Abounding Grace

Pastor Ed Taylor: You don't speak negatively about the bride at a wedding. Why would you want to speak negatively about the bride of Christ? There's only one bride of Christ. There's not five, not ten. So all of these brothers and sisters that we have that maybe do things differently, maybe make mistakes, whatever it might be, obviously we're going to stand for sound teaching and doctrine for sure. But the bride of Christ is to be valued and cherished, and you are the bride of Christ.

So we're making disciples. Jesus said go into all the world, make disciples, not consumers. Not trying to figure out what you want and then give it to you, but rather get your eyes on the Lord so that he can deal with you so that you could follow him. God makes disciples, not consumers.

Guest (Male): Consumerism has invaded so many lives today and sadly much of the church as well. But today on Abounding Grace, we'll be encouraged to make disciples, not consumers, as our study of Acts kicks into high gear. We're learning how to be the church in the 21st century as described for us here in Acts. So let's join Pastor Ed Taylor now in the first chapter.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Take your Bibles, open them to Acts chapter 1. Acts chapter 1, we just started a study through the book of Acts. We're calling it Be the Church because we want you to be the church. God wants to show us how to be the church in the 21st century.

Notice in verse 1, "the former account." If you like to take notes, let me just give you a few insights in these first few verses. "The former account I made." The former account refers to the Gospel of Luke, so you can just write in your Bibles, "the Gospel of Luke." When he says "I made," he's referring to himself. Luke is the author of the book of Acts. The Gospel of Luke and Acts go together.

He wrote to a man by the name of Theophilus. You'll notice there his name means "lover of God." And he wrote about all that Jesus began both to do and to teach until the day in which he was taken up after he through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom he had chosen. To whom also he presented himself alive. That refers to the resurrection. Not only did Jesus live and die, but he also rose again.

Notice he was there after suffering by many infallible, infallible—or also you might have a note in your Bible, "unmistakable" or "reliable." When something's infallible, it's without error. So the revealing of Jesus after his resurrection was without error, infallible, unquestionable proofs, being seen by them during 40 days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.

And so as we study through the book of Acts, I want you to remember that we are reading the true story of a small group of men and women who in the power of the Holy Spirit didn't leave their world the same way they found it. And I think at the heart of our lives, when we get through all the muck and the mire and all the layers of our thoughts, I believe in our depths of who we are, we truly want to make an eternal mark on this world. We want to leave it different.

Your world could consist of your apartment building, it can consist of your family, it can be your workplace, it could be the business you own. But to leave an indelible mark for the birth, the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus. To the point where as we'll see in the book of Acts, the church was so powerful in their witness that when they came to town, the leaders of the town were concerned that the people that turned the world upside down have come here too.

And it's unfortunate in many ways that the world has turned the church upside down so that there's really not a lot of distinction between the two. These were ordinary people. When you read the book of Acts, you've got to realize these people are like you and me. They could be your neighbors in Aurora, Centennial, Greenwood Village, and Golden. These are people just like you, ordinary people that God used to do extraordinary things.

You could say that this is the beginning of the Jesus movement that continues on to this day. But it wasn't done by the wisdom of man, like you might think today where we've all got to sit down and figure this thing out. We don't need to figure anything out. This isn't the way the church operates, figuring things out, applying business principles, trying to organize something that God intended not to be organized but to be dependent upon the Holy Spirit.

So it's not intelligent ideas, it's not polished sermons, it's not magnificent marketing. Here's the key, and this is what you want to look for as you're reading through the book of Acts. It is the power and the presence of the Spirit of God in your life. That's it. Not by might, not by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord. That's his pattern.

Now you can go about it without the Spirit of God, you can make a lot of decisions, but if you really want to see the book of Acts come alive in your life, you've got to yield to the strength and the power of the Spirit. I'll be mentioning this many times, but I want you to remember the book of Acts is the Spirit of God working through the word of God in the people of God. And the title of our message today is Making Disciples and Not Consumers.

Now if you step back a little bit, you'll notice that consumerism has invaded your life. It's because of the culture that we're in where the customer's always right. Anybody that works with customers knows that's such a lie. Customers are not always right. But we've adopted that and we demand that and we'll write our reviews for that.

This mindset of the customer's always right, it's come into the church. Maybe this is your first time here and you're checking it out. I don't know what you're checking it out for, but there's not much to check out. It's a very simple church and probably if you have a list of ten things, we probably won't be able to provide five or six of them. If that's how specific you are, we're probably not going to because we have to please the Lord.

And I know that if you get your eyes on the Lord and our eyes are on the Lord, we're going to hit most of the things you're looking for because God will change them. Sometimes we want all ten things on our list to be exactly the way we want them, instead of the five things that we're concerned about being points where God wants to disciple you and change you.

And so there are people walking around saying, "Change this about your church, change this about your church." No, we're not. We're not going to change it. we're going to study the Bible and sing together. It is remarkable and we do it all the time, so maybe it's not so remarkable. But I want you to consider a typical week in your life. When and where is it that you come together with like-minded people and sing praises out loud to your God? Apart from here, probably nowhere.

This is your refuge. God has a gathering, wherever your church family might be, God has created a gathering so that you can come and lose yourself. Lose yourself, die to yourself. And so in the consumer mindset, you've just got to be careful. You come into the church and ask, "What do you have for me?" I'll just say nothing. We have nothing for you.

The question is this: what do you have for the Lord? It's not "what have you done for me lately," it's "what have you done for the Lord lately?" How has your life been surrendered in living out your faith? And then collectively, because as we look at the church, you're going to learn that the church is actually not just a gathering, not a building. You're the church. I'm the church. So you know we have a lot of critics of the church today. "Oh, the American church, the Western church." Yeah, when you say that, go into the restroom and look in the mirror because you're the church.

You don't want to mess around with the bride. I'm going to be at a wedding a little bit later today. Nobody's going to be allowed to speak negatively about the bride. Nobody. We'll take them out. We'll tackle them. It's going to be up on a hill, we'll roll them down the hill. You don't speak negatively about the bride at a wedding. Why would you want to speak negatively about the bride of Christ? There's only one bride of Christ. There's not five, not ten.

So all of these brothers and sisters that we have that maybe do things differently, maybe make mistakes, whatever it might be, obviously we're going to stand for sound teaching and doctrine for sure. But the bride of Christ is to be valued and cherished, and you are the bride of Christ. So we're making disciples. Jesus said go into all the world, make disciples, not consumers. Not trying to figure out what you want and then give it to you, but rather get your eyes on the Lord so that he can deal with you so that you could follow him. God makes disciples, not consumers.

You'll find in this study of the book of Acts 55-plus times the Holy Spirit is mentioned in the book of Acts. Pretty significant. The Holy Spirit is mentioned more times than the miraculous. People want to say "I want to get back to the Acts, all the miraculous." Well, the Holy Spirit's mentioned far more in the book of Acts than even the miraculous. The church cannot operate, thrive, or move forward without the Spirit of God.

We can gather, we can have a building, we can have a budget, people can come, and gatherings can even grow. But without the Spirit of God, that's not the church. It's just a gathering of people. Now I want you to step back and consider that the church of Jesus Christ is the cherished bride of Christ. And I love the church. I love our church. I love the ability to be a part of the church, a part of the work that God is doing on the earth today. What a precious gift God has given to us, the church, this church, this family of God.

And yet if we chose to unplug from the Holy Spirit, if we as pastors stopped praying, if we as elders stopped surrendering, if we stopped walking in the spirit, the church would stop. The act of God would end because this can't be a work of man. A true church of Jesus is not a work of man, it doesn't surround man. I look at our church; we're not funded by some major grant or some huge foundation.

We're funded by the faithful giving of the tithes and offerings of the people of God at what I like to tell our team here is the worship money. When Marie and I give an offering to this church, that is an act of worship. We're not thinking about how it's going to be used; I'm just thinking about how I want to honor God with what he's honored me. I want to respond to him. I want to learn to be more gracious and more generous in every area of my life.

And so when you think of a church, we think we are a church that really is committed to live by faith. It's challenging at times, but we're committed because we want to learn how to depend upon the Lord. And we have to place ourselves in positions where we must rely upon the Lord by faith. In John 15:5, it says Jesus said this: "I am the vine, you are the branches, he who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit." But then this is the end part of that verse, you've got to consider. "For without me, you can do nothing."

Now I want you to consider that because you can do a lot of things without Jesus. However, in his eyes, it's nothing without him. So we can have a lot of activity in our life; without him, it's nothing. Consider the faithfulness of God in your own life. Your own faith walk, your own faith journey, the different phases you are having to rely upon the Lord. It's hard and challenging, scary and fearful at times, but it's also so fulfilling to rely and be able to say, "well, how did that happen? I don't know. I'm just going to give God the glory for the great things he's done."

I'm not sure how that all went down. That's how the book of Acts opens up. You have a group of people that abandoned Jesus, and yet Jesus doesn't abandon them. For those of you that have failed greatly, isn't that encouraging? There are those that have abandoned Jesus here at his greatest time of need, but he returned for 40 days and ministers to them and reenlists them in the mission and the call of propagating the gospel of Jesus on the earth.

Because of the faithfulness of this group of believers, you're saved today. That's our connection. The book of Acts is our history. It's the foundation of our church. We don't need to redevelop, redesign, or reinvent, we don't need to tinker with the church. We don't need to somehow say, "Well, we're in the 21st century now, we can do things better." In many ways in the 21st century, we need to go back to the beginning.

Like Jesus told the church in Ephesus, "You've got a lot of activity, but you've left your first love. Remember from where you have fallen, repent, and repeat the first works." For some of us individually, you have to look back and remember when you were a new believer, when you didn't know anything and all you did was worship and love Jesus. Then you started to learn things and listen to things, and then you were in Bible study after Bible study and you began to love Bible study more than you love Jesus.

And it just happens very subtly. You just love church or you love serving or you love something or someone other than your first love. And things can be so complicated. God's calling us back to simplicity, an abiding relationship relying upon the resources that Jesus has given to us. Christianity is not another religion. I would even say it's not a religion at all, but rather a relationship with the true and living God.

Other religions have their founders, and their founders died, but here in Acts at the birth of the church, this is where it started. God invented the church. Right here at the beginning, he wants us to know, listen, Jesus Christ is alive. He did not remain in the grave. It's empty. He's alive and for 40 days showed himself to the people physically with the testimony of everybody seeing it, and then they watched him ascend into heaven.

This is our history. As you're reading ahead, this is the foundation of our church right here, the book of Acts. Acts reveals to us how the Lord's resurrection and his life is lived out through believers reaching a lost and dying world with hope. How his resurrection's worked out practically in and through each one of us.

And so Luke, the beloved doctor—we know that he's a doctor because Paul later refers to him. Paul traveled with Luke. In the day, it was not uncommon for you to have your own personal doctor in the Roman Empire to hang out with you. Can you imagine? Paul needed it. He had a lot of issues. He got beat up almost dead, he had eye issues, he had mental issues. The brother was beat up for the gospel, and Luke was there to encourage him.

And he's writing to this man by the name of Theophilus, and I think it's a wise choice. He was a lover of God, but he needed to know more specifically what it was about Jesus Christ that would require Jesus to live out their life in them. Now, the book of Acts is a bridge. It's a very important bridge. So I want you to understand that if we didn't have the book of Acts, if you just finished reading the Gospel of John—remember the New Testament starts Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, those are all known as the gospels. The word gospel means good news. Those four books of the Bible look in-depth at the life of Jesus and they each have their own purposes.

If you were to end at the end of the Gospel of John and then open up your Bible to the book of Romans, you'd have a lot of questions. After you watched the life and death and resurrection and the ascension of Jesus and then you open up this letter that Paul wrote to the Romans, you'd have a lot of unanswered questions. One of them would be: who are the Romans? What are they doing there? And what happened?

How did the message of Jesus get from Jerusalem to Rome? And who are these people? You can look back in chapter 16 at all the people that Paul knew personally. You'd have all these unanswered questions. What happens after the ascension of Jesus? What happens next? Will the story even continue? How does the church develop? How does it spread? How did these 11 simple fallible people take the gospel all the way to Rome? The book of Acts answers and builds a bridge from the gospels to the rest of the New Testament.

It's volume two, you could say, of Luke. So if you put Luke and Acts together, then you have the fullness of what Luke chose to write, inspired by the Holy Spirit. And it's interesting, each of the gospels ended with an event that's included in the first chapter. So that's the bridge. It's the connection point. For example, Matthew's gospel ends with the resurrection. That's here in chapter 1.

Mark's ends with the ascension, Jesus going up into heaven. That's in chapter 1. Luke ends with the promise of the Holy Spirit. That's here in chapter 1. As well as John ends with his second coming, and you'll see that as well here in chapter 1. So it's a bridge. Don't forget that. Let me give you the key verse. This is all preparatory in our study coming up. Let me give you the key verse. It's chapter 1, verse 8. And I want to encourage you to memorize this.

This will be the pattern of the book of Acts. Notice for those of you that have a Bible with red letters that verse 8 is in red. That's because these are some of the final words of Jesus. And he says in verse 8, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth." I want you to memorize that because this is the outline for the rest of the book of Acts.

But I want you to notice sometimes we quote this verse and you have the words backwards. So sometimes you'll remember this, "you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit's come upon you and you shall be my witnesses." But it doesn't say that. It just says "witnesses to me." The Greek word for witnesses is *martyres*, and we get our English word martyr. This isn't an easy task as you become a witness.

But notice you become a witness connected to the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. This is not something you can just take upon yourself. The empowerment of the Holy Spirit gives you what's needed to be a witness. This isn't, notice, in a verb form. You don't go witnessing; you are a witness. So you don't relegate evangelism to an event. Your whole life shares the gospel.

The question is, are you sharing it well or not so well? The real question is that in your life, witnessing to the power of Jesus Christ in your life, is it provoking questions that are going to lead somebody to talk to them about their life, their sin, their issues, the separation they have from God? We are witnesses. There's just not, you don't go witnessing. Although I'm not opposed to that language, you are a witness. That's what Jesus said.

Guest (Male): Hey, thanks for listening to Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed Taylor. You can hear these radio programs on our website anytime at aboundinggraceradio.com or listen to us wherever you get your podcasts. Another way to go and grow in the word is by downloading our app. Search for Ed Taylor. This is a great way for you to take in the word of God wherever you may be.

Do you struggle with anger as so many do? We'd like to recommend an excellent book on the subject from Tim LaHaye and Bob Phillips. It's titled *Anger is a Choice*. Whether you're dealing with the rage of others or battle it yourself, you'll discover how to keep anger under control instead of it being in control. Request a copy today when you give a gift of $25 or more to Abounding Grace. Call 877-30-GRACE.

And I should also mention the book is available online at our e-store. Take a look at calvaryco.store. Calvaryco.store. Again the toll-free number, 877-30-GRACE. There are some costs that go with being on the radio like this and we're looking to the Lord to provide for us. If he's leading you to take an active role in the ministry through either a one-time gift or ongoing monthly support, please visit us online at aboundinggraceradio.com or call 877-30-GRACE.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Hey, Abounding Grace family, I don't know if you know this, but we have a podcast here that's called Lead to Serve. Lead to Serve. You can go to my website, edtaylor.org. And up there at the podcast link, you can see all the podcasts. Lead to Serve is a podcast I started years ago to help you learn how to serve well, lead well, whether it's in the church or in the business world.

I have a corporate business background, so we talk about philosophies and thoughts and biblical foundations for good servanthood. It's called Lead to Serve. We want you to subscribe to it, listen to it, share it, forward it on your social media, let people know. Of course, leave us a good review. The Lead to Serve podcast, some radio stations are even playing it in their off hours.

That's what we do here at Grace FM. In our radio station here in Aurora, we play it in our off hours and the feedback has been amazing. It's a very popular podcast and we are encouraged. So be sure to subscribe to it, Lead to Serve podcast. We'd love to connect with you and we love to encourage you in all that God is doing in your life.

Guest (Male): And now here's what to expect as we travel through Acts in the coming weeks.

Pastor Ed Taylor: The book of Acts will change you. Here's the big thing. You're going to be on the operating table in the book of Acts. God's going to be doing surgery in your life spiritually. He's going to be cutting away and adding in your life. He's going to be shaping. The Holy Spirit's going to examine my heart and motive. We're going to be tested and we're going to be stretched and we're going to be challenged as we study the book of Acts. As we examine the book of Acts, the Holy Spirit's going to be examining you.

Guest (Male): God is going to do a good work in each of us as we go and grow through this study in Acts. Don't miss a moment of the journey here on Abounding Grace. It is going to be good. Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church Colorado here in Aurora.