Transcript
All right, that goes on for some time. I needed to I needed to start the last message in this message series with that video. And I'm going to tell you why. , I titled this message series a while ago and knew that we were going to do it through the month of September.
And just laying in bed one night, we were just flipping through videos and we came across this video. And guys, like I could not stop laughing. I was just dying of laughter with this video.
And so it's became an inside joke in our household now that anytime we drop this message series name one more, we start going one more time. And so thank you or you're welcome. I just kind of ruined the message series for you.
But let me tell you why this clip is actually really relevant to what we're talking about. So if you're new checking us out for the first time, we've been in this message series for about three weeks. This is our last week of it called One More. And the idea of this message series is that God can use ordinary people to make extraordinary differences.
That God uses changed people to change people's life to reach one more person. And we've told stories and shared different things about how God does that. And I think that there is no weirder ordinary story than this story that we just watched from this video.
So if you know anything about XFactor, you might or what is this. Britain's Got Talent. Maybe you know this story. But I had never heard this before. This guy's name who did this whole dance and stuff.
His name is Vgo Vin. VGO went on Britain's Got Talent in 2023 as somewhat of a joke. Obviously, right. A lot of people go on to this show just to goof on Simon and goof on people, but he won.
Did nobody know this. Did somebody knew this. Okay, this dude won the whole competition. That means the money, the talent deal, like everything he won. And this was his first act.
Actually, I think it's so hilarious. He was interviewed and this was what he said. He said, "I think it's hilarious.
" This was after winning. I think it's hilarious because I'm not British and I don't have talent, but I won Britain's Got Talent. Like, that's how ordinary this guy was. And it wasn't necessarily because like he did something amazing.
He just came out and was himself. He was a comedian and he did this ordinary thing that had this extraordinary kind of impact and victory in the end, right. And people in the audience like they loved it, but they had one guy, you guys know the guy, one guy who did not like it who was Simon, right.
He was just like he gave him the red X and was and just told him to move on. And here's the question that I want to pose for us today. Do we look at the church, I don't just mean destination, but the church through the lens of the judge on the panel or through the lens of the audience. Because this is kind of how we can treat church.
We can walk in and we can can like kind of critique. Was the music good. Was the message engaging. Was that guy up there funny. Did I like the vibe.
Did I like how people were welcoming me, not welcoming me. And we can kind of hand out a score on whether or not we think the church is is worthy of our Yeah, you should we should move on with this one, right. One Christian author says it like this. , church shopping is kind of like finding trying to find the perfect pair of pants, trying it on, buying it, and then discarding it when it stops fitting. In Western culture, what we've coined this term as is church shopping.
And you've not heard this term too wildly as a popular term until about the early or mid 90s when people started to view the church in kind of a different way in almost more of a way of a product and a production and not with a purpose and with people in mind. And so today, my prayer for you is to be out of the mindset of creating unrealistic expectations of churches to put on this huge, you know, kind of production and product. But my prayer for you is to see what a biblical Christ centered church looks like.
So that way when you are inviting one more person, when you are extending an invitation into what we're doing here today, you know what you are inviting somebody into because that helps, right. And guess what. If you're checking us out for the first time, this is a perfect message for you because you can use this same message to go judge a bunch of other churches.
And I and I I say that like you can use this same outline for that too. And I would also add in addition to this, the the reality is is that some of you are not going to be at destination forever. You're going to retire to I don't know, somewhere like Florida. And I I'm not looking anywhere.
I'm I'm purposely looking up here because I've talked to people that are like, "Oh, I'm going to Florida. But this is going to help you in future seasons of your life. It's going to help you help others as they're trying to find a church home that may not be close to East Bethl.
So, the big question for today is how to identify a faithful church. And to do that, we're going to look at Acts chapter 2. It's on page 937.
, and so you can go ahead and pull out your Bibles and flip there. We open the Bible every single week here at Destination. And if you don't have a Bible, we want to put this one in your hands.
So, you can take that. It is our gift to you. , and as a part of this, we're in like a a topical series. And so, in topical series, context is crucial.
And so, I don't want to just point to some random page in the Bible and say, "Hey, we're going to start here. " without giving proper context. So, here's your 30 seconds of context.
The book of Acts is wrote shortly or written as a narrative for shortly after Jesus's death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven. And he has entrusted and given the keys to starting the early church to his followers, his disciples. And Peter, who is kind of Jesus's right-hand man, gets done with preaching his first ever big sermon.
And through this sermon, listen to this, 3,000 people come to faith in Jesus. So, from day one, 3,000 people say yes to a relationship with Jesus. And then what we get at the end of Acts chapter 2 after that is a picture into what the church looks like in the very early days with the very spirit of God moving just so prevalently in the the early church.
So we're going to pick it up in verse 42. I just want to read this and then we'll kind of break it down together. So verse 42 says this.
They that is the 3,000 that is the disciples that is who I was just talking about. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship and to the breaking of bread and prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.
All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Now, I love this passage because as a leader of this church, I constantly have to check my heart, check our priorities to make sure that we are a biblically centered church, that we are reflecting this same church that is shown in the book of Acts. And so, here's what we're going to see in just that short passage that we are read. We're going to see five marks of a faithful church and then we're going to see the fruit of that faith of what happens when all of these things are lived out.
Okay, so you following along with me. Five things. That's how you can keep track of how long does this guy going to talk for.
Okay, five things. Here's number one. Number one, a faithful church is a biblically centered church.
All right, verse 42 starts out by saying, "They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship. " And so everything that this early church was doing was centered around their devotion and love and you know seeking the truth of Jesus Christ. They devoted themselves to learning and to teaching others this same truth. Nowadays, we get this amazing gift of scripture that we get to center ourselves around and we get to learn and grow from. And what you'll get sometimes when you visit a church is you'll get some kind of almost like glorified halftime speech or maybe like a glorified like TED talk.
And yes, I am giving five ways that a church is faithful. It kind of has some of that vibe. So, there is a place for that. But a church that is not opening this up and centered around the truth of this word, those words are falling void because this is the truth. And this should be the book that you are opening every single day so that you can see that truth for yourself.
That is why as a church at today, as of today, we've given away 250 Bibles. , now let me just say something. Last week, you're like, "Wait a minute.
You shared that number last week and it was 200. Where did the 50 come from. Did 50 people just come last week and take Bibles. Because you want to know what I forgot to do last week.
I forgot to count the kids Bibles. There has been 50 Bibles given away in kids ministry, you guys. So that's that's a huge celebration for us and we open this every week without excuses. Because every message, everything that we do needs to be centered around the truth of this word. And I hope that you see, can I just give you like a behind thescenes look a little bit at your pastor.
I I maybe some of you don't want this. I'll give you it anyway. So, , the the behind the scenes is all of my messages are kind of structured the same.
And if you're here for long enough, you've maybe caught on to this that in the beginning of my message, I will present some kind of a tension. It is a tension that us in our human condition, in our sinful nature, in our fallen world have to live in. And then I will present that tension as our big kind of idea for the day. Today the tension is how do I spot a faithful church, right. And then what do we do next.
We open this because this is where we go to for all of life's big questions. Then we go through, we look at the word. We look at what the word has to say about that big question.
And then at the end, if I were just to leave you there and say, "Hey, do better, try harder. This is what the word says. " I mean, there's a part of that that's true. But it is void without the hope of Jesus. Which is spoiler alert how we end every message that you cannot by your own strength do this perfectly and that you need a relationship with Jesus.
And so every week this is what I believe a biblically centered church looks like. They look to the power and presence of Jesus and the truth and authority of scripture to answer all the big questions in life. Verse 42 goes on to say that they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching to fellowship and to breaking of bread that is communion and to prayer.
Now prayer is the second thing that you can spot a faithful church. A faithful church should be a praying church. And sometimes prayer is kind of viewed as that like last resort thing or that unseen thing, right. But let me tell you, without prayer, none of these seeing things that are happening would be able to happen. We need prayer because if we're without prayer as a church, that is to be without Jesus.
And I want to I I want to just give the example of us as a church here. We are a praying church. We are a praying church.
That's why on every connect card there's prayer requests. I don't just we don't just see those and say, "Oh, all right. Sounds good.
That goes out to a prayer team, which by the way, you can join. It goes out to a prayer team who is praying for you. Okay, at home I have a notebook.
Maybe you have it too. It says helping people find and follow Jesus. It's the one you get when you check us out for the first time.
In mine, because I'm not taking sermon notes with mine, I am using it for a different purpose. I write down the names of the people that come to Destination Church. Your name might be wrote in my notebook because every day I will take that notebook and I will open it and I will pick a handful of families to pray for.
Okay, this is my own thing. Okay, it's not taken out of Acts, but I think that pastors should be praying for their people. Okay, I think leaders should be praying for their people. And I think that when you're searching for a church or when you are inviting somebody into a church, you can invite them with the insurance of knowing that there are people actually praying for them. Because that is what a church does.
And my my vision for this is that this would not just be done from me or from leadership, but this would be done as a church, okay, at destination. And what I mean by that is if you're in a growth group, guess what. You can get prayed for by your growth group. That's why they're so important.
Number two, I really envision a church where, have you ever had this happen before where if you share something that's going on in your life and somebody goes, "Man, oh man, I'm so sorry. I'll pray for you. " Okay, which is good, but you actually don't always know if they're going to pray for you.
So, here's what I envision. I envision a church that when somebody is sharing and being vulnerable about that, you can pause and say, "Hey, can I pray for you. " Because man is it so much more powerful to pray for a person and lay hands on them in person versus just in your basement alone.
Those things are important, but I envision us being a praying church. And while we're at it, will you pray for Destination 2 as a church. Okay, here's our prayer request. Okay, I'm I'm hoping if you if you pray, can you please pray for this one thing that we have nice weather next week.
Okay, it's a really simple ask. Okay, I just don't want to have it raining while people are trying to get their food and bounce in the bounce houses. Let's just have a good time together.
Okay, and praying is what a faithful church does. And I could say so much more about that, but I want to move on to verse 44. We're going to kind of jump around a little I want to look at verse 44 and 46. They're on the screen behind me. , a faithful church we'll see is a gathering in groups church.
Verse 44 says, "All the believers were together and had everything in common. " And then we'll get back to 45. 46 says this, "And every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.
They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts. Okay, I want to remind you of where we started in Acts chapter 2. This is a church of 3,000 plus.
Okay, they have 3,000 people that they have to kind of like coordinate in this early church. So, by our western standards, a 30,000 person church would almost be on that like, whoa, they're a big church or they're a mega church, right. , and so what are they telling us that this church did that they gathered in the temple courts and we can assume because it is the temple court, it is a large group gathering and they gathered in homes. And so a faithful church is a gathering church and a group's church.
Now I want to stay on this one for a little while because I want you to see this because we in our western church shopping judge you know the church kind of culture. We believe three myths about churches. Myth number one I don't need church to be a Christian. I mean it's somewhat true, right. You don't need gas to say that that's a car, but you know, the gas kind of helps it go, right.
Like, are you with me here. And so, yes, you you technically don't, but you do. You do if you want to be effective in your walk with Christ.
Number two, myth number two, that we need it when it's convenient or the cultural norm. We call this CEO or WFO which means Christmas, Easter only or wedding funeral only. Okay, these are the people that only show up during those times.
And yes, those times are very appropriate to come to church. But you know that we do this like every Sunday, right. That that's just kind of like you know the the thing though is the cultural norm is to go at these times.
Now, I love the the analogy, and I've given it before about coals on a grill. If you've ever done like charcoal grilling, right. You have all of the coals together. And the way that you keep them hot is by what. Keeping them together, right.
But if you separate one coal out from that group of coals, what's going to happen. That one's going to burn out. That one's going to burn out and lose that same heat that the group of coals has.
And that same thing happens to you when you believe these myths. You are set apart in a way where you will burn out if you don't have your church community around you. And finally, myth number three, which I want to stay on for a second, too, is that size determines a successful church. And what happens when we believe this myth is we can walk into a big church and be like, "Hey, this is awesome. There's so many people here.
It's a beautiful building and they're super successful. " But then there's a shadow side to it, which is maybe that we can't find people to connect with. We we just feel like we're blending in and blending out and not being valued. But then, okay, I picked on the big church. Let me pick on the small church for a second because what can happen in a small church setting is while yeah people know your name and people know you but what can happen in a small church is people become so inward focused they forget that there is a whole city of people that don't know Jesus and so then you might go to okay big church bad small church bad mediumsiz must be the ticket right No, it's not mediumsiz.
Okay, here's the point I'm trying to make. A small church, a big church, a medium-sized church, whatever, you know, size drink you're you're ordering here. Okay, whatever one can be a good church as long as it is a faithful church, as long as it's following some of these things.
And so, here's the big idea. The church is a group of people that has this big group gathering and has small group group gatherings. And you as a Christ follower should strive to somehow be a part of both. You can be a part of both through joining a serve team. You can be a part of both by, hey, it's Sunday.
You showed up. Like it's it's it's that easy, right. And you can also do that by joining growth groups. So on average about 44% so 44% of you would be in some kind of like group across all Protestant churches.
This is the statistic that 44% of people are involved in groups. I'm dreaming that our church would be at 90%. That we would be at 90% of people involved in a growth group or a serve team. And I do not share that number just because I want a high number. Do you know why I share that number.
Because then I know that you are being cared for. Then I know that you are being loved by a team. Then I know that there is somebody there that can answer your questions in your walk with Christ.
You see, this is not about a number. This is about getting around a community that can help you work through some of the stuff that you've not v vocalized out loud. And so, how are you supposed to work through that if you don't have that community, that village around you.
And so, we should strive to be a church that is gathering both like this and in small groups. So, there's my last plug for growth groups. So, in the back, you actually get to go meet the leaders today.
They'll be at those tables. And I was I was joking earlier, but I'm serious. Like, you get to, you know, kind of get to know some of them and consider a night that works.
And hey, if there's a night that's back there that you're like, "Oh, man. I really would like this night, but there's not a group available, join the wait list, okay. Because we're starting these and I and and as we grow in numbers, we're gonna grow in groups, too. Okay, so a faithful church is a big gathering and a small gathering. Now, let's go back to verse 45.
And what verse 45 says is that they also they sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had a need. And so, a faithful church is also a generous church. And so what the early church experienced is this radical generosity where people were selling things that they owned, property, things that they had in order to meet others needs. That would be like me selling my car in order to give to this like big trailer thing.
And I'm not going to like repitch the trailer thing, but what I want you to see is that if if I were just to like present the trailer, I I might not have as much confidence behind it, like this whole fundraiser for a trailer thing. But because I see that this is how the early church behaved, I can look to the early church and say, "Hey, they as a community came together and gave to whatever need was there. " And so you as a church, we as a church get needs presented to us and we get to prayerfully consider if we can be radically generous and meet those needs. And you need to know that as Destination, we do this like we want to model being a faithful church.
And so for Destination, we give 10% of what comes in. No questions. It is the first thing out the door.
We give to local partnerships. We've helped the food shelf. We've helped the schools. We've helped the community in different needs and different things. We've started conversations with partners and missions and we've started those conversations about how we can be supportive in them.
And to date, we have raised thousands of dollars to help another church start and plant just like this. You guys did that. So, you can like give yourselves a round of applause here. Because we we believe in being a generous church.
By the way, just a side note, can I just like talk to you as a as a friend just really quick. Not Pastor Josh here for a second. I have a personal conviction that if you are looking for churches, okay, that you should ask that church what their view is on church planting, okay. And my personal conviction on that is that if you go to a church and you ask them, "What's your view on church planting. " And there's no evidence of them being kingdom- minded to start new churches, what you'll kind of get is this like competitive little bit of of a leadership or a pastor.
And what I love about church planting is it shows the church's cards right away to say we're about the kingdom growth, not about destinations growth. We are about more people finding and following Jesus. And he's going to use us for some of that, but he's going to use other churches for some of that, too. And so that's what it means to be kingdom-minded as a church. And so I'm always looking when I talk to a pastor to to talk to them about what their view is on church planting because it shows me that they can be kingdom-minded in in expanding the kingdom in reaching people for Jesus at all costs.
And could that money, that 10%, all of that that I just talked about be used for other things before it goes out the door. Yeah, it could. And the same is true in your personal finances, right.
You could use it for other things. But the bottom line is that we as a church are giving joyfully because God has given to us. God is a giver. For God so loved the world that he did what. Gave his one and only son.
God is a giver. And we don't just worship with our wallets by giving. We worship with our actions. And that is how this the number five for us.
What a faithful church is is a worshshiping church. Look at verse 47. It says praising God and enjoying the favor of all of the people.
This is what the early church was doing. They were worshiping the goodness of God. They didn't have a problem praising Jesus because they knew that Jesus was worthy of the praise.
That's what worship is, right. It is this admiration, this appreciation, this glorification for this God that has been so amazing to each and every one of us. >> Okay, we can go.
Let me just say that again. Worship is a response to how good God is. Worship is a response to how See that. Now, let me tell you that in our Minnesota up north culture, , we have the tendency to say, "Yeah, this is me being expressive.
But I know you and I know that when you turn on the Vikings game or when you turn on your favorite show and you're like hooting and hollering, like God should get that amount of praise because he is so worthy of it. And nowadays, we almost kind of judge that part of churches, too. We'll come in and we'll try to get engaged based off of what the people next to us are doing or is the band really good. Are they playing my favorite song. Here's what I'm telling you.
Jesus is worthy of all of the praise. Okay, so there we go. There we go.
So, my UPN North Minnesota congregation who I'm love so much, I'm going to tell you something. It's okay to be a little expressive during worship. It's not going to hurt anybody. Nobody's going to look at you like you're weird.
When you're raising a hand up in the air, it doesn't mean you have a question. It just means you really, really like God. So, we can praise like that.
And that's what the early church was doing. They were praising God because he was so worthy of that praise. Okay, so let's recap here for a second. Five things, five ways to identify a faithful church.
That they were a biblically centered church, a praying church, a gathering in groups church, a generous church, and a worshshiping church. Now, if we were to look at all of those things as separate kind of ingredients, we would say those are good things, right. I kind of think of it like a like a smoothie.
This is a smooth analogy. You ready for this dad joke for the day. So, this when I like make a smoothie, I think of all of these ingredients, right.
Strawberries by themselves are good, right. Yogurt by itself, good, right. Milk by itself, good. Just like some of these, a biblically centered ch by itself, good, right.
A praying church by itself. But when I mix all of these things together, I get a wonderful, awesome drink, right. The same is true here that when we mix these five things together, something breaks out in the church. And I want to show you there were three things. Maybe you caught them in today's reading.
The first one was that an awe fell among the people. That God's power was evident, that there was hope, that there was healing, that there was baptism. Guys, do you know that that's happening here.
To date, 39 people have given their lives to Jesus here at Destination. We are one away from 40 before our like one year. And we celebrate that and we look for that.
And if you come next week, you're going to see this amazing video about all of the awesome things that God has done over the the last year. That's where we get this word awesome. It should fill us with awe at what God is doing. The second thing is that there is an adoration.
You'll see the way that people just love God and love each other through this. Do you see that in the words on this page. There's just something different. Have you ever walked in here. I know I have.
Even as the pastor of this place, I've walked in here into a normal everyday elementary school on a Sunday morning and just thought, man, something about this place feels different, right. Something about the people here, the way that we care about things, the way that we care about each other, something is just different. They felt that in Acts, right.
They felt that in the early church. And lastly, you see this last verse. It says, "And the Lord added to their number daily those who are being saved. " And so the results of a faithful ch church is that they are not only adding to the kingdom, but they are multiplying the kingdom. That the kingdom is growing in its impact.
That just that doesn't mean just like more people in the seats. That doesn't mean just more dollars in a budget. What that means is lives changed for eternity and those lives that were changed for eternity can now go and change other lives for eternity. That is what we are doing here. And so when this adoration and this multiplication happened back in the book of acts, the kingdom grows one more person at a time.
And the same is true for us, right. Go back to the very video in the beginning. VGO's story was just like an ordinary something, right.
And he made his way through the big red X of rejection towards the victory. Right now, in your invitation, every once in a while that might happen. You might get the red X, but don't let that be the thing that makes you give up. Continue to invite somebody to the lifechanging power of Jesus. Because Jesus, he didn't build his church based off of the people with the best gifts or the best talents or the best things in the room.
He took ordinary faithful people who wanted to stand on these five things as the truth and as on him as the truth. And so that destination is what we do together. And so I want to just invite you into a time of reflection. If you would just close your eyes, bow your heads just for a moment.
I'm going to invite the worship team up and we're going to move into your well last chance to to be expressive here in your worship. I'm I'm kidding. But here's what I believe our action is from this message this week.
It is one of three things. Number one, think of the person who is closest to you but furthest from Jesus. And invite them to church next week.
And remember, you don't need to do the invite perfect. You don't have to have all the answers. You just need to be willing to take a moment and seek out one more person to invite one more time. Number two, you can get involved. You can stop shopping and looking around and start belonging instead.
And so maybe for you it's joining a serve team. So it's just a once a month thing. Maybe it's diving deeper into a growth group.
But don't let this just be a thing that you do every once in a while. Be something where you can belong. And number three, be the one more.
Maybe somebody here you know, you're all new to this whole church shopping thing and checking out churches and things like that. And I would tell you that the thing to start with is a relationship with Jesus. That is where the truth, the love, the community, that is where all of it start and that's where all of it started with the early church is a relationship with Jesus. And so wherever you're at, I just want to pray for you this morning.
God, I thank you for everybody in this room. I thank you that you are moving in and through this room. And I pray that we as Destination would be a faithful church. That we would pray for each other in this way.
That we would worship together, that we would give to needs, that we would grow in groups big and large, God. And God, we pray most of all that we would be people that are seeking after you in everything we do. In Jesus name we prayed. And everybody said, "Amen. " All right, let's stand and worship together as we close.
