A Church That's W.E.L.L. Part 3b

Pastor Ed Taylor: Today on Abounding Grace, see what a healthy church looks like according to Acts. A church that's healthy, a church that is strong and making a difference in their community and their context, is a messy church. You know that, right? I don't know any other way. It's kind of the popular word today, but it's a great one. I don't know any other way to describe it. It's going to be filled with difficulty and sin. A messy church is a healthy church because people are dealing with sin. They're talking about it. They're wrestling with it. It's surfacing. They're repenting from it. And so yeah, there's going to be a lot of mess, a lot of difficulty. The church isn't this antiseptic museum of people that are perfect and never have any problems. A healthy church is not one that looks down their nose at people, but rather we take the position of a servant like Jesus did. Probably the best position that Jesus took as a servant was when He washed the disciples' feet, because He was in a position to look up at them, not down at them.
Announcer: As believers, we long to be a part of a healthy church, but that doesn't mean it will be perfect. We'll make mistakes. Today on Abounding Grace, we continue Pastor Ed Taylor's series in Acts. And right now in Chapter 2, we're noticing a church that's W.E.L.L. is one that's Worshiping, Evangelistic, Learning, and Loving. That's the pattern of the early church and one to follow. Here's Pastor Ed focusing on evangelism and the church. He first addresses a common excuse that's given for not doing it.
Pastor Ed Taylor: When we start talking about evangelism, I'll tell you what I hear more often. It's not fear. It's like, "Oh, I don't have the gift of evangelism." And maybe you feel that way. You shut me down already and don't even want to go any further because you think this message doesn't apply to you. But let me rephrase that for you. So if you're telling me, "Hey Ed, I don't have the gift of evangelism," what do you expect me to say? "Okay, don't share the Gospel then. Don't tell anybody ever in your whole life about Jesus since you don't have the gift of evangelism." No. If you don't have the gift of evangelism, then you can do what Paul told Timothy: do the work of an evangelist. Learn how to share. Learn the basics. Get somebody's eyes on the Lord. Tell them your testimony. I mean, the story of your life is a powerful one. Whether you were born into a Christian home and you've got this whole life of people in your life that have been saved, or you got saved later in life, the reality is that evangelism is for all of us. It's not just for a pastor. Do the work of evangelism. I know some people are in a position where it's much easier for them to talk to people. I think of some of you sales people. It's just natural for you to talk to people, and so it makes it natural when you talk about evangelism. That's great. I think of some of the customer service reps that are here. It's just natural. You're always talking to people. Those extroverted personalities are just always talking, and then there's that spiritual gifting and it's just easier for you. And we say Amen. I'm not like that. Evangelism and talking to strangers is hard for me, which is ironic that God would put me in the pulpit and put me in such a position where I would be talking to people I don't know all the time. It requires me to trust in the Lord. It requires me to die to myself. It requires me to walk in the Spirit. It requires me to share. It's much easier to say things up here because I know you guys. You're our family. This is a family meeting. This is great. But you know I don't live in this pulpit, right? I don't stay here all the time. I go into the world just like you do. And as a believer in Jesus Christ, I have a heart for the lost because I was the lost, and now I'm found. And so it's not like, "Oh, I don't have the gift of evangelism." Okay, it's fine. You don't have to have it. You can still tell people about Jesus and you can still bring them. I mean, think of all that Andrew did. He just didn't bring his brother. In John chapter 6, there were all those hungry people and then this kid was found with bread and fish. Remember that story? Guess who brought him to Jesus? Andrew. And how about the time there were those Gentiles, known as Greeks there? They were asking about and wanting to find out about Jesus. And we actually use that verse, John 12:21, in part of a direction of our church: "We wish to see Jesus." Those guys wanted to see Jesus. Guess who brought them? Andrew. And then Peter. Who brought Peter? We know Andrew brought Peter. It's his brother. Why wouldn't you tell your brother about Jesus, or your sister, or your neighbor, your boss, the people that are closest to you? Yes. And I am so grateful that Andrew brought Peter because Peter is so much like us. Peter getting saved not only has blessed us, but not too long ago we studied both of his letters. We studied the letters of Pastor Peter. This guy Peter becomes a pastor and God uses him greatly. But Pastor Peter had his problems, didn't he? Peter slept when he should have been praying. I mean, you look at Peter's life, he swung his sword and cut a guy's ear off. Pastor Peter did. You know, we read the Bible like it doesn't apply today, but can you imagine waking up in the morning and the number one story is, "Hey, pastor got arrested because he was walking around with a sword and cut a guy's ear off"? Where's he from? "Oh, he's from Calvary Church. It's just Ed out there with his sword again." And you're like, "What kind of pastors do we have?" Pastors like Peter, I guess. Peter was impetuous, but he wasn't reckless. He was trying to protect his friend. I mean, they were going after Jesus. So you know what the sword tells us? The sword tells us he was willing to act out on his loyalty and his commitment to Jesus. Yeah, he did it wrong. But how many of us have had the right motives with—but did the wrong thing? I mean, that's the story of our lives. Fortunately, we're not walking around with swords or anything, but that's a story of our lives. We've got the right heart. "Oh, I've got the right heart." I know, I don't see your heart, though, bro. I only see your actions. And yet God changed this man. He became the Peter that we know. He would often speak when he should have listened. He even denied Jesus. Some of you have been in that position where you've backslid. Maybe you're backsliding right now and you're living in denial of Jesus. Well, so did Peter. And when he repented, he came back. And you need to come back. It's not good to deny the Lord. It's going to wreck you. It's going to wreck everybody that loves you. You need to repent and come back. God is faithful. And the one thing about Peter and Andrew, Andrew didn't even know this was going to happen, but the thing that Andrew did in bringing his brother, that's encouraging to me, is it shows that God sees things in us that we don't see ourselves. Like, I wonder how many of us would have just passed over Peter. "No, not pastor material. No, not that guy." But that's not the heart of Jesus. The heart of Jesus is not to look at where we failed and identify ourselves by our failure, but rather to identify ourselves by His power and His strength and His resurrection power, His renewal, His restoration of what's been lost. God looks at what we can become. Remember what it says in 1 Samuel chapter 16, verse 7? The Lord told Samuel when he was picking a young man there, picking a young man, He said, "Do not look at his appearance or his physical stature because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees. For man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." Aren't you grateful for that? I am, because He can then do things with us that we would never allow ourselves to be a part of. God looks at what we can become in Him, not what we are alone in our sin. And so as Peter makes mistakes, God restores him through repentance. The early church was filled with people like Andrew, people like you and me that just care for people's souls. It made me start thinking about a brother by the name of John. John was a part of our little party crew in high school. I mean, we were tight, partying, trouble all the time. And then all of a sudden, I think it was either 10th or 11th grade, John disappeared. He didn't leave the city, didn't leave the school, but we never saw him. Like, he was nowhere around. We might see him in class and that was it. He just stopped hanging around with us, stopped partying with us, and he moved on to something else. Why? Because the brother got saved right in high school. And we kind of knew he was attending church and being involved in things, but he was still partying with us and we just figured, "Hey, you can go to church and party with us. No big deal." But then he disappeared. He was just gone. And we never saw him, didn't party with him anymore. And we go on with our lives and our crew. Some come, some go. We go on with our crew. And then another guy by the name of Jack gets into some kind of concern, trouble, and things, and he's thinking about reconsidering his life. What did he do? He called up John and asked him, "Hey John, what's going on? What's this church you're a part of?" And John invites him to church. Jack gets saved. And I'm sure Jack's listening to a Bible study very similar to this and the pastor says, "Okay guys, this is now. You're saved. You need to go share with the worst sinner that you can possibly think of." And then my phone rang. And Jack invited himself over to my house. And we're fast-forwarding a process of years here. And he comes over to my house. He's sharing the Gospel with Marie. Marie and I are married, but we're not saved. I don't want anything to do with him or church or anything. And so he invites us. I go, "No, bro, I'm not interested in church." But God is very precise on who He brings into your life. And He knew me. And the way He invited me, because He knew I was a critic and a skeptic and a smart aleck, the way that he invited me was, "Well Ed, why don't you just come and check it out and you can tell me what you think." Oh, I'll come and check it out all right. And I would love to tell you what I think, because I think you're—you fill in the blanks. So I did check it out. And guess what? I went to examine that church and the Holy Spirit examined me and did a work in my life. And so I was talking to John recently. Yes, we rejoice. I was talking to John recently because he had surgery. We've reconnected. We've been connected ever since we got saved. And just to think of John, too, John's a school teacher now. It's amazing what God has taken us from. So he is influencing the next generation. John, if you knew John, only God could make John a teacher. So it was awesome. So he had major surgery, reached out to me, I've been praying with him and connecting with him. And we were just talking. I sent him a book on fear because I sent him a gift because he's a little afraid with the surgery, just wanting to minister to him. And then he wrote back like, "Hey man, isn't it amazing what God's doing in Colorado?" And I said, "Yeah, what God's doing in Colorado is because of you, John. It's because of you. It's because of your decision." I told him, I said, "Man, if Christianity was like Amway, look at your downline, man." Like, you just shared and he didn't go into ministry. He's a full-time public school teacher. God's using him. He's got a family and he's got a circle of people he's influencing. But that's where God called him. And then on to Jack. And Jack went off in another direction. He's doing Little League baseball and coaching. It's amazing because these stories, only the Lord could do this. So not too long ago, I got a picture from Jose of a U-Haul truck filled with toys. Filled with toys. You know where those toys came from? My buddy Jack did a gathering for the Orange County Little League whatever. He said, "Bring all your toys because we're going to donate them." So there's a picture of Jose, who I just met in the last few years, and Jack sitting in the back of this truck filled with toys because all the way behind the scenes God put it on Jack's heart to do this big thing where all the parents and everybody bring their toys in, and then he drives them all down. And now all behind the scenes God is doing that kind of stuff. You think of all the stories that are connected to your life. You think, "Well, I'm just John." Yeah, you're just John. And who knows what you're going to start? Who knows? And you respond, "Well Ed, I don't have the gift of evangelism." Well then miss out. Don't get involved. Don't share the Gospel with anyone ever again and reap the consequences of that. Like, you don't—it's not reserved for me. And even if it was reserved for me, like I told you, it doesn't come naturally for me. I think in my realm, I think of a guy like Greg Laurie. That guy, it's just natural. He just stands here and opens his eyes and people get saved. He's just a natural—God has gifted that brother. I'm not like that. But that doesn't mean that I then neglect to tell you about the love of God in your life, that Jesus died to forgive you of your sins, and that if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. You could be—just think about this—you could be the generational change for your entire family. You. You could make the whole—you could turn the course of your whole family. You could bring influence in a workplace that's never had the influence of Christ before. You. And I was thinking just all the different stories that we could go through. I think of a man by the name of Tom Stipe, Pastor Tom Stipe. He was a very prominent pastor here in Colorado. His church, Crossroads Church of Denver, is up in Arvada. He was the very first or second Calvary Church in Colorado. He moved out back in the '70s to come and plant a church here. When I moved here in the '90s, the church was thriving and God was doing a great thing. Tom Stipe. Well, before he moved here, he was a Methodist pastor, kind of sort of maybe saved. He wasn't sure. He was invited to this Calvary Chapel, was born again at Calvary Chapel. Then he came on staff with Calvary Chapel and he began to teach their Friday night concert outreaches. That's what he did, Friday night concerts. So he would preach the Gospel and people would get saved, preach the Gospel, people would get saved. On one evening, he was preaching the Gospel and there wasn't that big of a response. The response was so small that Tom was discouraged because he was used to a lot of people responding. This evening, not so much. But he was faithful, he shared, he led them in a prayer to receive the Lord. They got saved. One of those guys born again, his name, Gino Geraci. Gino Geraci gets saved at a concert in Costa Mesa. Well, you know, Gino's into drugs and metaphysics and all kinds of weird stuff with his buddy and his roommate. So what does Gino do? Just like here with Andrew. He gets saved, he gets excited, going to tell people about Jesus. He goes home and he shares with his roommate all that's happened, kind of softened up his heart. What's going on? Didn't really get saved at that point, but caused him to start thinking. Not going to party with him anymore. And that man, his roommate, started watching TV one night and guess who popped on? Billy Graham. And as Billy Graham's giving the message and giving the invitation, that guy with the softening of Gino bringing the Gospel back in, he gets saved. He gets saved, starts connecting with Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, starts serving there, and then he decides—the Lord is speaking to his heart. He says, "You know what? I think God wants me to plant a church." He picks up his small little family in his car and he drives to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Tom Stipe shares with a small group, leaves the room discouraged. Gino Geraci gets saved, takes the Gospel home. Skip Heitzig gets saved, moves to Albuquerque. And you think about the downline from Tom Stipe and all the ministry that's happened. Tom is in the presence of the Lord right now, so he knows now of all the work that God did through his life. And to think we would walk away from something so bummed out and so discouraged, but the reality is that God uses faithfulness. And we don't know what He's going to do. We don't know how He's going to do it. We don't know when He's going to do it. We just know He will. And you think about this little group in the book of Acts. They couldn't see 2,000 years future. If you told them, "Oh, in 2,000 years, there's going to be churches all over the world because of your faithfulness," no, they're not seeing 2,000 years in the future. They just see the person in front of them, the city where they live. They're open to the Holy Spirit to obey Him. He says, "Okay, I want you guys to leave now." And then the ones that don't want to leave, I'm going to bring persecution into the city so you must leave. I'm going to do things. You don't want to cooperate with Me, I'll arrange, God says, the circumstances where you will cooperate because God's will will be accomplished in our lives. It's always better to cooperate, but man, if you don't want to cooperate, God will make it happen. And there's story after story after story even in your own life of how you came to faith. I mean, if you come back to Acts real quick here, notice the church as the church grows. The church wasn't preoccupied with themselves. They didn't have some just holy huddle where it's, "Okay, let's come together. It's all about us. Only our church. We're Christians and don't worry about the world." No. They encouraged one another, then they left. They encouraged one another, then they left. That's where the real meat of the Gospel is, is when you do it. And I've never really met another believer that didn't love the Gospel. I haven't met one yet because the Gospel saved their lives. I was saved, so I love the Gospel. I love the work of Christ. And we're called to spread the Gospel. And a healthy church is one that's worshiping, one that's evangelistic, one that is learning and loving, continuing steadfastly. Continuing steadfastly. With continual evangelism comes continual conversions. How do we know, Ed? You may still be there and go, "Ed, how do you know they were so evangelistic? I don't see that in the text." Well, let me show you so you can see it. It says right here at the end in verse 47: they were praising God, they had favor with all the people, and the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. In order for people to be added daily, the Gospel needs to be in their hearts and minds. And how did He do that? He already showed us by Peter preaching at the day of Pentecost. How will they hear in Romans chapter 10 unless a preacher comes? You have the Gospel of peace on your feet according to Ephesians as part of the spiritual armor of God. When you share the Gospel, it encourages you. When somebody gets saved, you're blown away. You're like, "This is amazing." We get these questions all the time, "Ed, why don't we see the miraculous? Why don't we see the miraculous?" The miraculous is all around you if you'll just share the Gospel. You want to see miracles? Watch somebody go from darkness to light right in front of you. Like right there. Like it's happening. That is the sign and wonder that is so neglected today by the church. Man, we need to remember that any church that we're a part of, a church that's healthy, a church that is strong and making a difference in their community and their context, is a messy church. You know that, right? It's a messy church. I don't know any other way. It's kind of the popular word today, but it's a great one. I don't know any other way to describe it. It's going to be filled with difficulty and sin. A messy church is a healthy church because people are dealing with sin. They're talking about it. They're wrestling with it. It's surfacing. They're repenting from it. And so yeah, there's going to be a lot of mess, a lot of difficulty. The church isn't this antiseptic museum of people that are perfect and never have any problems. A healthy church is not one that looks down their nose at people, but rather we take the position of a servant like Jesus did. Probably the best position that Jesus took as a servant was when He washed the disciples' feet, because He was in a position to look up at them, not down at them. When we begin to take the posture of the servant in our community, we start looking up at people that need Him so greatly. And we start sharing with them that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and you believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you'll be saved and that God will begin to work on those things in your life. He'll begin to renew you. You don't need us to be telling you about it. If you read your Bible and pray, God will be talking to you all the time about areas of your life, of how He loves you and cares for you and wants you to grow just like any good parent would. Next time we'll finish up this little series looking at the mindset of the commitment that you need to make, church. It's a commitment that you've already made, but God is going to keep reminding you. When it says they continued steadfastly, a good way of describing that phrase is: this is what they did. And when you ask yourself the question about you, what would people say about you? This is what you do. This is who you are. If we'll just get beyond being embarrassed of the Gospel and we'll get beyond being embarrassed as Christians and we'll get beyond having all these causes—"Oh yes, we're going to fight for this." Why don't you fight for the souls of men? Go to your knees and fight for your neighbor. Nobody cares about your opinion. Your opinion's going to change in two years anyway. People care about what's going on in their own life, and you're the Christian on the block. You're the Christian at work. Yeah, you get a hard time for it. Yeah, you got written up for it. Yes. But you're going to learn how to be a loving vessel for the Gospel. And if you're open and you start praying this way, you're going to start bringing people to Jesus. You're going to bring them to church, you're going to bring them the radio, you're going to get them a gift, you're going to just reach out. You're not going to worry about the—you don't need to fear man, because you're going to learn how to fear God and respect and honor Him. And that's the pattern of the early church. That's what's going to be. And you're going to see the rest of the book of Acts. It's hard, it's challenging. They feel warfare, they make mistakes, but that is the book of Acts. It's where your spiritual growth comes. And I was just thinking how thankful I am to be a part of this fellowship, this community, this city, the opportunities that God has laid before us, the open doors that no man can close. Opportunities abound in this city, and God has you here for a purpose. And I pray that we would step into it with great confidence and boldness of the Holy Spirit.
Announcer: A healthy church is one that's Worshiping, Evangelistic, Learning, and Loving. That's the emphasis of Pastor Ed Taylor's current series called A Church That's W.E.L.L. And you can hear it again at aboundinggraceradio.com or through the Calvary Church app. This is Abounding Grace. Thanks for taking part in our study of Acts. Abounding Grace is made possible through the support of our listeners. And when you give a donation of $25 or more to Abounding Grace, you're invited to request a copy of Bob Hoekstra's book, *How to Counsel God's Way*. As the title would suggest, this book will lead you to God's way of counseling. And that looks much different than what we so often see in this world. When a friend comes to you for advice or you're faced with a dilemma in your marriage and not knowing where to turn for wisdom, *How to Counsel God's Way* can really be of some help to you. We genuinely appreciate the generosity of our listeners. It helps us provide the teaching of God's word on stations all across the nation. So thank you for standing with us. Call 877-30-GRACE. And don't forget to request *How to Counsel God's Way*. That's 877-30-GRACE. You can also get the book online at calvaryco.store. That's calvaryco.store. And then be sure to join Pastor Ed next time, right here on Abounding Grace.