Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / Acts: Enlarging Our Vision

By Not Dropping Out 07/05/09

Sermon Series: Acts: Enlarging our Vision

Title: By Not Dropping Out   Text: Acts 20: 1-12 

Introduction:

ILL: The new and improved lite church. Does it seem to you that churches these days just expect too much from their people? Has the heaviness of your old fashioned church got you weighted down? Try us! We are the New and Improved Lite Church of the Valley.

·       Studies have shown we have 24% fewer commitments than other churches.

·       We guarantee to trim off guilt, because we are Low-Cal. Low Calvin, that is.

·       We are the home of the 7.5% tithe.

·       We promise 40-minute worship services, with 10-minute sermons.

·       Next Sunday’s exciting text is the story of the Feeding of the 3,000.

·       We have only 8 Commandments -- You choose which ones apply each week.

·       We use just 3 gospels in our contemporary New Testament called “Good Sound Bites for Modern Human Beings”. 

·       We take the offering every other week, all major credit cards accepted of course or use our easy payment plan.

Yes, the New and Improved Lite Church of the Valley could be just what you are looking for. We are everything you want in a church and less! (Steve Shepherd)

While this is an exaggeration, it’s not that far from the truth in many churches today where leadership is often more interested in giving people what they want, rather than what they need. And even with this, studies have shown that regular church attendance in America is declining.

People just have other interests, other demands on their lives that when Sunday worship is placed opposite them on the scales of time and commitment, Sunday worship comes up short.

Regular Sunday worship attendance has so much to offer us as Believers. It’s sad to ‘drop out’ because we can’t say no to the other interests in our lives.

Transition: Open your Bibles to Acts 20:1 (pg. 848 in the Bibles under the chair in front of you.) For it’s there we’ll discover we enlarge our vision of God by not dropping out.

I. Acts 20:1-6              And encouraging others

Read: Acts 20:1-6

ILL: E. Stanley Jones was a missionary to India. Some have called him "the Billy Graham of India." Jones once said: I am quite sure that I would not have survived as a young Christian had I not had the church to hold me up.

·       When I rejoiced, they rejoiced with me.

·       When I was weak, they strengthened me.

·          And once when I fell (a bad spiritual fall), they gathered around me with prayer and love, without blame, and lovingly lifted me up. (Steve Shepherd)

 

The church is in the business of lifting people up! Edification, exhortation, encouragement, building up...all basically the same thing. And it is one of the principle jobs of God’s church.... that’s you and me. That’s what Paul did in his ministry and it’s what we see in verses 1-6.

·       When Paul was ready to leave Ephesus...he gathered the new believers together and encouraged them.

·       When he visited the churches he had started, he encouraged the believers.

·       Paul saw the need to build up with words of encouragement rather than tear down with words of criticism.

Paul was such an encourager, he had many new Christians who chose to leave their homes and go on the road to join his evangelism team.

Like Paul, we need to encourager one another.

Question: But how? What are some ways we can encourage each other here at CBC?

Paul wasn’t the only one doing the encouraging, it seems the Believers were encouraging Paul and helped him with his plans to get to Jerusalem safely, even though there was a plan by the Jews to have Paul killed.

Transition: One of the ways we refuse to ‘drop out’ is by encouraging others. Luke, in verses 7-8 gives us another way.

II. Acts 20:7-8   And gathering together regularly

Read: Acts 20:7-8

Question: What are some of your favorite ‘gathering’ events? Something that you join other people to do.

Family ‘get to gethers are the most popular...Thanksgiving, Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. But what about ‘Family of God’ gatherings?

Some day we will be together with the Lord continually and the best way to get ready for that is make worship on Sunday a priority! Just like Paul and the early followers of Jesus did.

But for some reason, that’s often not the case. Coming to worship God and fellowship with God’s people on Sundays for some has lost it’s appeal, it’s excitement, it’s joy.

ILL: A sportswriter for the Dallas Morning News wrote an article a while back about visiting the Dallas Cowboy team at Valley Ranch after the 4th regular game of that football season. He wrote:

I have never seen so many long faces on millionaires in all my life. Here are all these guys making millions of dollars, & the parking lot is filled with very expensive automobiles. Yet, these guys are all walking around with long faces. I don’t understand why. They are making lots of money. They are young. They are successful. The Cowboys are 4 & 0 for this season. They ought to be rejoicing. I just don’t understand it.

Then I remembered when I was a player. We came to the dressing room on Monday morning after a victory on Sunday that no one had expected us to win, & yet we did.

We were in a state of euphoria. But now everybody expects the Cowboys to win, so the euphoria is gone.

The sportswriter quoted Troy Aikman as saying:

The 1992 season was fun. We were a team that was expected to do well but not too well. No one expected us to beat the San Francisco 49’ers. And yet we did, & we went on to win the Super Bowl. It was a time of great celebration. But since then, our games have become more like just a job.  (Melvin Newland)

 

Can it be, coming to worship,

·       rather than being a time of joyful celebration for the victory we have in Christ over sin and death,

·       has become a repetitive, go through the motions, chore, a responsibility that we no longer take seriously.

For those where this has happened, their practice of regularly gathering on Sunday mornings with their brothers and sisters in Christ to worship their Lord and Savior, has begun to be inconsistent. As their inconsistency becomes the norm, they’ve developed a new habit of regularly being inconsistent...and habits are hard to break.

How can you break the habit? I can give you a few ideas from the text.

·       ‘On the first day of the week we came together to break bread’...that is they came to remember and celebrate Jesus’ death on the cross by sharing the Lord Supper, together. Remember Jesus died...for you...so that you might have forgiveness of sin, an abundant life in the Spirit now and eternity in heaven. Remember just how HUGH and important that is to your life.

·       ‘Paul spoke to the people...until midnight’ They came together to hear God’s Word. Even though they had worked all day, they spent all night together, worshipping God and listening to His Word. Remember to feed on God’s Word.

Remember, God’s Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Remember, it is light and life to all who believe.

·       ‘There were many lamps in the upstairs room where they were meeting.’ They met openly. They showed their neighbors that they were on Christ’s side. They were saying ‘Hey, we’re up here worshiping Jesus....why not join us?’

ILL: A deaf and dumb man came regularly to church every Sunday. Someone asked him why he came so faithfully and he wrote, ‘To show which side I’m on.’ (Steve Shepherd)

When people know you are a Christian and see you at home on Sunday morning, what do you think, they are thinking...about you, about your church and about your God? By coming to worship God each week you will be putting Psalm 122:1 and Romans 1:16 into action.

Read: Psalm 122:1 ‘...I rejoiced with those who said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’

Read: Romans 1:16 ‘I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes...’

Transition: The way we refuse to ‘drop out’ is by encouraging others, by gathering together regularly and by staying alert, as we will see in verses 9-12

III. Acts 20:9-12         And staying alert

Read: Acts 20:9-12

ILL: A minister gave his Sunday morning sermon, as usual, but this particular Sunday,

it was considerably longer than normal. Later, at the door, shaking hands with the members as they came out, one man said, "Preacher, your sermon was simply wonderful - so invigorating, inspiring and refreshing." The minister of course, broke out in a big smile, only to hear the man add, "Why I felt like a new man when I woke up!" (Steve Shepherd)

Eutychus could identify. This is perhaps one of the funniest events recorded in all Scripture...come on, Paul gets long winded and a teen drifts off to sleep then falls out the window. There is so much I could say...but unlike Paul, I will be brief.

·       If you’re going to fall asleep during the worship service, don’t sit near a window.

I realize that many people wouldn’t dare fall asleep in church, but they very may well, be, asleep, desensitized if you will, in other ways. Can I give you a few real examples?

1. Clapping your hands during worship is a good thing. Talking while we are singing, praying or I am preaching isn’t.

2. Movement while we are worshipping is a good thing. Moving out of the worship center during the service isn’t...unless you have medical reasons to.

3. Closing your eyes during worship and prayer is a good thing. Sleeping isn’t.

4. Writing notes about what God is telling you during worship is a good thing. Writing notes to the person sitting next to you and texting on your phone aren’t.

5. Calling your family and friends before or after worship is a good thing. Leaving your cell phone on during the worship celebration isn’t.

Why? Because we need to be alert when we worship our Lord.

Read: 1 Peter 5:8 ‘Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.’

This is true....even here, even now. Satan is looking for ways to divide, disrupt and destroy our worship of God and our fellowship with each other...don’t let him. Stay alert.

Conclusion

ILL: Back during the days when people would travel by sailing ship, a young boy was traveling with his father. The boy was amazed at all of the activity and work it took to sail one of those ships. He watched everything the sailors did and he noticed every night that the captain of the ship would stand on the deck and point a funny-looking instrument at the sky. He asked his father what the captain was doing. His father said, “That funny-looking instrument is called a sextant. With it, the captain can ‘shoot the stars’ and then he will be able to take our bearings. The captain can then see where we are and find out if we are going in the right direction.” (Michael Luke)

Folks, in a very real way, gathering for worship, coming to ‘church’ if you will, is a sextant in our lives, helping us find our way on our journey of faith.

Someone once said ‘Most Americans tend to worship their work, work at their play and play at their worship.’ Does this describe you?

·       When it comes to worship, is regular attendance your habit?

·       Are you willing to fill your life with lamps so that others will know that you are a Christian who is not ashamed of Jesus Christ?

·       Are you being intentional about staying alert as you worship God and fellowship with His people?