Abounding Grace

Pastor Ed Taylor: Maybe it's time to simplify your life. It's time to get back to simplicity, church, is what I believe God is calling us, certainly calling me in how complicated my life can get at times. I got family issues, I got church issues, I got life issues, I got personal issues. It can be pretty complicated. So what does the Lord say to Ed? Get back to basics, Ed. Simplify.

Guest (Male): It's time once again for Abounding Grace, online at aboundinggraceradio.com. Today we'll be wrapping up our four-part mini-series called A Church That's Well, part of a larger study in Acts. We've learned thus far that a healthy, vibrant church is made up of four ingredients. They are: worshiping, evangelistic, learning, and loving.

And last time, Pastor Ed Taylor showed us that being fully committed is important too. And today we'll be encouraged to embrace a simple life. As this world gets darker and harder, that's a message we need to hear. We're in Acts chapter two.

Pastor Ed Taylor: And even in the culture today, haven't you noticed a departure from the love of God from much of the church? They've made the gospel something other than the love of God, often in response to the difficulty of the world that we have been teaching you about for years, that you have learned about since you opened the Bible—that in the last days perilous times will come.

And when perilous times come, how will we respond? Will we respond in the agape? That's the Greek word, by the way, that describes the love of God, the agape love of God, the agape love of God. It's a word that describes God's love and when it's translated into something you and I live out, you could say it's a self-sacrificial love which ties back to what Jesus said: you can't be my disciple unless you forsake all and follow me.

It's impossible. If you don't die to yourself, then discipleship's not for you. It's not going to bear much fruit. You're not going to abide in the love of God because you've left it. You've departed from it. And over a period of time, that simple love, that pure devotion becomes cold, stale, lifeless, and even religious, so that you're full of the motions but you lack the emotion of connection to Christ.

You have departed from where it all began. I've been reading in my devotions recently in Galatians and I've been doing it twice now. I finished already but I'm going back and doing it again. And this phrase is just so powerful and I'm going to paraphrase for you basically what Paul is saying: "Guys, what is wrong with you?"

"Do you really think that you can begin in the spirit and perfect yourself in the flesh? Do you really believe that? That you can start with God working in you and then the longer you go, you're going to make it better on your own?" And that's really saying, "What is wrong with you guys? What's wrong with us when we do that?" Why do we walk away from the love of God?

Why do we walk away from this first love? You notice the word first? First is a word of priority. Not your second love, not your third love, it's your first love. Jesus, your first love. Jesus, your love above yourself, above your mom, dad, brother, sister, son, daughter—first love. The first love that forsakes all and follows Him.

The first love that seeks first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things. Your first love, your first love. And often that is what we're guilty of, individually and as a corporate church. We've left our first love. And I think that's why Ephesus is first; all these other problems flow from walking away from your first love.

And if that's you, now or in the future, let's listen to how Jesus speaks to us to get out, to change. So what does He say in verse five? He says, "Remember therefore from where you have fallen, repent and do the first works, or else I'll come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent."

Interesting. Lampstand speaks of a—He used that phrase to describe the church. So He says, "You're a lampstand, you've got a specific place. If you don't deal with this, I'm going to remove you from your place." Don't misunderstand this like you lose your salvation and then you don't be a church.

He just says, "Look, you have a place." That word place speaks of prominence, it speaks of privilege, it speaks of blessing. And He says, "Look, if you don't deal with this, I'm going to personally come and remove you from your place of prominence, privilege, and blessing." For how long, Lord?

Until, it says, "unless you repent." So it's not permanent, but you'll feel it. It'll get things will get worse, not better, until you deal with this issue in your life. But Ed, I want to continue steadfastly. Okay, count the cost. But Ed, I want to be the early church.

We want to reach Aurora, we want to reach Colorado, we want to see more in these new days. Yes, yes, yes. Okay, count the cost and consider the love. Where are you? It's not a list you're going to sign up on after the service. We don't have online registration for this. This is you. This is you. And it's interesting because the very first thing He says to do is remember.

So you know how we have that message of moving forward, forgetting those things behind, moving forward, and you've got the little rearview—this is the time you can use the rearview mirror and I want you to remember. He says, "I want you to remember. Remember from where you have fallen."

And so you tie that, where did they fall from? Their first love. And where were we introduced to our first love? When we were born again. Remember when you were born again? Before you knew anything, before you became Bible-smart, religious-smart, church-smart, you just knew Jesus.

Couldn't answer any questions, didn't know—you'd tell somebody what happened: "I got saved." "Well, do you know about the sovereignty of God?" "Dude, I don't know what you're talking about but I love Jesus." "Well, let me explain to you the sovereignty of God."

All right, do I need to know that? "You must"—I changed my voice on purpose—"you must know." And all these people, and you start reading the Bible, you start getting smart, "Oh, it's Greek! Oh, it's Hebrew! Yes, it's great! Oh, Asia!" on and on and now longer, instead of love and faith, now you're living on knowledge and pride.

You really think you know more than God? You really think knowledge is going to get you where you need to go? He says, "Remember from where you were fallen." It made me think, it made me think, when I got saved, born again, we didn't even own a Bible. I didn't even have a Bible, not in the house, not on me.

And yet I knew that God loved me. I knew that He died for me. And I embarked on my life knowing that I am going to live my life for God, even knowing I didn't even know what that meant. I just knew that I needed to do that in that moment. Then I started reading the Bible and then I started getting into apologetics and I started really feeding my mind and I had all these little course corrections because living for Christ in love just seems too simple.

It just seems like, "Man, what do you mean love?" Yeah, Jesus summed it up. It's actually profoundly simple and profoundly demanding at the same time. Remember Jesus summed it up? Somebody wanted him, "Tell me what's most important in the law." And the law is really the first five books of the Old Testament, right, the Torah.

"What's the significance?" And Jesus laid it out. He says, "You know, it's all summed up in this: love the Lord God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself." And even now some of you are like, "That's just simple, man. Let's just get on to the meat." Yeah, you know what the meat is? Go and do it.

Just trust the Lord with your challenging situation. Trust Him. "Yeah, but Ed, I trusted Him yesterday. It hasn't gone away." No, but you were stronger yesterday. You were trusting Him. You're living by faith. You were abiding in Him. You were obedient and He got you through yesterday. You don't think He's going to get you through today?

"Yeah, but my circumstances didn't change." Yeah, you're right, your circumstances didn't change, but you did. One more day of faith, one more day of trust, one more day of self-denial and serving others, self-sacrifice, the empowerment of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Knowing that God is with us, we need to remember from where we have fallen.

This is such a foundational, important truth. Remember the power of Jesus to save your life. Remember the power of Jesus to pull you out of the miry clay. Remember His faithfulness, remember His care, remember how many sins that all the temptation that He helped you to avoid. Remember. The problem of leaving our first love is we have forgotten the goodness of God, which leads us to number two.

Number two, after we remember, is much more challenging, and that's repent. Repent. When we get in chapter three of Acts, we're going to go much deeper. I'm going to spend a whole Bible study explaining the theological significance of repentance. It's very important we understand that as it relates to salvation, as it relates to life, but we'll save that for another day.

Let me just explain it on its most simple level. It's the Greek word metanoia and it means to change. When it refers to your particular life and when it comes to sin, the word repent, that's translated in English 'repent,' means to change your mind and change your behavior. You have not repented if you haven't changed your mind and changed your behavior.

You haven't repented. If you have said, "I'm sorry, Lord, I'll never do it again," and you continue to do it again, that's not real repentance. It might be an emotional response, but I also did a deeper dive on this and a deeper study in our study through Corinthians to learn what godly sorrow and worldly sorrow really is.

Because repentance involves emotion. It's sorrow. It's like, "I have sinned against a holy and a righteous God, and most likely have sinned against other people that love me and I love them." And this is not how I want to live my life. I don't want to walk away from love. I don't want to depart from the beginning.

I want to be in Christ, for Christ. I want to continue steadfastly. I want to count the cost. I want to return and come home. I will no longer live that way. Repentance. It's not feeling bad, just not simply feeling bad. Kind of like the difference between feeling bad when you get caught.

You kids are like that. You're just like, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." Bro, you're just sorry because you got caught. What the real sorry, the real sorrow will be you know what you did was wrong and you agree with Mom and Dad that it was wrong. Kids have to change their mind. They think their way is the right way.

It happens a thousand times in the house. And what you're looking for in your kid—you're not going to sit them down and go, "Okay, son, metanoia." No, your whole goal is, "Just see it the way I do. Would you just trust me? Just trust me." "No, no, no, I know better." "You're like five years old. You know nothing."

"No, I know better. I want you know, I saw Baby Shark—Shark told me Sharky Sharky Sharky, whatever that song is." Five years old, they don't know. But even telling them that, they're not going to get it. You're going to walk with them, right? That's what God does with us as a Father.

You come up to God like a five-year-old: "I know what's best for me!" and God says, "No, trust me. This isn't just transactional where I do this and now I'm right. It's relational. I trust you, Father. You've been faithful. I remember your faithfulness. And I trust you because walking away from love—I mean, what's going to be better than the love of God?

What's better than the love of God? What's better? What can wash away your sins? It's nothing but the blood of Jesus. And where did that come from but love? Of course we began with the blood of Jesus reminds us we were bought, but just change the tone of your voice a little bit and like, 'Man, you belong.

You're not just bought, but you belong. You belong to the Lord. You're His prized possession and you're going to go off and do your own thing? You're going to play-act with Christianity? You're going to come to church and put on a show? You're going to go home and you're going to be one thing here, you're going to be one thing at work, you're going to be another—you don't even can't even keep up with yourself you're so many things. That's what you want with life?'"

Oh yeah, you're born again. Okay. But you've left your first love. So He says, "Remember, repent," and then what does He say? He says, "Do the first works." And for the sake of our using the letter R, you can use the word repeat or return here. So remember, repent, return. It's time to get back to simplicity, church, is what I believe God is calling us, certainly calling me in how complicated my life can get at times.

I got family issues, I got church issues, I got life issues, I got personal issues. It can be pretty complicated. So what does the Lord say to Ed? Get back to basics, Ed. Simplify. Come back to love. "Yeah, but you don't understand, God, this." "Just come back to love." "All right." "Yeah, but I got these"—"Yeah, just come back to love.

Like what do you think? Is it my church or your church?" "Oh, Lord, that's not nice. That's not nice." "My family or your family? My problems or your problems?" He's like, "Son," to you, "Daughter, trust me." How do churches, large gatherings, individually, how do we get off? We choose to leave our first love.

And it's often small, imperceptible, but the longer you're on that path, the farther you go. What the world needs today is the agape love of God living in the children of God. We need to be cooperating with the Holy Spirit regularly, daily, habitually, like it says here. Don't overlook continuing steadfastly.

Let that remind you to count the cost daily, repetitively, leading you to a place of settled peace in the love of God. The world needs the agape love of God through the church. Only the church can reveal that love in a practical way. The danger, and it's even hard to say this, but here's the danger.

This is something we've got to pay attention to. There are literally churches today functioning without Jesus Christ. And there are believers today functioning without Jesus Christ. All the behaviors, all the activities. "Look, look!" Jesus says, "You're persevering, you're laboring, yeah, but you've left your first love."

Which means you've walked away from that simplicity of your relationship with Jesus. And maybe that's you, maybe listening on the radio or online, here in the room, like God has your attention in this matter. You've been tracking in your thinking, "Hey, that's me." Well, then good. Follow through with what Jesus instructs.

Don't pretend to be the church in Philadelphia when you're actually the church in Ephesus. Pretending will get us nowhere. We need to be real. I was talking with a brother last night. We need to be real. The Bible says if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin.

We just need to be real, walking in truth, being honest with one another, being honest with God, and just let Him do His work in us. Can you let Him do His work in you and be discouraged? Yes, the world's discouraging at times. Can you be—can you allow the Lord to work in you and be successful? Yes, sometimes God blesses with great success.

There's going to be ebb and flow of regular life, but let it be the ebb and flow from the love of God. That's where the spiritual, eternal difference is made, is the love of God being transferred in you and through you. Because even in all the early church, all their weaknesses, they still were strong, they still were vibrant.

You listen to a Bible study like this and you walk away, "Well, you know, I'll never be perfect." That word hasn't even been used till right now. It's not a perfect life. None of us are perfect. That's just not even the point here. The point is, look, following Jesus requires and you got to be open.

You can't have it on your terms. If that's your life—you've been trying Christianity on your terms—then you have completely missed it up to now. So much of the Bible we read and we don't want to apply it to ourselves. You know, we'll go to Romans chapter one and go, "Oh look, these guys, they're creating a God in their own image."

Well, no, it's not just those guys. It's not just those guys. We find ways to get around the clear teaching of the Bible at our own detriment because it really is just simple: you read it and you do it. And the simplicity of that is even greater than that. It is abide in Christ and He abides in you and all the resources of Jesus are now your resources.

So He empowers you and strengthens you for the journey. For the journey. Remember, repent—and we know repentance is important because He mentions it twice—and return. So come back now to Acts chapter two and just understand the fullness. You know, these guys in Acts two, they don't have Revelation yet.

They don't know what the church in Ephesus doesn't exist yet. They don't know anything. They're just gathering together to worship Jesus. "What are we supposed to do?" "I don't know, let's sing." "All right, let's sing. Let's read the Old Testament Scriptures, the apostles are teaching, well let's listen."

And they're responding to the leading of the Holy Spirit so that as they launch off into life, they continued steadfastly in the apostle's doctrine and in fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayer. Fear comes upon every soul and then notice in verse 46, "continuing daily with one accord."

So now we know continuing steadfastly is connected to daily. So you can measure it in a daily way, every day. What's my life like every day? So continue daily with one accord. So there was a sweetness of unity. That word 'one accord' is a phrase for unity. They had a unity that was different than anywhere else.

They came in the temple, they broke bread together, they went to each other's house, they ate food together. And notice, it says they were glad and had simplicity of heart. And I know things get complex very fast. I know life is complex. But it's great to respond to a complex world with a simple faith in Jesus.

Things are not going to get less complex, they're going to get more—more challenging, more difficult. And they had a simplicity of heart. I know that many of you listening me right now, you're just like, "I want that." Well, it's yours by faith. It's already yours. Take it. Enjoy it.

"Yeah, but Ed, you don't understand like in my like the brother we had shared testimony this Wednesday. He's like, 'Yeah, I made a strong decision because I was unequally yoked, so now I made a strong decision. I look at my bank account, it's minus 400. How simple is that?'" Well, you pray over that, like this brother does, and God sent somebody to buy a trailer for him and now he's not minus 400 anymore.

Like God just takes care of you. So don't worry about it, bro. Don't worry, don't focus on the numbers. I'll take care of you. Don't focus on the difficulty. I'll take care of you. Don't focus on—simplicity is what I want in my life. That's what I'm praying for. That's going to lead to what?

Verse 47: praising God, having favor with people, and the Lord adding to the church daily such as are being saved. I'm not going to ask you to raise your hand but I wonder how many of you want to be a part of that? Just simple. Lord, use me. Change me from the inside out.

The world's getting darker and harder. I'm getting all caught up in it. I'm worried, I'm anxious, I'm fretting. I've been a troublemaker. But Lord, I just want a simple life. I want to be a peacemaker. I want my life to matter eternally. I want to be a good friend, good husband, good single. I want to be a good dad, good grandpa, good grandma. I just want a simple life. And God is saying it's yours. It's yours by faith.

Guest (Male): The simple life. We hope that's your desire as it is ours. And as Pastor Ed Taylor said, it can be yours by faith. This is Abounding Grace, and with that, we've made it through Acts chapter two. If you joined us late or would just like to hear this message again, drop by aboundinggraceradio.com.

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