Today's Word Radio

Brett Meador: To me, one of the most key passages on what churches should do is Acts 2:42. They continued steadfastly in fundraising. Oh no, it doesn't say that. Having a worship session with songs and music and bands from all over the world. Nope. What was it that they continued steadfastly in? The apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.

Kurt: Do we know what the church should look like? How can we know if a church is really doing what God desires? Thankfully, in today's word, Pastor Brett Meador says that the book of Acts chapter 2 helps us answer these questions by giving us a clear model of what churches should be doing and what matters when it comes to how we worship, teach, and engage with each other.

Brett Meador: We're entering into Acts chapter 2, and it's an important text in the sense that some would say the trigger that really kicked off the New Testament church, the Christian church. Before this, it was not the church age, it was the Old Testament period of the prophets and the laws. But when Jesus died, rose from the ground, ascended into heaven, that kicked off an age where the Holy Spirit came upon his church and it was a specific day. We call it the day of Pentecost.

The reason we call it the day of Pentecost, it was on the feast of Pentecost. Penta being five, it was 50 days after the Passover is when Pentecost would be celebrated. So people come to Jerusalem for Pentecost. But during that time, that's when the Holy Spirit came upon the church there in the 120 people in the upper room. What happened there? They spoke in tongues. You're like, what is tongues all about? That's weird. What about speaking in tongues? Is that something we don't see in the Catholic Church? But you see it in some of the Pentecostal churches. What's the difference between a Pentecostal and a Baptist church? Why are they so different in personalities?

I believe the book of Acts gives us all the answers that we need about what church should look like and what is good. Now it gets a little tricky because there are things that churches can do that aren't necessarily perfectly defined in the Bible, but they may not be bad or they may not be good, but they're things churches do nonetheless. It shouldn't really determine whether we like that church or don't like that church. There's just flavor things. Some are essential things that we should care about, other things we shouldn't, it's just a preference.

For example, when I went to church with my grandma and grandpa in Southern California, they were at a church that boasted of having the fifth largest organ in the world. Their organ was a big giant pipe organ like as big as this building. The organist would get up there on Sunday morning and play. They didn't do that song, but it felt like that to me as a kid. It was a scary service to a little kid. But some people really dig the organ in worship. Is that something that's good or bad? Well, it's a church personality thing and some people worship with organs, others worship with banjos or guitars or different styles of worship.

As it turns out, that doesn't really matter as much. One of the things we'll talk about today, does worship really matter as much as we tend to make it matter as far as styles and performance versus leading? There are some big questions. The way we dress ourselves, is it fancy or is it supposed to be casual? In the book of Acts, we see the church gathering in their normal clothes, the clothes they wore every day. It wasn't a dress-up thing. It wasn't who could outdress the other person or look fancy for Jesus. That wasn't a thing in the early church.

Now as it turns out though, if you're a church and you like to dress up and people feel better wearing a suit and tie to church, awesome. God bless them for that. There's nothing wrong with that. It's funny how things like your attire, the Bible actually says some very specific things. Like in 1 Samuel 16:7, for the Lord sees not as man sees, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. You see when you start to dig in the Bible, I don't think it matters as much what you're wearing outside, but is your heart dressed up when you come to church on a Sunday morning to worship the Lord? Is your heart ready to seek the Lord because that's what the Lord's looking at. He's not looking at your outward appearance, but he's looking at your heart.

Differences in churches, that's fine. It's great. Flavors, personalities, styles. Where it gets really tricky though is when churches do things that are different that are getting into essential topics, essential behavior. It really has to do with doctrine, essential doctrines of the Christian faith versus the non-essentials. Now when we talk about this, I have to be careful and not misunderstand this. When we call in this topic of essentials versus non-essentials, the non-essentials, it's not that they're not important or essential really, but when we divvy this up, it's mostly talking about what makes you a church that's a real church versus a fake church that's not real.

That's essentials versus non-essentials. That's where this becomes important. Are you a cult or are you a real church? The essential doctrines are what divvy that up. What's a non-essential? Well, for example, speaking in tongues. There are some churches that believe in speaking in tongues. There are other churches that say it's not for today, it was only for the early church and it's not for today. That's ceased. They're called cessationists like our Baptist brothers. They just say tongues is not for today. So which one is it, Brett? Well, that's one of the non-essential doctrines. Now again, I gotta say it again. I think speaking in tongues is an important topic and something the church should know about and study in the Bible. But when it comes to divvying out are you a Christian or not, speaking in tongues is not an essential doctrine to the pale of orthodoxy of Christian faith.

Things that are dear to me, like Bible prophecy. If you know if you've been around Athey Creek, I believe in a pre-trib rapture, eschatology and we teach the Bible and I teach that as strongly as I know how because I believe that. I've studied all the other views, but that's the one I land on. But other churches, some of them don't even believe in the rapture. The rapture is not even in the Bible, they'll say. Is that an essential doctrine of the Christian faith? No. They're still Christians and when the rapture of the church happens, they'll be taken up with us and they'll go oops.

And they're saved because whether you believe in the rapture or not is not what saves you or doesn't save you. It's not an essential doctrine to being saved. But what is an example of an essential doctrine? Well, if you're interested, I did a whole series on what are the essential doctrines of the Christian faith. I did a whole series on that that you can look on our website. Let me just give you like one example. Does the church believe Jesus is God in the flesh? That is an essential doctrine of the Christian faith. If you believe Jesus is not God, you are believing in a different Jesus than the main line church of the Church of Orthodoxy.

It's something that we all believe within that pale, whether you're a Baptist or Assembly of God, Presbyterian or Methodist. Some of these churches are starting to waffle on some of these essentials which is sad. But traditionally, all the main line denominations that are kind of within that pale, they would all say yeah, Jesus is God in the flesh. Emmanuel, Jesus is God. Jesus said that. We believe that. But if you don't believe that, you're outside of the pale of orthodoxy. That's by the way what separates some things that are a little hard to separate sometimes.

For example, if you're of the LDS Mormon faith. Mormons are some of the nicest people I know and amazing people. If you notice that Mormons, when you talk to them, if you're a Christian and you've talked to Mormons, they will say we're just like you. We believe the same things you do. But it's not really in their doctrine to agree with us on who Jesus really is. There's some very detrimental doctrines of the Mormon faith that are outside of the pale of orthodoxy. That's why traditionally the whole Christian church has excluded Mormonism from Christianity because of essential doctrines that are different. Same with Jehovah's Witness.

So those essential doctrines, when we see those differences, those are the things where we have to make a line and say true church versus false church. Those are hard words, but that's important to know. What about things like charismatics versus the Baptists? Like the people that believe in the Holy Spirit manifestations, speaking in tongues, word of prophecy, healing ministry, stuff like that versus churches that don't do that stuff? Those are non-essential doctrines, but they are important doctrines.

We're going to learn about that in the book of Acts. If you're a careful Bible reader, you're going to see that the Holy Spirit is in fact for today and a church needs to be Spirit-filled and the power of the Spirit has to flow through the church otherwise you have a dead church. But at the same time, the Bible puts rules around the way the Holy Spirit's going to move and what church people should do and shouldn't do. The Bible's very clear on that. We're going to cover all this in the book of Acts. I believe in the supernatural, but it should be supernaturally natural.

It's not all heebie-jeebie and just trying to be weird and stuff like that. I think that the Lord is his personality is beautiful. That's why, you know, we talked about the Holy Spirit, it's not the shrieking eagle. The Holy Spirit is typified by a dove, and it's a peaceful, beautiful kind of thing expression. So the question then becomes, how should we behave, what should be the emphasis in any given church? I'm not going to say Athey Creek is a great perfect church or anything like that. But what we are trying to do is line up with the way the early church met, like what they did, what they saw as important.

What would they say is the most important part of church behavior and church liturgy even? How do you put a service together? What does a service mean? How often should we get together? What should we do when we get together? The Bible gives us all kinds of detail about what the church should look like. Athey Creek's our goal has always been to say how much like that early church can we be because after the early church, the church went cattywampus pretty fast after that. But I think maybe one of the most clear sections of scripture about what the church was all about in the early church is right here in our story of Acts.

Before we get into that though, I want to say when it comes to essential doctrine, non-essential doctrine, there's a guy named Rupert that I want to tell you about. He's an interesting guy from the 1600s, Rupertus Meldenius. He was famous for saying this: in essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity. You say, Brett, I think it was Augustine who said that or Saint Francis of Assisi. Well, there's rumors it came from one of those guys, but we don't know. It was never written down by them. We don't have any real record of that. But this is the first guy that seemed to write this down and many people believe he's the one who made it.

Whoever said it, I agree with this. You have to have unity in the essential doctrines. If you're going to be part of the greater church, capital C, whether you're Presbyterian, Lutheran, Catholic, what are some of the essential doctrines? Well, we have to have unity in like is Jesus God in the flesh. We have to have unity in that. If you don't believe Jesus is God, you're outside of that and we're not going to be unified with you.

In the non-essentials, like speaking in tongues or the kind of music you play or organs or guitars or how you wear your clothes at church, you have liberty. I think we can do what we like best and however the Lord leads us in those things. Some churches are going to be different on the non-essentials. But in all things charity. Boy, that's true and Jesus made a real point to say they'll know you're my disciples by your love one for another. Not only your love for your co-Christians, but even your enemies you're supposed to show love to. Love your enemies.

Love needs to always be the thing, whether you're talking to a Jehovah's Witness or a Baptist. Love should always be a mark of the true Christian faith. But at the same time, essentials unity, non-essentials liberty, in all things charity. So let's take a look at Acts chapter 2 because I think what we have here is such a beautiful definition of this. We're going to start in verse 41. It says, "Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls." Oh wow. Uh-oh, we've got a problem here. We've got a mega church.

Those of you that follow such things and most I've kind of found that I probably care about this stuff more than most people at Athey Creek. A lot of you are like, what are you talking about, Brett? But there's a thing among church people and pastors and podcasts and stuff where they're really down on mega churches. Down with the mega church. What's really a mega church by definition in some people's circles are 1,500 church or more, the amount of people in the church.

What's funny about this is that you know who's the biggest bashers of mega churches? They're the people back in the 90s that were saying it's all about church growth and getting mega churches. They were all rah-rah mega church and they had books about marketing the church and it's the same people that did all that stuff, failed, and their churches failed. Now they're saying it's not about the mega church, mega church is horrible, it's about the small, you know. It's the same people, which is kind of funny.

Meanwhile, churches like ours, we didn't care about church marketing or trying to get as many people as we can in a building. We were just saying no, we're committed to teaching the word of God and we're going to just be faithful in what the Bible says the church is supposed to be. If it's five people, wonderful. If it's a thousand or two thousand people, wonderful. Honestly, at Athey Creek, we never wanted a big church. I never wanted to be a pastor of a giant church. Like we literally sat around praying and asking the Lord, Lord, what do we do? Because a thousand, that's a lot of people and we want to be able to shepherd and care for these people and a thousand, oh Lord.

Then we passed the 2,000 mark and then the 3,000. This is the truth. We don't have a good answer other than when they say why are you a mega church, Brett, did you want to be? And I just say, okay. When people say you're a mega church, we don't really feel like that. We feel like we're a Bible-teaching church and as it turns out, I think people really are hungry not for what pastor's opinions are or the fanciest sermon that he can think of. I think people are just really hungry for the word of God.

I think people are coming because they want to let's get into the word together as a church family and we're going to see that here. But what made the people come by the thousands to get baptized? Was it that Peter marketed the church? Or was Peter doing really fancy things? No, Peter preached the word. Did you see what our verse said? Verse 41: "They that gladly received his word," that's Peter's sermon. They were baptized and the same day were added about 3,000 souls. Suddenly we have a mega church.

Now, I get it, some of you are saying that's not what a mega church is, Brett. Well, the church went from about 120 people to 3,000 people in one day. Have you ever wondered, this is stuff I think about, how did they logistically baptize 3,000 people in one day? Well, the Bible critics used to say yeah, how did they do that? The Jordan River wasn't even near the city of Jerusalem. How did they baptize people? Well, the answer's kind of interesting. The sermon that Peter preached, most scholars believe he preached on the southern steps of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Peter preached this sermon of Acts chapter 2 and then all the people were baptized, 3,000 people. How did they do that? Well, there's kind of an interesting thing. At the base of these steps that would lead up to the Temple Mount, they archaeologically dug up hundreds of Mikvah baths. Huh? What's a Mikvah bath? Well, when the Jews would come to Passover, they would go down to the southern steps and they would ceremonially cleanse themselves before they would go up to worship God on the Temple Mount.

So they had hundreds of these Mikvah baths, as they would call them. The first step or two you'd be in a little pool and you would dip yourself in the cleansing ritual and then after being washed, you could go up and worship God up on the Temple Mount. Hundreds of these. So it's really believed Peter preached and then they all went and got baptized in these little... there were plenty of resources of water available on the Temple Mount, pools, reservoirs, that were for that very purpose.

So this is what's happened. Mega church in one day. 3,000 people saved, baptized, ready to roll. So what did they do? Well, this is where we pick it up in verse 42. "And they continued steadfastly in fundraising." Oh no, it doesn't say that. They continued steadfastly in Christian aerobics. Nope. They continued steadfastly in having a worship session with songs and music and bands from all over the world. Nope. Like things that are even good perhaps, they didn't... what was it that they continued steadfastly in? The apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.

Now mark this list, this is Acts 2:42 list of four things they continued steadfastly in. We're going to get back to that in a second. And what happened, verse 43? "And fear came upon every soul." Not like afraid fear, but like reverence fear. People were blown away at what God was doing and there was a holy reverence to what was happening. "And many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all that believed were together and had all things common; and sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need."

Now pause for a second. From these couple verses, some people have said we need to be communists or socialists. Well, how do they get that? Because they had all things in common. They all sold their possessions, put their money in a big pile and said let's live together as, you know. So some people say oh the church, we need to be like living in a kibbutz or a commune and become socialists. I'll tell you why I don't believe that's the objective here.

There were reasons locally why they were doing this, selling their possessions and putting all their things in common. It's because they were all visiting from other towns and places and they came and they got saved and baptized and they wanted to stay in Jerusalem and be a part of the church. But they didn't live there. That wasn't a place for them to live. They didn't have sustenance. And so they all put their stuff together saying let's do this as a team. And man they were happy. It was something the Lord was doing locally at that time.

Not only that, persecution was part of the deal too. If you became a Christian, the Jews and the Romans, some of them didn't even want you to be around. They wanted to kill you even in the first century. So some say the reason they put all their stuff together is because they had to group up for safety just to protect one another. I would say let's say things got that bad in America where you couldn't attend church without going to prison or if you preach the Bible you'll go to jail. If persecution ever got that bad, we would probably want to pull our resources together as a church family as well if things got that bad. And that'd be the wise thing to do.

But I don't think that's what necessarily defines the church. This is just what was happening for them at that time. But it says they parted all their stuff according as every man had need. Then in verse 46 it goes on. It says, "And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved."

What a glorious depiction of the early church. 3,000 souls saved. What do you do now? Well, they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, the fellowship, and the breaking of bread and prayers. And then there was a reverence and there were miracles happening and the people were loving one another and being hospitable to one another. And man they'd have meals together. What a glorious thing. You see to me one of the most key passages on what churches should do is Acts 2:42. This little verse 42 it gives you four things that they continued steadfastly in.

And the first one is they continued steadfastly in number one, the apostles' doctrine. And what in the world is that? Well, the apostles are the disciples of Jesus minus Judas. So it might be 11 apostles, but if you remember in chapter 1, they cast lots and got Matthias in there. Maybe that's the 12th. Some would argue that they shouldn't have done that. We talked about this. Paul would be really the 12th apostle, most agree. But really in this situation it would seem at least the 11, maybe the 12, they were teaching.

What were they teaching? The word doctrine means teaching. That's an important thing to understand. So the word didake in the Greek is the word for teaching. And so what were the disciples teaching? They were teaching two things but really one thing. But the two things would be the Old Testament. They were teaching from the Old Testament but maybe more importantly they were teaching also in addition what Jesus had taught them. Jesus taught them what they were supposed to know. And even after he rose from the grave he taught them.

So Jesus taught them the important things. Now what's interesting is then the apostles' doctrine, they put it on paper and wrote it down, which eventually became the epistles. Brett, I'm so confused. Is it apostles or epistles? The vessel of the pestle, the poison in the... you remember that whole thing? That's the problem. What are the epistles and apostles? No, the epistles are the writings and the teachings, the doctrines of the apostles. So good news. We do the same thing. We teach the apostles' doctrine. The same thing the apostles taught which was the Old Testament and the teachings of Christ which became the epistles, the letters of Paul and Peter and James and John. They all became part of the doctrine that completes the teaching of the Christian faith. Now this is really important they continued steadfastly in that, the teaching of scripture.

Kurt: Pastor Brett Meador with important insight of just the first of four godly practices for the church given to us by the apostle Luke in Acts chapter 2. And we hope you'll be along for the continuation next time in Today's Word. And also Pastor Brett will join me here in a moment to talk a little more about the church. But first, Today's Word is the radio ministry of Athey Creek Church in the Portland, Oregon area where Pastor Brett Meador is the senior pastor. We invite you to find out more about Pastor Brett and Athey Creek Church by going to todayswordradio.com. If you missed any portion of this message, you'll find all of Pastor Brett's messages online at todayswordradio.com.

Well, I have Pastor Brett here and we've been looking at the biblical model for the church today from the book of Acts. And I would imagine that there is at least one person who might be looking for a good church to attend where they live. Brett, what kind of church is important to look for?

Brett Meador: Well, Kurt, I'm really glad you asked that question and it's an important question. The first thing I'd say if you're looking for a church is that it actually teaches the Bible. Now I'm a big fan of verse-by-verse, chapter-by-chapter. There's a lot of good churches that don't necessarily go verse-by-verse. But I would say make sure they open up the Bible, that they're actually walking through good sections of scripture, not just tacking on a verse here or there. When you read the story of the early church in the book of Acts in Acts 2:42 it says they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine. And I think that should be the model that you look for, that the word of God needs to be central. Apostles' doctrine is just the teaching of the word.

Second, I'd look for a church that keeps Jesus right at the center. It shouldn't be centered on a pastor or even the programs or the outreach. Those are all good things, the outreaches and stuff, but it really needs to be Jesus-centered, I think. And then also looking at the health of the church body. 1 Corinthians 13 Paul reminds us that even if we have the gifts of knowledge and word of prophecy, but if we don't have love, we've got nothing. So you want to see love in a church body.

Finally, I'd look for a church with a good humble leadership that's accountable, servant-hearted, leaders who are teachable but also who handle the word faithfully. And I think if you just pray and ask the Lord to lead you to that church and give you wisdom. Now, it's been said if you find the perfect church, don't join it, you'll ruin it. And that's true. So you won't find the perfect church but I would say find generally those things and you'll be in good shape.

Kurt: That's such great advice. Thank you, Pastor Brett. And if you happen to be in the Portland, Oregon area, we'd like to invite you to the main Athey Creek campus in West Linn or our two other locations in Hillsboro and McMinnville, Oregon. Just go to todayswordradio.com and click on the link Locations. Again, todayswordradio.com and click the link Locations. Well, next time Pastor Brett will do a deep dive into those four vital elements that form the foundation of the early church's spiritual growth. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.