Acts 2:38-47 - A Church God Blesses

Main Idea: Live your life, led by the Holy Spirit, lovingly committed to Jesus and His Church.

• A blessed church focuses on Jesus’ mission (vs. 38-41)

  • They preach the Gospel.

  • They baptize believers in Jesus.

  • They reach every generation.

  • They are responsible for the spiritual care of their members.

• A blessed church is devoted to Jesus’ values (v. 42)

  • They’re devoted to biblical teaching.

  • They’re devoted to spending time together.

  • They’re devoted to observing the Lord’s Supper.

  • They’re devoted to praying together.

• A blessed church spreads Jesus’ kingdom (vs. 43-47)

  • They provide for each others’ needs.

  • They meet consistently to praise Jesus.

  • They see God grow His church through salvation.

Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed By Apple Podcasts)

All right, we are in Acts chapter 2 today, Acts chapter 2. If you don't know much about the Book of Acts, the Book of Acts gives us a blueprint for how church can look and what it looks like to follow God's plan for his bride, the church.

When you look at Acts, you can see before many of the difficulties that we have now today, before those difficulties come in, what was God's plan?

And what we're going to look at today in Acts 2 verses 38 through 47 is, right at the beginning, empowered by the Holy Spirit, what was the church doing?

Because that's the kind of things, those are the kinds of things that we need to be doing as well. Many of us would recognize today the sad state of churches all across America.

I visited a town in rural southern New York just a few weeks ago, and there were three churches that were there. It's just an itty bitty town.

But in that church, there were three church, sorry, in that town, there were three church buildings that were each over a hundred years old. They were beautifully built out of stone. They were tall.

They were intricate. But all of the congregations had died so far down that actually all three of those churches meet together in one building, and they just alternate which building they're meeting in.

And all three of the locations would fly the gay pride flag on each of their church locations.

It's a church that has in many ways abandoned preaching the gospel, abandoned preaching, repent of your sin, and believe in Jesus, that Jesus forgives and Jesus makes us whole, and instead have acquiesced simply to culture.

Over the past six years, in some pre-pandemic research, 75 to 150 churches were closing every week in America. Think about that. 75 to 150 churches were closing every week in America before 2020 happened.

And the post 2020 environment has only accelerated those circumstances. I'll tell you guys, I don't know how long God will have Tabernacle around for. I'd love to see for us, I'd love to see us continue for another 75 years.

But the truth is that the roof could crash in, and we could lose, you know, two or three AC units, and be completely out of money on what we would be able to make repairs with.

But for whatever time God has still allotted for us to preach the gospel, I want to be faithful to do what God has asked us to do. I want to be a church that God blesses for whatever time that God gives us left.

We're going to be in Acts 2 today looking at the very first church, what they did, how they operated, what their practices were. And I'm going to encourage us to be that kind of church, the kind of church that God blesses.

But this isn't just a challenge for what our church should do. It's a personal challenge for you and I. And that challenge is to live your life led by the Holy Spirit, lovingly committed to Jesus and his church.

Live your life led by the Holy Spirit, lovingly committed to Jesus and his church. Let's pray. Then we're going to look at the passage and see what God has for us this morning.

Lord, thanks for the gift of your church. God, may it not be something that we ever take lightly. God, you have given us a family, Lord, a people that we should not abandon, we should not begrudge.

We ought to love one another and encourage one another to follow the Lord. And we ought to invite new people to become disciples of Jesus. God, I pray that you would help us to recognize today from your word what our purpose is.

Lord, if there's someone here today that does not know you as Savior, maybe they've been to church many times before, but they have never personally called on you as their Savior. God, I pray that today they would make that choice.

We love you, and we pray all of this in your name. Amen. All right.

The first thing that we're going to see today, and we're going to be in verses 38 through 41, verses 38 through 41, is that a blessed church focuses on Jesus' mission. A blessed church focuses on Jesus' mission. So Peter has preached at Pentecost.

There are thousands of people that have come in for this particular Jewish festival from all across the Roman Empire.

Peter preaches, honestly, a really straightforward, a really kind of harsh message in which he basically says, you guys are the reason that Jesus is dead. It's all right.

God had a plan, and actually he intended that so that everyone who believes in Jesus would be able to receive salvation. But yeah, his blood is on y'all's hands. I don't know.

If I preach something, you know, very specific against you guys, I assume that I would get some death glares, something like that.

However, what we read in verse number 37 is that as the people hear this, God convicts their hearts, and they ask Peter, man, what do we do? Like, yeah, we apparently messed up as people. We have not received Jesus.

So what is the thing that we should do? How do we make it right? And Peter says, repent and be baptized each of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

I love the simplicity of the gospel here that Peter presents, that as you recognize your state before a holy, perfect, sinless God, and you see your failures in light of the Word of God.

Peter preached through Psalm 16, Psalm 2, and Joel 2, and brings in verses from each of those passages as he goes through. As we recognize our state, he doesn't say, be good for this amount of time, and you will be forgiven.

He doesn't say, give this amount of money, and you will be forgiven. Instead, he says, repent. This word means to have a change of mind that you turn from going your direction to the direction of Jesus.

Paul would call it in Romans 10, that we call on the name of the Lord, that we recognize Jesus as the one in charge of our life. If Bryon or Pats no longer call in the shots, Jesus is calling the shots for me now.

And as a result of repentance, we are baptized. We are baptized, here he says, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins. This doesn't mean if you're baptized that then you are forgiven.

I can dunk you in the pool behind those doors as many times as you want. If you don't believe in Jesus, it's not going to do anything for you. Yeah, I used the illustration before.

Here, being baptized for the forgiveness of sins is like my daughter's birthday is coming up next month.

If I leave, let's say I'm at the office and I leave for my daughter's birthday party, I'm not leaving my office so that the birthday party will take place, unless I'm the one organizing it.

What's happening is I am leaving because the birthday party is happening. Here, you are repenting and you're being baptized because the forgiveness of sins has happened. It is taking place as we repent.

And the wonderful truth is when we repent, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. That is God's own presence living inside of us. So that's the call that he gives.

And then he gives him some hope. He says, the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call.

The truth is this, there is no people group, there's no nationality, there's no economic status that precludes you from receiving the forgiveness of Christ.

That whether you are these people, whether you're their kids, whether you're far away from God, or you have been in church for all of your life, you can receive salvation through repenting of your sin and believing in Jesus.

That what he accomplished on the cross for us, dying for our sins, that that price that he paid for us is sufficient. That we are forgiven as a result of what Jesus accomplished.

Because the truth is this, if you could save yourself, Jesus wouldn't have come. None of us can save ourselves, and so Jesus came. And Jesus paid the price in full.

He didn't pay 50 percent, he didn't pay 98 percent. The price was paid fully by Christ on the cross. So here, there's a uniformity of who can receive the gospel.

Verse number 40, with many other words he testified and strongly urged them, saying, be saved from this corrupt generation. You can tell Peter's, you know, a preacher, because he says, with many other words he testified.

We just had a whole chapter of Acts 2 where he's talking. And then there's with many other words. So this is definitely a preacher, and he calls them be saved.

Verse 41, so those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about 3000 people were added to them. That's a good day.

You know, if we have a day here at Tabernacle where it's like, all right, we had 90 people in church today, or we had, you know, I think at Easter, we had right about 130 that were here. It's like, man, that's a banner day. That's a great day.

Here this early church, frankly, in a very metropolitan area, there were a lot of people that were there, but they saw 3000 people except the Lord. They were baptized and they were added to the church.

This is a church that God in this moment is richly blessing. So if a blessed church has an importance, if they focus on Jesus' mission, what is Jesus' mission? Well, first today, they preach the gospel.

The gospel, that is Jesus' death for sin on our behalf, his burial, his resurrection, and the fact that he reigns as king of kings and lord of lords and extends salvation to you and to me. It's the gospel message.

And for a church to preach the gospel, it sure, it starts with the pastors and preachers. I hope that as you come each week to Tabernacle, you hear the gospel from the pulpit, but it cannot stop there. Each part of the church must preach the gospel.

The music ministry has to preach the gospel. It's why we sing the songs that we do.

You know, I'm a big fan of, you know, Don't Stop Believing or whatever other fun songs, but the songs we sing in church, these are songs that declare the gospel to you.

I guess you could sing Don't Stop Believing the gospel, but that would totally wreck the song. Don't do that. So the music ministry has to preach the gospel.

The kids' ministry has to preach the gospel. The benevolence and finance teams have to preach the gospel. Every finger, toe, earlobe, and nose of the body of Christ needs to know and tell others the gospel of how Jesus lived a perfect life.

He died in our place, and he invites us into a relationship with God that will result in eternal life with him. And for a blessed church to focus on Jesus' mission, the gospel, it means that a church cannot and should not be everything.

We're not just a catch-all for our own separate society inside of larger society. We have Jesus' mission, which means that we're not intended to be able to solve all of society's ill. We're not a be-all, catch-all of social clubs for every age group.

We're supposed to learn, accept, live out, and preach the gospel of Jesus.

This means there's some things that our church doesn't do because it's not connected to the gospel of Jesus, and there are some things that need to be church things, and there are some things that need to be outside the church things.

Let me go with the biggest example. Military training operations. Is that an inside-the-church thing or outside-the-church thing?

It's an outside-the-church thing. Now, both of those can be important. I would want our soldiers to be able to be trained.

I think all of you would echo that as well. But just because the church exists doesn't mean that it exists for everything. We exist for the mission of the gospel.

The Lord's Supper. Is that a church thing or is that an outside-the-church thing? It's a church thing.

Both things are important for different reasons, but they have their own spheres, if you will. As a point of application today, do you know what the gospel is? Around lunch today with your family or your friends, talk with your spouse or your kids.

See if you can explain what the gospel is. If you have questions or if you don't know what the gospel means, please talk with me or any of our elders or friend or family member that you came with. It's my favorite subject in the world to talk about.

Not only does the church focusing on Jesus' mission preach the gospel, but it also baptizes believers in Jesus. We saw this in verse, I believe it was number 41, that those who accepted his message were baptized.

This is one of the reasons that here at Tabernacle we're a Baptist church, not a Catholic or Lutheran or Presbyterian church.

We believe that believers in Jesus, not family members of believers in Jesus, should be baptized, that each of us as we make a personal profession of faith in Christ are baptized. Why do we get baptized? A couple of reasons.

Number one, we're literally following Jesus's example, in that he was baptized at the start of his ministry. And so if we're going to become disciples or followers of Jesus, we need to follow in at least that first step.

Number two, we're identifying with all believers in Jesus throughout the last 2000 years, as we claim to be a part of his body. Number three, getting baptized was the way that people confessed faith in Jesus as Lord in the New Testament.

Today, most often, when we call people to accept Jesus as their Savior, we talk about a prayer to God as the action step to take, that we call on the name of the Lord to be saved.

In the New Testament, that prayer of Jesus, save me, it often took place in the river or lake or sea where you got baptized. So it was maybe a little bit less of, okay, you're right here on the front row. I'm going to call you to pray this prayer.

It was like, all right, let's get in the river, and I'll have you pray that prayer that you receive Jesus. And so there was a uniformity in how that took place.

We would also see, however, in Acts 10, that salvation, receiving the Holy Spirit, it can happen in a moment just in your heart. Peter is in that chapter preaching to Cornelius and his family. It's a Gentile family, those that were not Jews.

And as Peter is telling them the gospel, they believe in their hearts, and the Holy Spirit indwells them. And Peter goes back to the other Jews, who hadn't really seen this happen with Gentiles before, that they would believe in God.

And they're like, listen, we can't stop them from getting baptized, because the Holy Spirit like already indwelt them. So we gotta go along with God's program and bring them to be baptized. Do you consider yourself today to be a believer in Jesus?

Then you need to be baptized. If you refuse to follow Jesus and the apostles' first instructions to new believers, then I wanna ask you, are you really a follower of Jesus?

Now, there's a multitude of reasons why someone might not be able to go in physically into the water. That's not the environment or the type of person that I'm talking to.

If you're physically able to be baptized and you profess to be a believer in Jesus, then I wanna encourage you, be baptized. I'd love to talk with you even right after service about that.

For those that are maybe parents or grandparents in here, I want to challenge you that we baptize believers in Jesus. Don't fret about forcing the choice of baptism on your children. Let it come from their heart.

Let them constantly badger you about it. Let it be so clear that this is their choice, not yours to follow Christ in baptism. Scripture says, allow the children to come to me and do not forbid them.

It doesn't say, force the children to come to me. I've loved even Myron and Joan hearing about your grandson and how he was badgering his mom, he was badgering the pastor, and he was like, no, I believe in Jesus. I want to get baptized.

And I loved hearing that story, even just from our sister church over at Middle River. So focusing on Jesus' mission as a church means we preach the gospel, we baptize believers in Jesus, and we reach every generation. We reach every generation.

Can I tell you what not to think about this statement? So as Peter says, the promise is for you and for your children and for all that are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call.

Don't think that reaching every generation means we really need to have a specially tailored program for every age group, from crawlers to toddlers to preteens, to high schoolers, to college, to young adults, to young marriots, to empty nesters, to

seniors, to palliative care. That's not what the early church did, and that's not how they reached people. The same gospel that worked to save you is the same gospel that will save people of every age group, every demographic.

The problem in many churches is not that we don't have enough specially-tailored programs. It's that we don't have enough spiritually-mature people. Here's what I mean.

Unless you're an incredibly large church with a huge budget, you probably won't put together the most mind-blowing music program, the most dynamic youth program, the most fun college activities. But none of those things are inherently the gospel.

The Spirit works in believers, not necessarily in a bowling lane or an electric guitar. What makes the difference in the gospel-reaching people is them seeing Jesus live in you. You are the difference-maker.

And so often we think, God, well, I can't lead someone to Jesus, but if there's some bright, shiny thing, that will lead them to Jesus. No, Christ has put his Holy Spirit inside of you.

And here, 3,000 people at Pentecost saw Jesus' light shining out of Peter and out of the apostles, and 3,000 were baptized and added to the church as a result. Don't discount what God wants to do through you. It doesn't matter what your age is.

It doesn't matter how long you've been a Christian. God has put his own presence in your life, and his presence makes the difference.

If we want to see Tabernacle grow from what it is right now, with 74% of our members and regular attenders being 50 plus years old, and 82% of our members and regular attenders being 40 and above, then it means that you and I need to love like Jesus

personally. We could have the biggest attractions in the world at Tabernacle. We could have a dunk tank on the platform every Sunday with thousands of dollars given to other charities every week.

But if people walk into our church and see anger, hear fighting and gossip, and they aren't pursued and loved and cared for and prayed over, then none of it will matter.

The other aspect is that if we want to reach upcoming generations, then we can't simply do the things that reached previous generations.

If we insist on only ever having the clothing or music or decorations or activities that we did 10, 20, 30, or 50 years ago, then we should only expect to reach people from 10, 20, 30, or 50 years ago. Paul says this in his letter to the Corinthians.

He says, to the Jews, I became a Jew so that I could win the Jews. He says to the Gentiles, I became a Gentile so that I can reach the Gentiles. He says, I have become everything to everyone so that I can win some to Christ.

Can I ask you today, what are you willing to give up in your preferences so that Tabernacle can reach not just the generations we already have, but the generations that we don't?

Can I tell you, that's something that each of us can be praying for, because we all get self-centered, and Bryon could be like, listen, if I wanted to tailor this church to, you know, 28-year-old men with a bachelor's degree, here's what I'd do, and

I'd make the church in my image. But not everyone in the world is a 28-year-old man. Praise the Lord. God is not defined by any one of our preferences, and He calls us, live out Jesus and sacrifice.

There are things that we can do that the Lord would say, you shouldn't do that, because you'll distract from the gospel message, that when Paul is talking about the Gentiles and the Jews and says, I became like a Jew, he says, all of the rules and

regulations that the Jews follow through, if I'm going to be witnessing to the Jews, then I'm going to wear my yarmulke. I'm going to not eat any meat that was offered to idols. I'm going to change my behavior so that I can reach these people.

For you, you've got people in your life that God has called you to reach. And for many of us, we insist on our rights and our preferences, and I have the ability to do this thing, and so I'm going to do it.

It doesn't matter if it turns off my family member or my neighbor to the gospel. I have a right to do this, and so I'm going to do it. Can I encourage you?

Let's lay down our lives as Jesus laid down his life for us as we share the gospel with others. Then lastly here, focusing on Jesus' mission, a blessed church is responsible for the spiritual care of her members.

And we could see this in verse number 41. Those that accepted his message were baptized. So the ones that were baptized, the church knew they accepted the message.

And then it says 3,000 people, yeah, I think older translations might have 3,000 souls, were added to them. That is, they knew exactly how many people were now a part of their church, the ones that they were responsible for caring for.

Churches take care of their members in four ways, probably more than this, but this is at least the four that I wrote down.

Churches take care of their members by feeding them the word, praying for them, discipling them, which means teaching them individually what it means to know Jesus and to follow him personally.

Number four, warning them individually of when they are walking away from God. That's how a church takes care of its members.

There are more ways that we individually can care for each other, but these are the four things that our congregation as a whole is called to care for each other.

Can I tell you, number four, the warning when you're heading off the path, that one is the hardest for me as a person, because I really, really want people to like me.

You're like, listen, Bryon, I don't know if you're in the right job if you want people to like you. Yeah, I know it. I know it.

But if I love you, and if you love those in your life, and you want those that you love to have a good relationship with Jesus and with other people, then we need to tell each other when we are biblically wrong. And that's not just a pastor thing.

That's something each of us are called to do. We warn one another when we're veering off the path of what God has directly said in his word.

And that warning should always take the form of, I love you, and I want you to experience everything that God has for you in his plan. So, the warning should never be, you're so terrible, or I can't believe you, whatever.

Let's have a love in our watchful care for one another. Then next, in verse 42, a blessed church not only is focused on Jesus' mission, but a blessed church is devoted to Jesus' values.

Verse 42 says this, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. Breaking of bread and to prayer. First, they are devoted to biblical teaching.

Here, the Bible is central to the Christian faith. It tells us who God is, who Jesus is. It tells us what we should do, what we should not do.

It tells us about the Holy Spirit. It tells us about what's waiting for us. The Bible is central to our faith.

That's why we devote the majority of our time together to learning Scripture, learning what it says, what it means, and how we can apply it to our lives. If we're going to be a blessed church, we've got to be devoted to biblical teaching.

Can I ask you, are you reading your Bible throughout the week? Or is being devoted to biblical teaching, is that just a Sunday morning at 11 thing for you? No.

Let it be all throughout your week. If you only ate a physical meal once a week on a Sunday, you would be a very sickly person. I don't even know technically if you could make it, if that was all you were eating.

But many of us spiritually are only eating on a Sunday, or every other Sunday. Can I encourage you, be devoted to reading the Word of God every single week?

Are you attending a small group another time, maybe outside of the preaching time and outside of your personal devotions, when you are able to learn from the Word? Are you placing importance on the time of preaching in our worship services?

It's something that's important to the Lord. It's God's voice speaking to you through Scripture. Place importance on it.

But not only are we devoted to Jesus' values by being devoted to biblical teaching, but a blessed church is devoted to spending time together. A good church is one that wants to spend time together. The old aren't irritated by the young.

The young aren't bored of the old. It's a place where encouragement, where there is encouragement, where laughs are shared, where memories are made. It's a place where you're not together because you have everything in common.

It's a place where you're together because you have Him in common. That's not how most churches are. That's not how Tabernacle will just naturally be.

In many churches, the potlucks or times of fellowship together, they're just centered around people in their same age group, with their same hobbies, talking about their shared politics and the shared activities that they're going to do later that

week. There's no talk about what Jesus is teaching them, what Christian songs they're enjoying, what people in their lives they're witnessing to, what sins they're struggling with, and want to see victory over.

The worst kind of church is a place where people gather to talk about things other than the reason why they are gathered together there. Now, having friends is good. Having hobbies is good.

Having politics can be good. The point isn't, don't have any interests outside of Jesus, but the point of the church, the point of small groups, the point of church fellowships ought to be the Lord and what He's doing.

Then when you have that basis where you can love those outside of your interests, there will undoubtedly be amazing times of new friendships that were birthed out of what you share. Go have a blast. Meet up with your friends.

Enjoy the hobbies. Talk about how you'd rule America or Baltimore. But love people outside of how much they reflect you.

Love people because they are your brothers and sisters in Christ. Not only is a blessed church devoted to biblical teaching and devoted to spending time together, but they're devoted to observing the Lord's Supper.

As we learned last week, the Lord's Supper is our affirmation together of Christ's sacrifice, of our connection to each other, and our constant need to remember what Jesus did for us and how we need His grace each week.

Kind of application for this point is observe the Lord's Supper together with us as we meet this morning. They're devoted to observing communion. And lastly, they are devoted to praying together.

Why do we pray together? So verse 42, they're devoted to the Apostles teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. Why do we pray together?

Well, Jesus said, if any two of you are agreed on anything on earth, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. The Apostle James would say, confess your faults to one another and pray for one another so that you can be healed.

Even in the Lord's Prayer, the model prayer that Jesus gave us, what's the very first word in the Lord's Prayer? Our, our Father who is in heaven. A blessed church is one that wants to pray with and for and about each other.

By way of application, so this week, pray for your brothers and sisters in the Lord. Text them. Tell them that you're praying for them.

Shoot them a call and be like, hey, the Lord brought you to mine. Can I pray with you just real shortly? I got to do that with one of our homebound members earlier this week.

And man, it was an encouragement to me. I don't know if it encouraged the other brother, but I know he was a blessing to me.

Next Friday, not this Friday, but next Friday, we're going to be having a prayer and praise service where we encourage you to rejoice through what Jesus is doing in you and your brothers and sisters in Tabernacle.

And we're going to be praying together for God to work in miraculous ways in the hurting, the lost, and the broken.

I'm not saying if you don't come to that service, you don't pray for others, but if you're able to make it, this is one way that we can be devoted to praying together. It's why multiple times throughout a service, we pray all together.

Then lastly, today, a blessed church spreads Jesus' kingdom. So a blessed church focuses on Jesus' mission. It's devoted to Jesus' values.

And then lastly, it spreads Jesus' kingdom. We can see this in verses 43 through 47. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles.

Now the believers were together, and they held all things in common. They sold their possessions and property, and distributed the proceeds to all as any had need.

Every day, they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.

Every day, the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. Here, a blessed church spreads the kingdom of God. It goes outside of just that group, and every single day, there is addition to the people of God.

How is Jesus' kingdom spread? Well, we see first that they provide for each other's needs. They held all things in common.

Each of them sold excess things that they didn't need for their daily survival, and they gave to each other. Whoever had a need, the need was met.

Just as our God provides for our daily breath, shelter, and food, He calls us to join him in the task of making sure that others' needs are met. God has blessed you so that you will bless others.

His generosity towards you is intended to spark generosity towards others. When was the last time that you personally gave to meet a need of someone else at Tabernacle? Do you know anyone at the church well enough to know even what they need?

As I was preparing for this message, the Lord brought someone to mind that I went, all right, Lord, I know I need to do something. I can't do everything. I can't meet every need that they have, but maybe I can help out in this one way.

Can I encourage you? Know each other. Love each other enough to know what the needs are and how you can meet needs of others.

Not only do they provide for each other's needs, but a blessed church meets consistently to praise Jesus. The early church met every day. For many Americans, we're lucky if we make it to church twice a month.

But if the church is Christ's bride, and she is, and if our whole earthly mission is to love God and each other and win people to Jesus and see them join his church, and that is our mission, then we need to place importance on our local gathering of

believers. Transparently, as a pastor, this is one area I'd love to see our church grow in more over the next couple of years, whether at some point that's maybe adding a Sunday evening service, adding more small groups, or seeing regular mentoring,

discipleship happen with mature and immature believers. It is always a good thing, as we're told in Hebrews 10, 24, 25. We encourage each other.

We provoke one another to love and to good works, not neglecting the gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but meeting more and more as we see the day of Jesus' return approaching.

This week, how can you meet with others to praise Jesus? It can be a service, a small group. It can be coffee with a friend.

It can be inviting someone that you don't know well from church over to your house, but spend time this week praising other, praising Jesus with other believers. And then lastly, a blessed church sees God grow his church through salvation.

At the end of verse number 47, it says, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day, the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

The local church that God blesses is grown, not through human amassment of a crowd, but through divine salvation.

A blessed church is not simply a church that can get the most people in the doors, but a church that preaches and lives the gospel faithfully, and sees God add more people through his process of salvation, baptism, and discipleship.

If God grows his church through salvation, through helping people become disciples of Jesus, who are you sharing the gospel with this week?

If you don't have anyone right now, maybe pray and ask the Lord, God, would you show me a person in my life that I can encourage to become a disciple?

And for many of us, a really wise thing is, have, for all of you fishing people, I'm probably going to really mess up a metaphor, have a lot of lines in the water. That way, then you can see, okay, that one's starting to bite. I'll grab that one.

Or that one's going, you know, you get the text, hey, I'm really struggling right now. Could you pray for me? And you're like, yes, absolutely.

I've been praying for you. I'll pray a little more. God, would you guide this person towards yourself?

Or are you sharing the gospel with others? So a church God blesses. A church God blesses is, if you notice in the outline, it's all about Jesus.

It's not about its own greatness. It's not about amassing great finances. It's not about how much fun we can have.

A blessed church focuses on Jesus' mission, which is the gospel. It's devoted to Jesus' values of the word and prayer, of serving the Lord's Supper together, of praying for one another. And a blessed church spreads God's kingdom.

First to each other, we provide for needs, we encourage each other, we meet to praise Jesus, and then we go out and we see God save the world, as He's done for the last 2,000 years.

Today, will you choose to live your life led by the Holy Spirit in loving commitment to Jesus and His church? God, when He saved you, He didn't save you to be alone. He saved you to be a part of a family.

We fail as spiritual brothers and sisters, but our failures don't mean that God's plan isn't good. And it doesn't mean that we don't pursue past our hurts. Say, God, I know that I mess up.

I know that I'm imperfect. And God, I desperately need you because you've given me an opportunity to show your love to people right around me that I'm in a relationship with, and then to the world. Would you help me to walk with you?

This isn't a list of something that just one or two people can do. It's something that all of us together as the body of Christ, we have to pursue these things. Let's be a church together that God blesses.