Holy Spirit, Community & Apostolic Mission

[Music] all right okay all right we're in the book of acts chapter four if you'll open up there and i'd like to pray that the lord would just use this time to inspire us all father open your word to us now by your holy spirit i pray that you would give us ears to hear and a heart to receive and understand and a desire to fulfill your call speak to us from the pages of these scriptures by your holy spirit i ask in jesus name and everybody said amen well i want to talk to you today about what is a church how do you really define a church and in the bible i want to read this story that i think really gives a good picture of what the church is sometimes we think of a church as the building on a corner in a town or it's a place you go on a sunday morning but it's much more than that and the title my message today back up one back up one slide if you would there oh you're way down there keep going way to the top all the way to the top there you go it's called holy spirit community an apostolic mission and i i want to i want to show you from this chapter how all three of those are really essential for a church to uh be alive and vibrant we need the holy spirit we need community which is the fellowship or the the relationships we have with one another but we also need a mission and i call it apostolic mission because i was speaking specifically about the taking of the gospel to the world all these are part of the church all of these are essential and i think you'll see the balance as we go through this particular chapter so the context of chapter 4 you got to read chapter 3 ahead of time but what happened there is peter and john were going up to the temple at the time of prayer and there was a man who was lame and he had been lame from his mother's womb and now he's just over 40 years old so for 40 years this guy had not been able to walk and every day they would bring him up to the temple and he would sit outside of a certain gate and he would beg people for money that's how he is how he made a living how he was able to survive and so a lot of people knew this guy i mean many people in jerusalem would go to the temple as part of their regular worship and as they would go by there they would pass this man they would see him and you can imagine every day you see this man you see him he just kind of gets ingrained in your in your mind and then all of a sudden one day the lord decides to do something amazing and he heals this man and this guy who had been lame all his life he's the bible says he's up he's walking and he's leaping and he's praising god and wouldn't you if you had been lame for 40 years and now this guy peter and john who are they are fishermen they walk up to me one day and pick me up by the hand and say in the name of jesus rise up and walk and everybody in the town began to hear of this so the first thing i want to say to you about that particular event because that event is what is what caused chapter four to happen that event was god's way of taking his power and his message and his work into the community god was at work in jerusalem he wanted everybody to know that jesus was the christ that jesus was the one who died jesus was the one who rose jesus is alive today and the same jesus that you crucified he is now still alive doing miracles like this that was god's message that's why this man was healed it was to be a message to this city i'm alive and i'm doing fine and i'm working and i want to draw people to myself and i believe that god is also at work today in our world and he wants the same way to cause his power and his signs and his wonders to go forth into this world so people can see him for who he is now not only is god at work but satan is also at work and that's what i want to begin in acts 4 verse 1. satan was also at work to resist the work of god and he's at work today to resist the work of god how many of you know that satan would have loved to not see that man healed satan would have loved if that prayer would have failed that god's power reigned as they were speaking to the people so james and john or peter and john were there talking to the crowds about what happened i mean you can imagine there will be a large group of people who gather to hear what what just happened to this man everybody knew him and now he's up walking and leaping and as they were speaking to the people the priests the captains of the temple and the sadducees came upon them now how many of you know that's a that's kind of like a recipe for intimidation these guys are fishermen they're not scholars in the bible they're average work people they're like mill workers welders it's average guys and they're thrust into the in the middle of this event where god is shouting loudly hey i'm alive look what's happening here and they're talking about it all of a sudden the you know the the hierarchy the priests the scribes the the religious leaders the ones who knew the scripture the captain of the temple the sadducees came upon them greatly annoyed how can this be how could it be that here's a man who had been lame for 40 years and these religious leaders are annoyed they were annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in jesus the resurrection from the dead now it's interesting you may know this but the sadducees didn't believe in the resurrection so it seems to me that their big argument was a doctrinal one we want to argue about the doctrine here rather than rejoicing in this wonderful thing that god has done and so there was this attempt to resist and to oppose what was happening so in verse 3 it says they arrested them and they put him in custody until the next day for it was already evening now they went up to the temple about the time of prayer which was i don't know they were there for us some hours talking to these people in verse 4 many of those who heard the word believed and the number of men came to about five thousand you know there were three thousand saved on the day of pentecost this was a short time later so maybe upwards of two thousand people responded to this they saw what god was doing now god's at work god wanted us to save those people and he performed this amazing miracle in the sight of everybody to speak loudly with an example about his power to heal and deliver and set free and it says the number of men came to about five thousand and i love this idea that even though is this attempt by satan to resist and oppose and stand against and argue about it it still cannot sport the power of god's word god's word still has the power the bible tells us that i am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of god for salvation that message about jesus is the power of god for salvation and that's what happened on this day all this confusion the man's jumping up and down leaping peter peter and john are trying to explain to the people what happened they're proclaiming about jesus being raised from the dead and then all these religious leaders come over in the midst of all this confusion hundreds of people are giving their hearts to jesus it's amazing amazing picture and then in verse five we see the intimidation continues the next day the next day the rulers and again you look at look at who's coming here it's the rulers the elders the scribes they gathered together in jerusalem with anus the high priest and caiaphas and john and alexander on all who were the high priestly family and they they pulled out the big guns here bring all the heavyweights because we want to speak to these guys about what's going on we want to stop this thing and so all these religious leaders came and i love how the bible describes the brothers if you just just for a minute if you have your bible open you can turn there if not i'll tell you it says peter and john may perceive them as uneducated common man i love that i love the picture it's almost like a a david and goliath type picture here isn't it common ordinary uneducated fishermen standing there with the testimony of god's power the witness of the resurrection of jesus standing against this onslaught of these religious leaders who are annoyed greatly annoyed about what's going on and so they said they set them in the midst and they said by what power or by what name did you do this and then verse 8 peter filled with the holy spirit you know i'm talking to you today about what are the elements that make up a church and this is one of them it is people filled with the holy spirit we have to have the holy spirit you don't really have a church without the holy spirit it is him who lives in us we talked about that last week the spirit of god who comes to live inside of us we are the temple of the holy spirit and peter in the midst of this confrontation he didn't he didn't draw upon his education he didn't draw upon his seminary degree he didn't draw upon his experience he was drawing upon the holy spirit in this moment in my life i need the holy spirit to help me and so peter filled with the holy spirit now if you study the bible you know that peter was filled with the holy spirit on the day of pentecost so what's this it means there's a need to constantly be filled with the holy spirit don't let the filling of the holy spirit be a one-time event in your life you say well i was baptized in the holy spirit 20 years ago okay are you filled with the spirit today or are you are you putting yourself or are you involved in situations where you need the holy spirit how many know peter and john needed the holy spirit in that moment jesus said i will never leave you and i will never forsake you that was his promise before he left and here he is through his holy spirit helping peter and john in the midst of this thing which to me would have been very intimidating especially for two fishermen but peter had the holy spirit and the holy spirit came upon him and he said rulers of the people and elders if we're being examined today concerning a good deed done to this crippled man or by what means he's been healed let it be known to you and to all the people of israel see his message was to israel it was to everybody i want everybody to know it be known to all of you and to all the people of israel that by the name of jesus christ of nazareth you know what name or what authority is the name of jesus the name is above every name the greatest name the name of jesus by the name of jesus christ of nazareth whom you crucified and whom god raised from the dead by him this man is standing before you well this jesus is the stone that was rejected by you the builders which has become the cornerstone and so so peter is saying to them look this jesus is the most important stone in the building and you builders took it and rejected it it is the chief cornerstone and so he points them back to jesus they didn't get involved in a theological argument he didn't even try to defend what happened there he just simply pointed the conversation back to jesus jesus is the one and salvation is in his name and so he said there is salvation in no one else there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved and now in verse 13 when they saw the boldness the boldness of peter and john boldness the bible says the righteous are bold as a lion and the wicked flee when no one pursues them how many are righteous here today you're righteous because of jesus i want you to know that you're not righteous because of your own because of him your righteous the righteous are bold as a lion they saw the boldness of peter and john these guys were coming to intimidate trying to throttle them trying to stop this thing from spreading any further and their efforts weren't going anywhere because these men had the holy spirit and they had boldness they stood there in the in this onslaught of religious fury and said hey i'm going to tell you about jesus that's the name that's the one who died that's the one you crucified that's the one who was raised again and so they had boldness and these men perceived that they were uneducated common men and they were astonished they recognized listen to this they recognized that they had been with jesus so i have i think a slide i think i have on the next slide i think i do yeah how did peter overcome intimidation one he was filled with the spirit can i encourage you to continue to seek that pray say lord fill me with your spirit every day when you wake up and you go out lord fill me with your spirit today fill me afresh let me be used by you that's how peter overcame his intimidation he was filled with the spirit he made jesus the focal point they had boldness and i think that boldness came from the holy spirit and they were uneducated common men i think that's an advantage sometimes we get we get so many things built up in our life we we we lean upon that rather than upon the lord these guys were so disadvantaged in this in this conversation but they were at a total advantage because they were a lot relying upon the holy spirit and the boldness that comes from him and they had been with jesus you know when i speak today about these three things the holy spirit and community and apostolic mission being with jesus is part of that the holy spirit side it's just it's our relationship with god what made the difference in peter's life and in john's life and it will make the difference in our lives is that we spending time with jesus it made all the difference in the world i read something the other day and i wish i wrote it down but i'm going to try to i'm going to try to paraphrase it guy was kind of given a little scenario and he says something like pretend like you were part of satan's strategic team to defeat the church he said if you were part of that strategic team to come up with a plan to defeat the church what would be the greatest enemy against you what would be your greatest threat so to speak and he said it wouldn't be that there's a new mega church in town it wouldn't be that there's a great charismatic preacher over here over there it would be that common ordinary people the jews and the mary's of life who get on fire for jesus and you cannot stop them from telling others what he's done that is scary because it's like a wildfire once it starts how do you stop it and that's what was happening here these these fishermen had been with jesus they had been filled with a spirit and now they had a message and a power to deliver that proclaimed the good news of jesus christ and you couldn't stop it martyrdom came you couldn't stop it they killed them you couldn't stop them people were burned at the stake they chopped their heads off you couldn't stop them they were common ordinary people an army of people filled with the holy spirit that's what the church is made of verse 14 but seeing the man who was healed standing beside him they had nothing to say in opposition but when they commanded them to leave the council they conferred with one another saying what shall we do with these men for a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of jerusalem that's what i mean is it was very widespread everybody heard about this it was one way that god was using to proclaim his good news it's evident to all the inhabitants of jerusalem we cannot deny it but look at look at their motive here in order that it may spread no further among the people let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name how far do you think that's going to go these guys who are filled with the spirit who have the boldness of the lord are going to stay the same we're warning you not to speak anymore in this name it's like and they said what can we do you know we can't help but speak the things we've heard and seen and so verse 21 they had further threatened them they let them go finding no way to punish them because of the people for all were praising god for what had happened all were praising god all were praising god for what had happened for the man on whom this sign of healing was performed was more than 40 years old i mean what an amazing thing that happened there now that was my introduction i'm going to get in my message now it'll go quickly 4 verse 23 when they were released listen to this they went to their friends as community they had among them people they called friends we called the church but it was friends it wasn't just somebody that you saw on a sunday morning the back of their head it was a friend and when these guys were in trouble when these guys needed support they needed to have encouragement and be built up where did they go to their friends i hope that every one of you have christian friends friends in the church of jesus christ i don't necessarily mean in alliance christians but friends who are followers of jesus that in your day of trouble if persecution comes your direction if you have a hardship like this you can go to your friends we all need friends so these three circles i mentioned that like the dna of a church we need the holy spirit but we need community we need friends that we can look to in the kingdom of god friends lifelong friends people that we are willing to lay our lives down for that's community it's not a club it's not something you join it is it's a commitment of life friends they went to their friends i love the way the bible describes that and they reported what the chief priests and the elders had said verse 24 when they heard it the friends but all the friends heard it they lifted their voices together to god this is that second circle the holy spirit these are friends they came together what did they do turn to the lord let's turn to the lord and they prayed together they lifted their voices together to god and they said sovereign lord who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them who threw the mouth of our father david your servant said by the holy spirit what's that talking about there it's talking about they were looking to the scriptures see that when you talk about having this relationship to the holy spirit it is the holy spirit filling us it is time with jesus it is time in the word of god they were saying that you through the mouth of our father david your servant said by the holy spirit that's in psalm 2. why did the gentiles rage so their relationship to the holy spirit was also through his word why did the gentiles rage the people plot in vain the kings of the earth set themselves the rulers were gathered together against the lord and against his anointed for truly in this city they were gathered together against your holy servant jesus whom you anointed both herod and pontius pilate along with the gentiles and people of israel to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place the third thing i want to say about the relationship to the holy spirit they trusted in this in the sovereignty of god they trusted in the purpose of god they knew that yeah it was sad for them when jesus died but they said lord we know this has been your plan from the beginning that's the holy spirit next verse 29 this is the apostolic mission and now lord look upon their threats and please make them stop threatening us was that their prayer they didn't they didn't have to take the threat away they just said give us boldness don't let us be intimidated don't let us be pushed back there is a threat it's a very real one they just crucified jesus pretty soon they're going to be head james it was a very real threat but they said lord give us boldness we don't want to stop what we're doing and this is mission this is the mission look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal lord do it again do what you did with the lame man let's see it happen again stretch out your hand to heal the signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant jesus and when they all prayed the place in which they were gathered together was shaken and that's what i put down on there i think that's the lord saying amen the place was shaken and they were all filled with the holy spirit the holy spirit the mission with the filling of the holy spirit a spirit-filled mission they were all filled with the holy spirit and they continued to speak the word of god with boldness and now finally acts 4 verse 32. you know in the last number of months we've talked a lot about evangelism and i told you guys probably three or four months ago that we're going to kind of beat it beat it over the head a little bit and maybe you feel that that's being done but i'll tell you something as much as we need the apostolic mission we don't want to back away from it we need the community we need them both we need the holy spirit all three of these are evident in this beautiful chapter in the bible spirit-filled people people who are committed to friendship to community and people that are definitely committed to the mission of jesus christ and now verse 32 the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul this is community they were of one heart and soul no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own think about that for a minute are you able to walk in here today and say everything i have is really not my own they had everything in common and with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of jesus that's the mission and great grace was upon them all that's the holy spirit community mission holy spirit look at the result there was not a needy person among them think about that five thousand people find me a group of five thousand people anywhere and be able to say there was not one needy person i hope you can see from that these guys were very radical about the mission but about the community they were equally important it wasn't one without the other and all of that was prompted by the holy spirit it to me it takes a move of the holy spirit upon the heart of a person to be able to say what happened next as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold but remember this didn't happen outside of a context this happened in a in an environment where there was a powerful move of god to reach a city and there was powerful resistance of satan to stop it and they found within the community within the fellowship this place i don't know what you want to call it it wasn't really a place of safety it was just a place of belonging a place of hey we're one we're in this together and it was such a move of the holy spirit the people were just selling their things and they brought the proceeds and they laid it at the apostles feet that's like i mean let me give you let's say today you say i'm going to go sell my house and bring all the money and lay it right here anybody feel called to do that today i see that hand no i'm just kidding but i mean can you can you see how radical this was i wonder if the lord would ever move upon his church in these days to be this way what would it take maybe it takes persecution i don't know but again the context of all this happening is is where you got to look at this it's like it's set in this particular event they laid it at the apostles feet and it was distributed to each as anyone had any thus joseph who was also called by the apostles barnabas which means son of encouragement a levite a native of cyprus sold a field that belonged to him and he brought the money and laid it at the apostles feet so i'd like you to stand with me as we close isn't that a beautiful picture of what the church is the church is holy spirit filled we need the holy spirit we need time with jesus we need time in his word we need to trust in the sovereignty of god as we move forward but the church must be involved in a mission we can't we can't just be within the four walls of a building we can't just come together on a sunday morning we're in a mission the church doesn't make sense it doesn't really make sense as an entity unless it's engaged in this struggle for the souls of people it doesn't make sense any other way so what if the church was just holy spirit well we would be like monks in a monastery we would go up on a hill somewhere and spend all of our time in prayer meditation in the word and worshipping nothing wrong with that but it's not the church or what if the church was just mission well we could be like nasa let's put a man on the moon or let's be like the army and go out and conquer something or let's be like a football team and win the super bowl if it's just mission or if the church is just community we could just be a club or a bar last night i was on facebook and i have a i have a friend from high school years ago that he's a guitar player he's got a band i happen to see he was live playing at a bar last night i'm going to log in and see him i logged in i'm watching this guy play play his guitar in his band and the guy that was filming this starts walking up and down through the building and you know when i saw their community people were happy they were talking they were loving each other there was a lot going on right there but it wasn't the church it was community but it wasn't the church and so we can have any of these and if we have just one of them we're missing something and i believe that there's probably people who have giftings from the lord who focus on one or more of those and so maybe you're the person whose focus is on the holy spirit you want to be the prayer warrior you want to be driving people to pray and fast and worship praise god we need people to challenge us that way we want to be filled with the holy spirit maybe you're the person who is about community and i believe there are many people in this church who have this heart your people of hospitality can i encourage you to open your homes to one another invite people over and build this community let us let us find friends in the church of jesus christ not just people we know but friends that we can go to in our time of trouble and find this community and there are people who are committed to the mission and let me say this to you let us not point a finger at anybody all are needed all are necessary and when somebody stands up and they preach about evangelism don't get bent out of shape because we need that and if somebody comes and stands and preaches about prayer life and being in the holy spirit and needing to be in the word don't get bent out of shape because we need that and when somebody comes and says let's build communion let's be in fellowship come on over let's hang out don't get offended by that because we need it and we need all three and i pray that whatever gift and whatever focus or passion that you have in your life do it with gusto whatever it might be but i hope that as our church continues to move on in the things of god that we would be a church filled with the holy spirit a church committed to community and the friendships that come out of that in a church committed to the mission of jesus christ i'm behind thank you i appreciate it i'm glad at least one person heard the message [Music] no thank you let's go ahead and lead a song of worship and we'll close the prayer

Channel: Alliance Christian Center

Views: 39

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Kirk Martin, Holy Spirit, Community, Apostolic Mission, Church Life, Early Church, Acts 2

Id: 6iHFuIyIqUI

Length: 35min 23sec (2123 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 11 2021