what's going on, what's happening. And then in verse 14, Peter stands up and he explains and he quotes from the book of Joel, and he gives us a very powerful sermon, which is a call to repentance. And then in verse 41, we see the outcome. It says, And we just think, wow, we need a bigger church hall, you know, 3,000 people all at once.

And sometimes we end up stopping there, but really that outcome of that day continues in verse 42. And he says, And based upon that, it says, verse 43, This is, verse 42 is such an interesting verse because what we really see here are four things which are the defining characteristics of a healthy community of believers.

Four things which launched the church from 120 people to thousands of people. Four things which we in this modern era really should copy. And again, we're talking about the outcome because we know that really this day is about the giving of God's Holy Spirit and pouring it out upon the church and the beginning of the church. And this is really what that outcome is all about. It says, And it's these four things that I want to talk to you about today.

And perhaps you've heard a discussion of these four things before. I've looked around and perhaps you've looked into this. What do each of these things mean for us today?

And why are they important as we continue on from our spiritual ancestors? And as we review these four characteristics, I think we need to ask if each of us is role modeling these four things individually, each of us. As I shared in a pre-Pentecost address, we are the church. You and me. Not the administration. We are the ecclesia in this room. We are the church. And we need these four things if we're going to grow spiritually in our understanding of this way of life. And we're going to need these four things if we're going to grow physically in numbers.

And we're going to talk about that. A lot of times we want to spiritualize some of these things. But Christ was very clear on this matter, and we'll get into that later. And so the title of my message today is, The Four Essentials of a Vibrant Church. The Four Essentials of a Vibrant Church. So let's just jump right into the first point. The first point here is the Apostles' Doctrine. The Apostles' Doctrine. What does that mean? Now, this word, doctrine, can be kind of a heavy term.

But really, fundamentally, it's just teaching. That's really what the Greek is talking about. Many other translations just say, the Apostles' teaching. That's what it says in most of the French translations. And if you study into this, what you'll find is sort of at the surface, if you just read sort of mainstream, traditional Protestant theology, they'll say, belief in Christ. And it sort of kind of stops there. You know, Christ came and He sacrificed, and this is what they talked about. They talked about their time with their Master and Lord Jesus Christ.

And certainly, that is an element. But if you really dig into what the Apostles' Doctrine or the Apostles' teaching was, you'll realize that it was centered on what the Church taught as a body of doctrine. A body of doctrine. What we might call today the fundamentals of belief. What were the fundamental beliefs of the Church that define what this Church was? And not just of the Twelve, but also later of the Apostle Paul, who was an Apostle out of season, as he's described. So let's just see just a couple examples of those. If you look over in 1 Corinthians 11, you'll see that this same theme is reiterated.

And you can keep your place there in Acts 2. We'll be coming back to Acts 2 pretty frequently during this message. 1 Corinthians 11 says, Imitate me... 1 Corinthians 11, 1 and 2... Imitate me just as I also imitate Christ. So there it is. The Apostles' teaching.

Follow what I say as I follow what Jesus said. Verse 2, Now I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things, and keep the traditions as I delivered them to you. Now, this tradition can be kind of a loaded word sometimes. Traditions, and we do things, and why do we do those things, and we kind of forget the reasons. But it's interesting that Paul chose this. Christ very clearly rejected the traditions of the Pharisees. He found those traditions to be all loaded in with all sorts of things that were outside of what the New Testament described. But nonetheless, Paul talks about these traditions that the church had taught. And so over the course of about 30 to 35 years, the church gathered up these core teachings of what defined who and what the church was.

And so we would expect that the New Testament church would be observing these things. Now, what's interesting here is Paul was an observant Jew. And so you expect the early New Testament church to be observing some of the same things that he observed. And to understand exactly what Paul taught, we can go over to Acts 24.

Acts 24, verse 14. If you haven't studied Acts 24, it is a great chapter to look at. It's one of my go-to chapters when I'm talking to new people coming in, trying to understand who and what the church of God is. Because they're like, well, you know, why is it that you do all these things that are in the Old Testament?

And Acts 24 would have been the ideal moment for the Apostle Paul to clarify all of this stuff. But if you're clear, you know, we're not Jewish and we don't observe Saturday. And, you know, we're Christians and it's new for us. And we've kind of put all those things behind us. But he actually had an opportunity here in Acts 24 to tell the Romans, to tell the Pharisees, to tell the Jewish authorities, and to tell the church exactly what it is Christianity was to find us. And, in fact, he did. Acts 24, verse 14.

This would be all the people within his Jewish heritage.

To me, this is such an encapsulation of who we are. We believe in the things of the law and the prophets and the resurrection of the dead, not just one but multiple. And that we should live blamelessly before God and men. We're not here to be offensive and poke people in the eye with our beliefs. We have to live with God and men without offense. So Paul is very clear that he believed in all the things written in the law and the prophets, rejecting the tradition of the Pharisees.

And so this would have most certainly included Sabbath observance. This would have been observing the annual Holy Days. Of course, Pentecost was one. That's described in the New Testament. It would have included things like abstaining from eating unclean meats, and many, many other things. This is what is defined in the law and the prophets. And there was a core set of teachings that the church subscribed to, and it's nearly universally accepted among biblical scholars, that it did not include the Trinity.

You don't find that in there. It did not include the veneration of icons. If you go to Greek Orthodox, if you go to, for example, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, it didn't include the sprinkling of water as a form of baptism. And I think I've shared with you that there's a church in Geneva, and below that church is what's called a paleo-Christian church.

It was built around the fourth century, so let's say about 70 years after the Council of Nicaea, or during around that time. And in this sort of early Catholic Church of the fourth century, you can see a baptismal pool. You can see where the Catholic baptism is baptized by full immersion in the third and fourth century. It wasn't until the seventh or eighth century that they were like, we're too tired, you know? Just sprinkle them. Right? Enough. All these people send them through.

So even the Catholics understand that. And I think we also understand that celibacy among the Catholic priesthood was something that came much later. The early Catholic priests were all married. So, you know, the Catholicism just sort of changed Christianity over time as they went through. And so all these things that were introduced later, the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD and so forth, these were not things that were taught by the Apostle Paul. We see what was taught by the Apostle Paul.

Here were all things that were written in the law of the prophets, and he worshipped the God of his fathers, the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. So these were the things that were part of this Apostle's doctrine. And of course, they included the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, as defined by Matthew and John. These were eyewitnesses to what actually occurred. The Gospel of Mark is essentially an interview with Peter.

Mark was Peter's assistant, so we have Mark, which is sort of Peter's, roughly Peter's account. And then the Gospel of Luke, which expands on what Mark wrote about, and then also brings in interviews and other research based on eyewitnesses that he interviewed. I mean, we see, for example, a very detailed account in the book of Luke of Jesus's birth. And so clearly, Luke would have interviewed Mary and got all that from her.

I mean, these kinds of things were all there. We know from 1 Corinthians 15 there were 500 people that saw the resurrected Jesus Christ. So this was this apostles' doctrine. We can see this described about 35 years after the resurrection of Christ in Jude 1, verse 3. So if you turn over to Jude. Jude is a half-brother of Jesus Christ. Very likely there on the day of Pentecost, we won't turn there, but if you look in Acts 1, you'll see that the apostles were there along with the brothers of Jesus.

And so likely Jude was there among them. And Jude writes this in verse 3 of his one-chapter book. Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints. This is this, as it were, fundamentals of belief. This accumulated 35 years or so of understanding of what the apostles' doctrine was. And modern scholars have a term for this.

They call this primitive Christianity. I'm not in love with primitive. It makes me sound kind of primitive. I'm a primitive guy, I guess. But we are part of that movement. That's the movement which is unaffected by all these later teachings that came in. Or paleo.

That's another kind of term you might see. Paleo-Christians. And so this is the apostles' teaching, and it is critical to maintain. It's what we maintain. It's a defining feature of the Church of God, of the United Church of God. And I might just mention, in the Church we have a doctrine committee. We have an ecclesiastical and governing council, which regularly reviews doctrine.

No one person in the United Church of God can change doctrine. No one person. There's no one person that stands up and says, you know, I've had a revelation, and this is what we have to do now. We'll say, okay, well, let's talk about that revelation, right? And once you write that down, and let's go review it, and so we have a process by which doctrinal change can be evaluated in the United Church of God.

And we publish our findings on these things in doctrinal study papers. If you haven't been to the United Church of God website and looked at the doctrinal study papers, I encourage you to do that. There's all sorts of great study in there, and it really represents what I would call about 90 years of modern scholarship, going back to the 1930s. When I was a student at Ambassador College in Pasadena, I would go through the Ambassador College Library, and I would read hundreds of these dissertations over the course of four years of all sorts of detailed things that had been studied through the years, and all of those kind of go into this. And even with all that, I have to say we still have things to learn about doctrine. And I hope that we can continue to grow in our understanding of what this faith once delivered meant. I'll give you a few examples. In times past, we used to say, Jesus Christ is the God of the Old Testament. We used to say that. And what we realized over time, and what was kind of brought to our attention, was when you say that, what it tends to do is it tends to diminish the role of God the Father in the Old Testament. Because clearly, God the Father was there. Let us make man in our image, right? God the Father, Jesus Christ. Who was in the Holy of Holies? You have the symbolism. So clearly, Jesus Christ had a very important role in his pre-incarnate form. But we counsel people to be careful about using that phrase. That's something we've grown in our understanding of the nature of God and how things took place based on our understanding of the Old Testament. We used to use the term exclusively, the last great day. We know that term, the last great day. Well, now we say the eighth day. And it's okay to say the last great day, too. But the only term for that day in Scripture is the eighth day. And so now some people will say, you know, on the eighth day. And other people are like, well, I prefer the last great day because in John 7 there's this thing. And so we have those discussions, and both those things are appropriate. And of course, probably the most famous one for today, for those old-timers, is that we used to observe Pentecost, ta-da, on Monday. Did we grow in our understanding of doctrine? Yes. And it's interesting because in the French Bible, for my wife growing up, the language in Leviticus is as clear as it could possibly be on how to count that. And so for my father-in-law, when he came into the church, he's like, wow, that's kind of, I don't know, how do you get Monday in here? Because it's just so clear, and it wasn't until 1974 that the church came to understand that that was not the case. So doctrine is a fundamental part of who we are as the Church of God, both in terms of our guarding and understanding of it, but also in terms of our growing and understanding of it as well. So let's go back to Acts 2, and let's read Acts 2, verse 42, one more time, and let's go on to the second characteristic.

Of a vibrant church, essential, second essential characteristic, says here, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine or teaching, and fellowship. Fellowship. Now the word here for fellowship is, you probably studied this at some length, kononeia, k-o-i-n-o-n-i-a, and it literally means partnership. It's the literal meaning, partnership. Help word study says of kononeia that it is what is shared in common, what's shared in common as the basis of community. And of course, for all of you Tolkien fans, we have the fellowship of the ring.

That's kind of like one of the few secular terms, I think, secular usages of the word fellowship. It tends to be a kind of heavily religious term, but it's basically something shared in common. Other ways of translating this word are contribution, sharing, and participation. So, fellowship is about a commonality in Christ, and it's manifested by the ways in which we spend time with one another, before and after church, and outside of a setting like this. So it can be shown, for example, by working together.

So the sound crew is a fellowship, the fellowship of the sound crew. They work together, right, all the time. And they understand, they get to know one another as they do that. If you've set up a hall, or if you worked at the Feast of Tabernacles, or for all the guys who've worked on parking crew before, and ladies, if you worked on parking crew, you know, that's a whole thing.

And you have to know how to work with one another, and you rely on one another. That's a form of fellowship, a commonality, as you spend time together. And the early church worked together, they served together, and they shared their hopes and dreams for the future together.

In short, they expressed their faith in their unique ways, because each of them came from different parts of the world. And in fact, if you look in verse 9 and 10 of Acts 2, 9, 10, 11, it is this compendium of nations starting from the east and going all the way to the west, all the way to Rome. These people came from all walks of life, and they had a commonality in their shared faith. And through that expression, they built one another up, and they strengthened one another. Let's see how this participation and commonality is expressed in Philippians 3, verse 10.

This is an amazing passage, really, to describe our commonality. Because really, if you ask, well, what do we really have in common here? Well, maybe we could say we're from the northwest, or maybe we'd say we're Americans, or maybe we could say we're in tech, or we're in the trades. We have commonality of different things in the room. But fundamentally, if you go travel to some country, Madagascar, or you go to France, or you go to Central America, you're not going to have a lot in common. You may not even speak the same language. But you will have a commonality with them, and you will sense God's Spirit working in that hall. Philippians 3, verse 10.

This is a form of our fellowship. The fellowship here is the same term, koinonea. Our fellowship with one another is a result of our common understanding of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, common understanding of His suffering, a common understanding of His resurrection, and a common understanding of our desire to become like Him.

Look over at 1 John 1, verse 1 to 3.

This is a long opening sentence. It begins in verse 1, and it concludes in verse 4.

I think what I'm going to do is we'll just read the entire sentence, so we'll get the flow. 1 John 1, verse 1.

We have fellowship with the Father. We have fellowship with Jesus Christ. And so our fellowship as we speak with one another is all about looking to them and how they should lead us through our lives.

Our common time together is about this common shared value of seeking to become more and more like them, and ultimately to be in their kingdom.

Finally, turn over to Revelation 12, verse 11. It's just a couple verses over.

This is a very interesting verse that speaks to fellowship but also to encouragement.

Revelation 12, verse 11. It says here, And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, speaking of that great dragon. And we are under attack as a church. You should not doubt that. There is enormous pressure on every single person in this room. Every one of us is carrying some kind of load. And that's not surprising because it says, take up your cross and follow me. So everybody is carrying a load in this room. And it says here that they overcame Satan by the blood of the Lamb. That's the first thing. Sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Understanding what he did. How he gave up his Godhead to be that reconciling sacrifice for us. But there's a second thing that's in this verse. A second thing, which frankly I don't think we take advantage enough.

And it says, and by the word of their testimony. By the word of their testimony. And it says, and they did not love their lives to the death. They, all the way to the end, thick and thin, they made it through by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, by the power of the blood of the Lamb, and the word of their testimony.

You know, I don't know if this has happened to you, but you might be feeling a little bit down about things, or feeling a little bit under pressure. And you come to church, and you start talking to somebody, and you realize you got it pretty easy compared to the person you're talking to. And you realize, I just need to be a little bit more thankful for the things that I have. And that's what the word of the testimony means. That person is testifying to you about how God is working in their lives. And if we're testifying to one another about how God is working in our lives, that other person might just say, wow, I need to do a little better. I need to grow in my faith, in my understanding of what God is doing in my life. The Apostle John tells us that they overcame by their trust in Christ's sacrifice and the words of each other's testimony.

And this second element here speaks to the fact that we cannot be independent Christians. We cannot just think we can do this on our own. And this happens, and maybe you've had this experience, but in the French speaking areas, we'll get an email, it will come in, and I'll reach out to that person. And we'll have a good conversation. We might even have a follow-up conversation. They're excited about the church. They're excited about what they're learning. And then I never hear from them. And they might come to church via our Zoom assembly, and they might just say, Yeah, no, it's great. I enjoy being there. I just can't quite make it. And, well, if you thought about the feast, that's a long ways to go. And they're perfectly content, to be quite honest, just to kind of be in their home. Them and God, you know, they're going to do it together. And yet an essential for a vibrant church is fellowship. So where's the fellowship come from? Now, sometimes people are shut in, and sometimes people are very isolated. I'm thinking of one particular situation where it's literally like two hours to the close of a church member. Well, that's hard. That is a legitimate hardship. But, you know, if people are in that situation, there's really a phone, there's a computer, there's different ways of connecting. And eventually the priority needs to be getting in and actually being in person in some way. The way it works now today, that's a possibility. And what I find sometimes is even if money is an issue, surprisingly the money will be there. Generally a lot of times we're like, well, you know, I don't want to bother somebody and so forth. But you know, if you're like, I really would love to come see you, oh yeah, we'll figure out a way. Be surprised. Just let God work that out. So that's fellowship, the second essential point to a vibrant church. Let's go back to Acts 2, verse 42, and let's go to the third point. Acts 2, 42, And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread. The breaking of bread. Now some teach that this reference is to a religious ritual. And I get this a lot in my travels. Within mainstream Christian circles the question often is, how frequently should I take the Lord's Supper? And I've received that question many times. I don't know if people have asked it. How frequently do you take the Lord's Supper? Well, you know, in the church of God we say, well, actually the only time the Lord's Supper is used in Scripture is when Paul said to not take it. And that's another subject. But I challenge you to go look that up. Okay? The only time it's mentioned is when Paul said, don't do it. So we take the Passover according to the tradition that we see from Jesus Christ and the apostles. But, you know, some people take it four times a year. Some people take it once a month. Some people take it twice a day. And so there is this thought that when it says the breaking of bread, that they're referring to taking the bread and the wine. And so this is a religious ritual. But if you really look into it deeply, again, and I challenge you to study these things. I can't go into all of the discussions right now. We'll hit just kind of high points. Really what is being talked about is hospitality. It's just a meal. And, you know, this is the funnest way that we can observe God's law. I think this is like, hey, let's all eat. Who wouldn't want to go eat? Let's go out to eat. Breaking bread here means simply welcoming others into our homes and sharing a meal. And I've spoken before about the importance of hospitality in the New Testament church. When we invite people into our homes, we build bonds, which frankly last a lifetime.

It helps us weather the storms of interpersonal difficulties. That's kind of a fancy way of saying, I can't get along with that person. You know, when you sit down across the table, it's hard to be upset in the same way. The Expositor's Bible commentary, I'll point you to the Expositor's Bible commentary, uses the term ordinary meal.

That's the quote from the Expositor's Bible commentary on the book of Acts. The editors of this commentary are clear that what Luke is referring to is just a simple meal among brothers and sisters. We see this point highlighted just a few verses down. If you look at verse 46. So, continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart. It's just a hallmark of the church, sitting down over a meal and talking and eating. Let's just look at a few examples.

Look over at Luke 24. Luke 24, in my Bible, you've got to go through the book of John to get to Luke when you turn back. But, I think many of us understand, Luke wrote Acts and it was basically two-part volume. So, if you're going to go from Acts 2 back to Luke 24, it's basically just a couple turns. It's right there. This is some examples of how he used this. Luke 24, verse 30, Now it came to pass, as he sat at the table with them, that he took bread, blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them.

And then their eyes were opened, they knew him, and he vanished from their sight. Just a meal. They're just eating. Look over here, just down in verse 35. And they told him about the things that had happened on the road and how he was known to them in the breaking of bread. Each of these passages, it's the same terminology.

A simple meal. Look over at Acts 27. Again, this is Luke writing the book of Acts, Acts 27, verse 33. And this is an example where Paul is dealing with sort of a house arrest. He's got a problem here. He's describing a group of soldiers. We'll start in verse 32. Then the soldiers cut away the ropes of the skiff and let it fall off. And as day was about to dawn, Paul implored them all to take food, saying, Today is the fourteenth day you have waited and continued without food and eaten nothing.

He's talking to these soldiers. These are not necessarily people in the church, but this is just a simple meal. Verse 34, Therefore I urge you to take nourishment, for this is for your survival, since not a hair will fall from the head of any of you. And when he had said these things, he took bread and gave thanks to God in the presence of them all. And when they had broken it, he began to eat.

And that's just a simple meal. It's the same terminology, same discussion in Acts chapter 2. He broke bread with his Roman captors. They weren't even Christian. And so this is essentially the same phraseology that's described. Here, the last point I want to make here on this third point is in Hebrews 13 verse 2, something that I hope we can all take into account in terms of hospitality and the breaking of bread.

Hebrews 13 verse 2, inviting one another into our homes. It says, Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by doing so some have unwittingly entertained angels. I think that's a remarkable saying and a challenge to us. Now, again, I've given a whole sermon on hospitality, and many of you will have questions about who you want to invite into your home. But at a minimum, if a brother and sister in the church is traveling and in this area, I hope you would be willing to open your home or invite someone over for dinner.

I think I've shared the story about my wife and I traveling. We were up in Canada at a church service, at a congregation up in Canada. We felt like we had people lined up to talk with us and invite us to a meal that evening. It certainly gives you that sense of being part of this greater community. So the New Testament church grew in part because they ate together. It seems this would be one of the most pleasant ways that we could actually build our faith with one another, is to enjoy eating together, inviting each other into our homes.

Let's go to our final point, Acts 2, verse 42. This final point has to do with prayer. It says, Now this one you might say, I got this one. The apostles' doctrine, thank you for the background. Fellowship, yeah, I need to come to church earlier or stay later. Maybe I need to come more frequently if I'm at home. Breaking of bread, okay, I got that one. Prayers, yeah, I think I got one of that, too. I pray. But beyond it being a fundamental part of our Christian walk, it is fundamentally a part of the growth of the church and essential to a vibrant church. And I guess I'd ask this. How many of us have prayed that God would bless the church with new laborers to help us in our mission? How many of you have prayed for 30% growth for the church of God in this era?

I really encourage you to think about that. Pick your number, right? 10%, 20%. I chose 30 because Herbert Armstrong used to always use that term. I began to pray for those specific numbers back before the pandemic. And, you know, I felt like God was hearing my prayer. I remember we had seven visitors one day in the San Francisco Bay Area Church. And that wasn't it wasn't like seven came all at once. It's like we had one and then we had another one and then we had two came one day and three came another day. And then one day we had seven and some people had been there for the were there for the first time and other people were there for the second or third or fourth time. And I remember one person leaning back behind and saying, hi, you know, my name is so and so is all mine. So yeah, this is my first time. This is my third time. Well, what do you think? And I'd love to hear those conversations in the Seattle congregation because this is what Christ asked us to do. Look over in Matthew 9 and let's see where Christ specifically said that. And again, we need to grow spiritually. We need to be an environment where people can walk through the door and sense God's spirit working with us. That is that is first. But after that, I think Christ has opened the door for us here to pray for numbers as well. But when he saw the multitude, Matthew 9, verse 36, he was moved with compassion for them because they were wary and scattered like sheep having no shepherd. You know, people are really trying to figure out what's going on in this world. What is happening during COVID? If you look at the numbers of people visiting the United Church of God website, it spiked. If you look at 9-11, you know, the world trade center spiked. When things are going on in the world, people are looking for answers and they start like, what are you guys all about? What is this? What do you and I get these requests all the time. Like, where you keep the Sabbath. That's like the beginning point right there. After that, they're like, okay, what else are you about? People are really wondering what's going on. And Jesus saw this at his time and he said, verse 37, then he said to his disciples, The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. For this work to grow, we need people's talents. We need people who can preach the message. We need people with all sorts of talents, musical talents, talents of service, all sorts of things. We need people who desire to study their Bibles, but also to understand how God is leading them and to be able to share that joy. We need people who are organized. Some of us are not organized and some are. And you know, those of us are organized. We need disorganized people. We really do. We need to, you know, because disorganized people are generally the joyous ones. They're the ones with life and art and style. They can't get anywhere on time. But when they're there, you're so happy they're there because they've got energy and we need those kinds of people in church. We need people who aren't afraid to share this hope and know how to do it with wisdom. Some of us are all excited, but we don't say necessarily the most wisest things sometimes. And Christ said to pray for labors. In addition, there's a prayer that Paul shares for the church that I think is so powerful. It's in Ephesians 3, verses 14 to 19. Ephesians 3, verses 14 to 19. Again, we could go to Ephesians 4, and that's part of what's been incorporated into the mission and vision statement of the United Church of God. But Ephesians 3 is also very interesting. Verse 14, we'll start here again, starting at the beginning of the sentence.

Wow! You know, if we could pray like this, right, for each other and for ourselves, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height. How amazing this is to know the love of Christ, which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Period. A long sentence again. Such an interesting sentence. If we could pray like this for one another and for the church, when somebody walks through the door, they're going to sense that energy, that excitement. They're going to be part of this. Wow! You're teaching the apostles doctrine. You're not all this other stuff that came in later. You're really talking about the truth here.

The mission of the church is to preach the gospel, make disciples, and care for those disciples. You've heard that. I've heard that. We've read that. We know that. But I think sometimes we skip over those first two real fast and we go straight to caring for disciples. Matthew 28 is very clear on this. The first two parts are preaching and making disciples. I think sometimes our whole church experience is about our local congregation or the few friends that we stay in touch with. That is our church experience.

That's great, except that's only a third of the mission that Jesus Christ gave us. Our mission is much larger than our local congregation. Our mission is about pooling our resources and our talents to get the message out to make disciples.

If we don't do that, then we're just another social club, honestly. We're boat enthusiasts. You go down to Edmonds and you can go down to the Stanley School and you'll meet all these boating enthusiasts. If you like road biking, you can join that club. If you want to talk about God, you can come here. This is a great place to talk about God. But we have to be more than a place to talk about God. We have to be a place where we're excited about sharing this truth with other people.

I want to finish this point by turning over to 2 Chronicles 7, verse 14. I have stayed completely in the New Testament because this day is about the New Testament church and everything that happened with that, the giving of God's Holy Spirit. But there is a passage in 2 Chronicles 7, which I think many of you are familiar with. There's a book that came out about this many years ago that went into depth about this particular prayer. I am of the opinion that the apostles and all those in the New Testament church, the 120 people in the room when God's Holy Spirit came, they would have all been very keenly aware of 2 Chronicles 7, verse 14. I think they would have had this in mind. Let's read it. If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. I think that every single one of those 120 people desperately wanted the Romans out. They wanted their land back. They wanted the occupation to end. In fact, that got such a fever pitch going in Jerusalem that they actually did kick the Romans out. They kicked the Romans out about 30 years later. What a mess that created, as we know. Eventually, the Romans came back and they burned Jerusalem to the ground. It didn't leave a stone on Papa, another stone, of course, and there's a story of Masada. On and on it went. I think those disciples truly wanted to see the land of Judea finally freed of Roman occupation. I think they were praying for that. Of course, we know that at the time Jesus was preaching, they were ready. Like, okay, are you going to restore the kingdom of Israel? Is this what you're going to do? They were waiting for this. I think in each country where God's people live, I think we have the same desire. This morning I had a lengthy conversation with a man in Madagascar. He was telling me about the level of corruption and how Madagascar is listed as the next to last in terms of the corruption index and poverty. The Wagner mercenaries are controlling the government. All this is—the situation there is grave. He was asking me to pray for him and for others there. I think you could go down the list in Togo, Benin, Nigeria. We've got a mess here in this country, in Canada. On and on it goes.

But as we look back on the time of the early New Testament church, I think we can see that God had something much bigger in mind than the liberation of Judea. He had something way bigger than the liberation of Judea in mind. And for us, Judea is like the size of New Jersey. It's this little tiny place. Let's liberate New Jersey. It's not that big. It's not that consequential. But it is, obviously, the Holy Land. I think he had something much bigger in mind. I think we can see this. And I think he has something much bigger in mind for us than just liberating this nation from the craziness that's going on.

If we look at the book of Daniel, I think it's clear that there is this stone. We know this prophecy. This stone hits the feet of this image in Daniel 2, of the head of gold and the feet of iron and clay. He hits the feet and the stone expands to fill the whole world. That's what we're about.

We'd love to see our nation healed, and we should be praying for that. But I think God's church has something much bigger to pray about. That eventually, the first fruits that we are will expand from this day of Pentecost to encompass all humanity. And I think we need to pray bigger than just this, and bigger than just our congregation. We should be praying that God would bring healing through the establishment of His kingdom as Christ taught us to pray, Thy kingdom come. That's the first thing. How would be Thy name? Thy kingdom come. It's our time to pray individually and together that we would be instruments in God's hands that this message would go out.

That is the message of the church. That is the outcome. That is part of the four essentials, prayer. And that kind of prayer, I think.

Let's go back to Acts 2 in conclusion.

So we go back to Acts 2. We've read verse 42. They continued steadfast in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and the breaking of bread and in prayers, and then fear came upon every soul.

I think when we're experiencing these four things, there is a fear of God, a power that comes upon us, that many wonders and signs were done through the apostles.

I just pray that our church would have that kind of vigor, that kind of passion, that kind of excitement for what this means.

I want to conclude by reading verse 17 to 21 because this is a prophecy of Joel that the apostle Peter was inspired to share, to say, This is what this day means. So we have this noise that comes upon this room, and we have the speaking in tongues, all these different languages, and people are confused about what this is, and are they drunk, and what's going on.

Peter stands up and he says, this is how you can explain what's going on. Verse 17 to 21. He's saying that what these people were seeing and what was going on with these 120 people was being fulfilled by the book of Joel, by this writing.

And imagine this is us. Imagine this is us. And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams, and on my men servants and my maidservants I will pour out my spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy.

They will have inspired speaking. I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and the vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and notable day of the Lord, and it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Peter felt that this was going to be the moment. This is why we understand the New Testament church. Paul says, you know, I'm going to come up after those people have already died. I'm going to be raised with... They really felt that Jesus' return was imminent, and we should have that same passion. And I hope this can be said about us, that these people are like, what is going on with that Seattle congregation? What's going on in the United Church of God? These people are just on fire for what God is doing in their lives, and I hope that we could have that same passion and that same energy as we go forward from this day of Pentecost, that we would have these four essentials, and that the fear would come upon every soul.