A Full Church, An Uncomfortable Church

It's great when we have so much fun, isn't it? The ministry of the week. Is, the men's retreat coming up, November 17th and 18th for those of you who haven't, registered, we would, appreciate it if you would, consider the retreat and come by and register today and, we'd like to finalize, the payment on that in the next couple of weeks so that we can make, the final arrangements on accommodations. dads, don't forget that boys, young men, 13 and up are invited to come to the.

our, men's retreat and so we encourage all the men to bring their, sons with them. They might fellowship with us and, we all know Doctor Ernie Baker who has spoken here several times. we know his passion for God and His word. He will be, speaking on the chosen subject of, created to worship.

And so that will be the theme of our, two day conference, up in the mountains and, let's don't miss it, come by and register and. It'll be a time of becoming focused on our most important purpose in life. Worshiping the creator, don't forget to come by and we thank you for it. Oh, good morning.

We do have a few other announcements in addition to that regarding the men's retreat that Ron just brought to us and let me do that right now. We do have a book table. outside, and, the, there's two books that we've been recommending over the last, month or so, and that is Stop Dating the Church by Joshua Harris. And we would highly commend that book to you and also the book by CJ Mahaney on humility.

these are two of, probably the top 20 books that we on the pastoral staff would highly, commend to you and that we would love for everybody in our congregation, to read. another, and you'll find those, excuse me, out on the table as you leave this morning. also, last week we announced a conference that's, in, in November in, Gilbert, Arizona at a Sovereign Grace Church there entitled By Design. It's a conference on biblical womanhood.

If you, Ended up signing up for that and registering for that conference over the Internet and you're planning on being there, please call Katie Berry or look around and try to find her today. She has some information regarding the hotel accommodations that you absolutely do not want to, to be without. So talk to Katie about that if you're planning on going to the conference. and you registered for that this week.

Also, in your bulletin, there's an insert regarding the harvest dinner. if you have not yet signed up and purchased tickets for the harvest dinner, please, do that, today. And on the front of the insert, there's some financial information and take a look at that and make your plans, accordingly. Again, this is a time for us to get together, worship God, and, here's some testimonies of, from some brothers and sisters in our church that have come to faith in Jesus and also to hear a brief gospel message.

we encourage you to come. And also to bring unsafe family, friends, loved ones, with you so that they can be under the sound of the gospel as well. So that's November 4th, Saturday evening of November 4th, and ticket purchases will continue for that. today, also in your bulletin is, just a little insert here that gives you a bar graph idea of, where we are year to date and our giving and our expenditures and also our budget.

We wanna commend you once again for your faithfulness and giving to the Lord's work here at Cornerstone and want to assure you that the money that you are giving is being used of God. in a mighty way, lives are being changed here in the Riverside community, in this church body, and, also around the world through the missionaries that we're able to support and also the short term missions teams that we're able to send out. And speaking of that, we, we sent recently a, a team from our church to New Zealand to minister, to help the church there in New Zealand.

And that team is back after their two-week ministry in New Zealand.

And anyone that was on that New Zealand missions team, I'd like to ask you to stand. OK, a few of you. All right, let's give them a warm welcome back home. And you guys may be seated, but their ministry in New Zealand wants you to know that people came to know the Lord, and they were a wonderful blessing to the church there, and, that, part of what funded that was your giving and so your money is making a difference and I have a letter here from or a card from one of the pastors in New Zealand who writes a note to you, the congregation of Cornerstone, and I'd like to read this to you this morning.

He says to the saints at Cornerstone Fellowship Bible Church, thank you all so much for sending out a mission team to New Zealand to minister to us all. As a family, we were personally blessed by their service and through them, we got to know you too. The team's obvious understanding of God's word reflected the sound preaching and discipleship from their leaders and home church. They also regarded their leaders with respect.

Their willingness to work physically as a team reflected the spirit of unity within their home church. Their giving attitude only mirrored the hearts of the people who sacrificed to send them to New Zealand, and that's you. Finally, your gift of love reflected your love of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was the greatest servant of all. Thank you for walking in the steps of our Savior, and may your love for others be blessed mightily by our Heavenly Father.

I love the way. they worded this because what they're saying is through the team that went to New Zealand, the people there got to know you, even though you were not there to know something of your heart, your passion, and your ministry as well. So thank you for your giving and for your support of this team and to the members of the team. Thank you for representing, the Lord Jesus Christ and also this church body, and making a difference in New Zealand.

also, I want to remind you guys, this is the last announcement. Next Sunday morning, time falls back. OK? So, do not forget to move your clocks back because if you forget, God forbid you'll show up here early on Sunday and you absolutely, I know, don't want that to, to happen.

So don't forget about the, the time change, next week. Well, with those, announcements being made, I wanna have you turn in your Bibles to Acts, chapter 2. Acts chapter 2 for our time of study. In the word this morning, this is the 6th installment in our series, a topical series that has spun off of our study of the book of Ephesians, and the theme of this series is we're talking about experiencing the fullness of God in the context of the church.

And so we're talking about related issues, regarding the fullness of God, where it's at, how it's experienced, and what we need to do. As individual Christians and as a church body to enter into the fullness of God that God makes available to us in, in the church. And I want to make another contribution to this train of thought today, and I wanna speak to you on the subject of what happens to a church that experiences fullness. What happens to a church that experiences the fullness of God that we have been talking.

About we have learned that the church is the fullness of God. So the location outside of heaven where the fullness of God is found in its highest density is inside the church. We learned and we're reminded last week that we experienced God's fullness in community with one another, and that is through fellowship. and through mutual ministry with one another.

And so we've learned a lot about the fullness of God, what it is, and where it's located, and how we in community with one another can go about experiencing that fullness as God wants us to. But a legitimate question. To just stop and ask before we go crazy with this, is what happens to a church? That experiences fullness, the fullness that we have been talking about this is a legitimate question that we wanna stop and ask and consider the consequences.

That might befall us as a church as we experience the fullness of God as he desires. Now we think about this type of thing when it comes to the physical realm when it comes to eating food, for example, we do not just contemplate the joy of eating, but many times we do stop and think what will happen to me if I stuff myself to the full with. The food that I am considering eating, we think about the after effects of that. We think about the fact that, well, if I stuff myself with this food, maybe I will get indigestion, and so that causes us to not eat as much as maybe we would have otherwise.

Maybe we contemplate the fact that stuffing myself with this food that is set before me will expand my waistline and so we contemplate that we think about the effects of eating that food and that tempers our enthusiasm for gorging and stuffing. With that food, one of the things that I have to think about every weekday when I'm here at the office is, as the morning wears on and we're approaching noon, I began to get hunger pangs that in and of themselves become distractions for me.

I cannot focus on my work because I'm feeling hunger pangs, but one of the things that I have to think about every day is if I stuff myself with this food. what will happen to me?

And I know that for myself, if I gorge myself and stuff myself with a huge lunch in about 30 minutes, I want to curl up on the office floor, put my thumb in my mouth, and fall asleep. That's just what I know I'm gonna want to do. And so knowing that. for lunch, usually I temper how much food I take in so that I can stay focused and not get sleepy through the afternoon.

Occasionally, I do stuff myself anyway. And 30 minutes later, I've stepped out of the office to Lillian and said, I'm closing my office door, wake me up in 20 minutes, because I ate too much for lunch. And so when it comes to the spiritual realm, we need to apply the same thinking. What's gonna happen to us as a church if we experience the fullness of God?

If over the next 6 months we really just in a large rapid strides just enter more deeply than ever into the experience of the fullness of God. How will we change? Will we be exactly like we are now only we'll be feeling good about ourselves because we're feeling full spiritually or will we be behaving differently? Will there be a chain of events and consequences that are unleashed as a result of us experiencing the fullness of God and so that's.

That's the question I want us to ask and to try to answer today and a great place to go to answer that question is the early chapters of the Book of Acts to look at the Jerusalem church because one of the things that's very clear. In the early chapters of the book of Acts is that the Jerusalem church that is described in those chapters very clearly was a church, not a perfect church, but a church that did experience the fullness of God. In fact, Luke, who wrote the book of Acts, takes great pains to use fullness terminology.

By way of describing and characterizing the early church in Acts.

And let me sweep all of this together for you. In Acts chapter 2 verse 4, the birthday of the church. The first thing that is said to happen to Christians on the first day of the church's founding is this Acts 2:4, and they were all filled. With the Holy Spirit, in fact, as they began to act out of that fullness, there was a crowd of people gathered and the crowd of people looked at them and they knew they were full of something.

They just didn't know what these Christians were full of, but they concluded that they were full of sweet wine and as wrong as that was, it at least paid the early church the compliment. and that it recognized that they were full of something. These people are full of something. They only wrongly concluded that they were full of wine.

Chapter 4, verse 8, it says then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit. Chapter 4, verse 31, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Chapter 4, verse 33, and abundant grace was upon them all. Chapter 6, verse 3, you guys know the problem.

There was a problem with the distribution of money and food to the widows and what have you and the apostles gather the congregation together and know that they need to solve this problem and look at the qualification that they state. verse 3, select from among you seven men full of the Spirit and of wisdom. What they're saying is one of the qualifications of the seven that are gonna lead in this ministry is they gotta be full. They need to be experiencing the fullness of the Spirit and of wisdom.

Chapter 6, verse 51 of the men they appointed with Stephen. It says, and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit. Chapter 6, verse 8, it says, and Stephen, full of grace and power. Chapter 7, verse 55, describing Stephen again, Luke says that Stephen being full of the Holy Spirit.

We see this description continuing later in the book of Acts in chapter 9, verse 17. And Ananias, the disciple of the Lord, goes to Paul, upon his conversion and says, the Lord Jesus has sent me so that you may be filled with the Holy Spirit. There's the word filled again, chapter 11 verse 24, talking about Barnabas. It says Barnabas was full of the Holy Spirit and the faith.

Chapter 13 verse 9, it says, and Paul filled with the Holy Spirit, and then describing the churches of Galatia that had been founded by Barnabas and Paul, these Christians in Galatia are said in chapter 13 verse 52. It says, and the disciples were continually filled with joy, and with the Holy Spirit. And so over and over again, we see this fullness language. I think we can safely conclude that the early church, especially the Jerusalem church, while they were not a perfect church, they were a church.

That sets an example of a church that experiences the fullness of God. Therefore, if we're interested in what would happen to us if we experience God's fullness, it would be good to just read the early chapters of the Book of Acts and see what happened to them as a result of experiencing the fullness of the Spirit, the fullness of God. And what I wanna do this morning is I want to give you 7 results. 7 results that resulted from the early church experiencing the fullness of God.

7 results, and I wanna go ahead and clue you into the fact that virtually all 7 of these results that emanated from the early church's experience of the fullness of God, all 7 of them, you're gonna look at and realize that they are way outside of the comfort zones. Of these believers, all 7 of them. And we're gonna learn this morning, this is gonna be a subtheme through the message. We're gonna learn that if you want to experience the fullness of God, expect to be extremely uncomfortable.

Now, we got a problem with that because we want fullness, right? If we surveyed the congregation, everyone would say, yeah, I wanna experience the fullness of God. But if I took another survey and we're really honest, we also love being comfortable, right? Well, we're gonna learn that fullness.

And comfort are often mutually exclusive on the pages of scripture and what many of us tend to do is yeah we want fullness but we love being comfortable and so we tend to just settle for being comfortable and that is one of the reasons many times we do not allow ourselves to experience the fullness of God. But let's look at the early church and let's just see, and everything we see that doesn't mean it's automatically gonna happen to us in exactly this way, but it is instructive to just look at these chapters and just watch what happens to the early church as a result of them experiencing the fullness of God.

The very first result that. that happened as a result of them experiencing the fullness of God, is that they, the believers found themselves worshiping God before a watching world.

They found themselves worshiping God before a watching. world. We know from Acts chapter 1 and the very beginning of Acts chapter 2 that there were 120, believers that had followed Jesus, that were gathered together, and as Acts chapter 2, the curtains open on this chapter, the day of Pentecost has come, they're all gathered together in one place, no doubt praying together, fellowshipping. with one another, but then in Acts chapter 2, verse 2, it says, and suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting, and there appeared to them tongues as a fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them.

Now look at verse 4, and they were all, every one of the 120 that were gathered here, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. One of the very first things that happens on the birthday of the church that is described is that the believers were filled with the Holy Spirit. Spirit of God. And as a result, look at what happens.

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance. And as for the content of what they were saying in tongues, verse 11, they were speaking of the mighty deeds of God. Now let's make sense of this. I know that there's disagreement amongst us, among serious students, of the word.

my personal belief from having preached through 1 Corinthians 12:13 and 14 and also the Book of Acts is that tongues. Largely speaking, is vertical in its orientation. In other words, the tongue speaker is speaking to God. In 1 Corinthians 14:4, it says the one or 142, the one speaking in tongues does not speak to men but to God.

In chapter 14 verse 14, Paul speaks of praying. In a tongue, and when you look at the occasions of tongue speaking in the book of Acts, it's consistent with that. Here these tongue speakers are speaking of the mighty deeds of God in Acts chapter 10. The people at Cornelius's household as they are speaking in tongues are magnifying or they're exalting God and again that's the language of worship.

And so, without regard to, the whole issue of our tongues for today or not, I don't want to deal with that today, but let's pull this safely out of what happens here and that is that these believers. are filled with the spirit and instantly the very first thing that they become is a worshiping community. They begin worshiping God, magnifying God, exalting him and speaking in praise of the mighty deeds of God. They're filled.

And instantly they worship. And on this occasion, they're worshiping in tongues that they never learned throughout their lives. Now, we look at this and go, wow, that's an amazing thing. It would have been great to be there.

Well, what? Especially. Those of us here that are inhibited in our worship because, oh my goodness, people might see me, and they might see me raise my hands or what will people think of me? I know those thoughts go through my mind and so this is instructive for me.

I want you to put yourself in the shoes of these 120. Here you are by yourself, minding your own business, not causing any trouble, and all of a sudden, the Spirit of God is poured out and you begin praising God. in a tongue you've never learned, you make your way with the others out of the upper room, and you're praising the Lord and really getting into that, enjoying that. And pretty soon you look down and you see thousands of people gathered around staring at you.

It's a little out of your comfort zone, would it not be? And that's where these believers found themselves. They found themselves worshiping God and attracting a crowd as they did so, and this crowd, many of them were like, oh my goodness, they were bewildered, perplexed, what does this mean? And we can't make sense of this, but they were fairly positive in their orientation.

But then there's others in the crowd that are mocking them, saying these guys are a bunch of drunkards. Look at them, they're full of wine. And so you observe this. And you see this, would you continue worshiping?

Or withdraw into your shell. This was clearly out of their comfort zone, and yet it resulted instantly from their experience of the fullness of the Spirit of God. Guys, I do know that one of the things that will result if we start tampering with the fullness of God and letting it get into us, is it'll change our worship. We will be a passionate worshiping community, speaking of the mighty deeds of God, exalting God, worshiping Him.

How do I know this? Not just from Acts chapter 2, but Ephesians 5:18. Don't get drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. What results?

Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing, making melody with your heart to the Lord. Worship is one of the instantaneous results of our experience of the fullness of God. And what, you may not realize this, but I am sure that every Sunday when you gather here and we are worshiping the Lord under Mike Berry's leadership, they're nonbelievers that are here and they're watching. And they're listening And what do they think about God?

What are they led to think about the gospel based on the worship that they see in you? Would to God that we worship God in a way that a nonbeliever who comes in here would say, what, I don't know much about what's going on here. But God must really be an amazing God. Who must have done some really amazing things for these people.

And as they observe our worship, They're drawn to ask questions about God and what he has done that would provoke this response in us. we call Mike the pastor of worship and the worship leader and on Sunday mornings he is. We have a worship team and they are leading us in worship and I for one really appreciate Mike's ministry and the ministry of the worship team as they lead us in worship week after week. I just, I find my heart sometimes I come in here and my heart sometimes feels cold or distracted and 30 minutes later I'm just in love with Jesus all over again.

And that's through the leadership of the worship team. But I want every one of you, including myself, I want you to think of yourself as a worship leader. Dad, you're a worship leader in your home that the way you worship here sets an example for the rest of your family. You lead other people by your example in the worship of God just those that are observing you as we're gathered here on the Lord's day and even on other occasions.

Mike has shared with me and others on the worship team have shared with me how blessed they have been in recent months as they're up here leading worship and they see you worshiping God. And see your facial expressions and. Your enthusiasm in worshiping God you lead them and you impact them you bless and encourage them by the worship that you render to the Lord and so we need to come in here on the Lord's day and just realize, what? I am one of the worship leaders.

of this congregation, and I lead by my example, and I wanna worship God in a way that just screams to other people around me that God is awesome. And the gospel is awesome. And God has done some really amazing things. And what, worshiping God that way may be out of your comfort zone.

But we're gonna learn something today, and that is God does not care about our comfort zone. He really doesn't. God, most of the time wants us living outside of our comfort zone, and they in Acts chapter 2 become filled with the spirit and instantly they find themselves in a situation where they're worshiping God in a language they've never learned. And magnifying the Lord, speaking of the mighty deeds of God, and there's thousands of people standing around them gawking and asking questions, and some of them even mocking them.

Well, there's a second thing that resulted from their experience of God's fullness, and that is that these believers in the Jerusalem church found themselves boldly preaching Jesus to the lost. Be careful about experiencing God's fullness because you just might find yourself. out of your comfort zone and preaching Jesus boldly and with passion to the lost. Again, Acts chapter 2 verse 4, we know that all of them who were gathered here were filled with the Holy Spirit that would include the apostle Peter.

And so Peter sees this crowd that has gathered, and some of them are asking questions. What does this mean? And they're confused by it. Others are mocking them, saying that they're full of, of sweet wine.

And so Peter, look what it says in verse 14. And by the way, the last time we saw Peter on the pages of scripture, having anything to do with lost people, he was cowering in fear. Before a slave girl and denying Jesus. And yet now on this occasion, Having seen the resurrected Lord and having his sins forgiven, and now being filled with the Spirit, these thousands of people are gathered around, and it says Peter taking his stand with the 11, raised his voice and declared unto them, and he preached Jesus to them.

He gave them gospel and told them how to be saved. Even later in Acts chapter 4, verse 8. Peter and John healed the lame man in the temple. With the power of the Lord Jesus and in Jesus' name, and people are wondering.

what is this all about? And even the leadership has called Peter and John before them. Look what it says, then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, let it be known to all of you that by the name of Jesus Christ, the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by this name, this man stands here before you in good health. He is the one, not the man, but Jesus is the one.

Which was rejected by you, the builders, but which became the chief cornerstone, and there is salvation and no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved. Filled with the Spirit, he preaches Jesus to these people. And throughout the early chapters of Acts, this is a testifying, witnessing church, witnessing out of their fullness. Acts 4:33 with great power, the apostles were giving testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

And when you read the narrative, I don't want to get too much in detail about this, but, the, apostles end up getting put in prison. For preaching Jesus, an angel comes during the night, opens the gate, lets them out and says, get back in the temple and start preaching Jesus again. And so at daybreak, they don't even get to sleep that night. At daybreak when the sun comes up, and people start showing up at the temple, there's the apostles again, bringing the gospel news about Jesus.

That's what they're passionate about because they're experiencing the fullness of God. Well, the leadership. Of the Jews calls for the apostles to be brought before them because they think they're still in prison. The people go to the prison and they come back to the leadership of the Jews and say they're not there.

We don't know where they are. And then a messenger shows up to the leadership of the Jews and says the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people, teaching the people. Well, they end up re-arresting the apostles and bringing them before them and look at the criticism. Wouldn't it be great for our church to be criticized in this way?

In Acts 5:28, the leadership of the Jews, the rulers of the people, say to the apostles, you have filled Jerusalem. With your teaching. You have filled Jerusalem with your teaching. Interesting use of words here.

They are filled with the spirit. And they fill Jerusalem with their teaching. And I think we can infer a truism here that will likely be true of any church that experienced the fullness of God, and that is a church that is filled with the fullness of God will fill its surrounding culture with the truth about Jesus. A permeated people, a people permeated with the fullness of God will itself permeate.

It's surrounding culture with the truth about Jesus and that's what they did. And just breezing through this, guys, we see Steven. who is described as a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, full of grace and power, full of the Holy Spirit. read chapter seven where he is bringing some very hard truths to the Sanhedrin, to the leadership of the Jews, and at the very end is speaking of seeing Jesus at the right hand of God, at the glory of God.

And so he is preaching out of the fullness that he is experiencing. And it's not just the apostles and Stephen that are, that are preaching the gospel in this way. In Acts chapter 4 verse 31, we learned that they were all, all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and were speaking the word of God with boldness, not just to one another, but to the lost as well. And in Acts 8:4, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word everywhere they went.

This is what they were passionate about and what they were doing. Here's a church of people. That were filled with the Holy Spirit, from the leadership on down. And as a result of that fullness, they found themselves boldly preaching Jesus to the lost.

Now, for most of us, speaking to the lost about Jesus is outside of our comfort zone. But again, God would say that doesn't really matter to me. You taste of my fullness, you're gonna find yourself doing this because this is what my fullness will propel you to do. And so what happens to a church that experiences God's fullness?

Well, first of all, they worship God. They worship God before a watching world. Secondly, they find themselves boldly preaching Jesus to the lost. Well, there's a 3rd result that the Jerusalem church experienced as a result of their experience of the fullness of God, and that is that they found themselves experiencing persecution.

They found themselves experiencing persecution, and we may also. They experienced arrest, imprisonment, prohibitions from the leadership of the people. They were threatened. The apostles experienced beating and flogging, as a result of their boldly preaching Jesus.

And so as a result. Of their experience of the fullness of God. They're worshiping God, boldly preaching Jesus, and as a result of that, they find themselves being persecuted. You can trace it all back to their experience of the fullness of God.

Look in Acts chapter 4, verse 1 on the screen. And as they, Peter and John were speaking to the people, the priest and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to them, being greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the. Dead and they laid hands on them and put them in jail until the next day. Well, it turns out that they were they told Peter and John stop preaching in the name of Jesus and that's when Peter and John said, well, we can't stop.

Sorry, we're unable to stop speaking about what we have seen and heard. And so the leadership of the Jews threatened them further, commanded them to never speak in the name of Jesus again. And so Peter and John gather with the believers. And tell the church what had just transpired their first taste of persecution in the history of the church.

And so they all began to pray, and look at what it says here in Acts chapter 4 verse 31. And when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak the word of God with boldness. God gives them A fresh infusion of his fullness, and they're all out there again, even more boldly preaching the name of Jesus and the word of God, not only to one another, but also to the lost. As a result of that, the apostles, all of them are arrested, they're imprisoned, they escape, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, they're re-arrested, they're rebuked, they're flogged.

And further commanded to never preach in the name of Jesus. And as they are all beaten and leaving the presence of the Jewish leadership, how do they respond? Verse 41, so they went on their way, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for his name. And every day in the temple and from house to house they kept right on teaching and preaching in the name of Jesus.

Steven was one of those men that experienced the fullness of God. He was full of wisdom and power and the Holy Spirit, and Stephen finds himself in front of the Sanhedrin saying some things that they absolutely did not want to hear. But nonetheless, God was leading Stephen to say these things to them. Acts chapter 7 verse 54.

Now when they, the members of the Sanhedrin, heard this, they were cut. To the quick and began gnashing their teeth at him. But being full of the Holy Spirit, he, Stephen, gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. But they, the Sanhedrin, cried out with a loud voice, and covered their ears and rushed at him with one impulse.

And when they had driven him out of the city, They began stoning him. And he died You sure you want to experience. The fullness of God. You need to watch out.

Because you might find that fullness. Leading you to stand before people and preach Jesus to them and you just might find them gnashing their teeth at you and yourself being persecuted as a result of doing what God has led you to do. The whole church began to experience persecution on the day that Stephen was stoned. In Acts 8, it says, and on that day, a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem.

Saul began ravaging the church, entering house after house, and dragging off men and women. He would put them in prison. Acts chapter 9 verse 1, Saul was breathing out threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. He destroyed those who called on this name.

Paul was in the business of ruining the lives of people who claimed the name of Jesus. So now in the Jerusalem church, there are people that are dying for their faith and for their testimony. There are wives that are losing. Their husbands to death.

There are husbands that are losing their wives. There are children that are losing one of their parents and perhaps on occasion, both of their parents. There are lives that are being broken and literally from a human standpoint ruined. Because of their testimony of Jesus.

And so here's a church on day one. They're all filled with the Holy Spirit. They began worshiping God. They began preaching, the name of Jesus to the world around them, and that ushers in a wave of very severe persecution against them.

And now Christians are dying and being imprisoned as a result of this fullness that has come into them and that they are experiencing. It is set in motion. that are exceedingly uncomfortable to them. There's a 4th thing that resulted from their experience of God's fullness.

And that is that they found themselves with many new relationships. And responsibilities they found themselves with many new relationships and responsibilities. Think of the 120. And they all know each other.

They're all Jews and not just Jews, but they're Hebrew Jews, natives to the land of Israel. They've known each other for quite some time. Some of them we know biblically or even related to one another, cousins or, or brothers and what have you, and they've, they've been hanging out with Jesus, and they've seen the resurrected Lord. So they got a lot in common, a lot of history between.

These 120 people that are gathered together, but nonetheless, the Spirit of God comes upon them. They begin worshiping God, attracting a crowd of thousands of people. Peter preaches the gospel to them. And as a result of his preaching of the gospel, Acts 2:41, and that day there were added about 3000 souls.

Now guys, we look at that on paper. And we say, man, that's awesome. Wouldn't it be great if something like that happened here at Cornerstone? But what guys?

Think about it. If today, Cornerstone grew instantly by 3000 people. Would we be comfortable? No.

As elders, it would freak us out because we'd be like, wow, these are brand new believers, they need to be discipled and shepherded. There's now 3000 people that we need to reach out to and relate to, form relationships with. the 120 are now looking at this and they're accustomed to just having relationships amongst themselves, and now there's 3000 people calling themselves brothers and sisters in the Lord. what?

The lives of these 120 instantly have changed in one day. They now have thousands of new relationships and corresponding responsibilities. And if that happened to any church, it would be normal for them to say, OK, 3000, that's enough, Lord, that's about all we can handle. But look, chapter 2, verse 47, the narrative continues, and the Lord was adding to their number day by day, those who were being saved.

Acts chapter 4 verse 4, but many of those who had heard the message believed, and the number of men came to be about 5000. Now the church is just 5000 men. So at least 15,000 people. And then even after it grew to 15,000+ people in Acts chapter 5, verse 14, We read that all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women were constantly being added to their number.

And then even after that, Acts chapter 6 verse 7, we learned that the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem. And so the numbers, we're talking thousands upon thousands and thousands of people. It started with 120, and now there's literally tens of thousands of new relationships and corresponding responsibilities that go along with that. They get filled with the spirit.

Began worshiping, testifying about Jesus, and in a matter of weeks and months, there's now. Thousands of people that they now have to form relationships with minister to. And have responsibility for. But what's beautiful?

The 120 did not stay a click unto themselves. But They result 5, as a result of their filling with the spirit, they found themselves opening their hearts to these new relationships. and responsibilities. In fact, look at, let's ignore the chapter.

divisions. Well, actually, there's no chapter division, but there's a paragraph break in our translations. But let's ignore that and just see it in sequence. In Acts chapter 4 verse 31, Luke says, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.

And here's another result of them being filled with the Spirit, and the congregation of those who believe were of one heart and soul. In other words, there was unity. Now the 120 could have said, what, we really like the relationships that we've had all along, and we want to stay unto ourselves. Plus we're all Hebrew Jews, and these are all Hellenistic Jews that seem to be added to the church and it's harder to relate to them.

They're a little bit different than us in their orientations and so the 120 could have remained a clique unto themselves. But what, if they had done that, Luke would have never said that the congregation of those who believe were of one heart and soul. Apparently these 120 found a way to open their hearts, to reach out to, form relationships with, and tend to the responsibilities that go along with those relationships. They found themselves opening their hearts to these new relationships and responsibilities.

Verse 32 in the congregation of those who believe were of one heart and soul, and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him was his own, but all things were common property to them. By the way guys, this is not communism nor is it socialism. There was private ownership in the early church. Look at his language, not any, not one of them claimed that anything belonging to him.

Things did belong to the believers, but what Luke is describing is their mentality. That they looked at their own private property and their mentality was this is not just mine anymore, this belongs to the whole body. And if somebody needs something that I have because they have a need in their life, then what? They can have it because it belongs to them as much as it belongs to me, and we go on to read in Acts 5 that they would even sell their property and their homes, liquidate those assets so that they can have money to take to the apostles and lay at their feet so that the proceeds, that money can be given to brothers and sisters in need.

So this is a church of people that are opening their heart to all these new relationships and responsibilities. Even in Acts chapter 6, we learned that there was a problem. there was some favoritism that was beginning to be shown unwittingly. Hellenistic widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food and money.

and so the apostles, they hear that complaint, and what? They get on it right away and they speak to the congregation and say, select from among you seven men who are full of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom. We want men that are full experiencing God's fullness. And appoint these 7 to be in charge of this task and so the congregation brought these 7 men to the apostles.

They laid their hands upon them, and the needs of every believer and widow were then being met. And the church was blessed by that. So here is the apostles and the believers in the Jerusalem church that are doing whatever they need to do to make sure that they are meeting the needs of all those that the Lord is adding to their number. And so the 4th result is that these believers in the Jerusalem Church, as a result of experiencing the fullness of God, they found themselves with many new relationships and responsibilities.

The 5th result is though, they found themselves opening their hearts. To these new relationships and responsibilities. And are we Willing to do that as well and you're reading for today in the book Why Small Groups. There is a disease.

That is spoken of and it's called koinonitis from the Greek word koinania, which means fellowship. And the author of this chapter describes this disease in this way. He says it is a disease we catch when we start loving koininea too much. Now you might want to quibble with him over the wording of that, but this author, he's not saying.

that you love fellowship too much or coinania too much. The point is you love fellowship with certain people in your clique too much. That's his point, and thus become ingrown and selfish. This is very easy for all of us to do, but what, the early church, these thousands of people are coming their way, and what?

The 120, they cannot, their lives are changed as a result of that. They've got a lot of new responsibilities, relationships and friendships, and so it forever changes even the nature of the relationship that the 120 had with one another. Now they need to invest their attentions in these other relationships rather than just amongst themselves. And so one of the things that we can learn from this is that guys, if we're gonna experience the fullness of God as a church, inevitably the Lord will be adding to our number people that are being saved and being led our way.

That's new relationships, new responsibilities, and we need to open our hearts to the people that God is bringing to us. The author of the book Why Small Groups in the chapter that we were supposed to read for this week says all of us must reject the selfish tendency to gravitate only towards those in our group whom we know best, to sit by the same people and talk about our common interests, sports, hobbies, our children, whatever. Over time it's easy to settle into comfortable relationships, even feeling annoyance at newcomers or for that matter, anyone in the group who might dare to break our routine.

In fact, sometimes believers can treat newcomers to the church as if they are somehow unworthy of our attention.

The root of this tendency is self-centeredness, yet scripture charges us to think of others as more important. Than ourselves So we need to follow the example of the early church and open up ourselves to these new relationships and not only giving ourselves to these people that God is bringing our way, but let me also throw this in and this is touched on in the chapter that you were supposed to read for this week. It also involves being willing to share your precious friends with the new people that God brings our way.

It's easy to settle into a certain circle of friends and we all have this tendency inside of us, all of us, including myself, to settle into a certain circle of friends that you're very comfortable with and then what, maybe new people start coming to our church and these precious friends end up needing to invest themselves in these new relationships and responsibilities as we might also have to do and so what that means that we cannot.

Spend the time together that we once did because our energies are being invested elsewhere tending to these new relationships and responsibilities and so as God brings people into our fellowship we need to be willing number one to step out of our comfort zone and to give ourselves open our hearts to those that the Lord is bringing our way and also be willing to share our precious friends. With those that the Lord is bringing our way. Now, none of this is comfortable. It's not comfortable to in one day have 3000 people added to a church, but you don't get the impression in the book of Acts that God cares about the comfort of the Jerusalem church.

God cares about their fullness and about using them to accomplish His kingdom purposes. That's what God's ambition is for us, and we need to submit to that whatever discomfort and changes and upheaval comes our way. Well, there's a 6th result that ensued from the early church's experience of the fullness of God. Is that that and that is that many of them found themselves uprooted from their homes.

Literally uprooted from their homes, so we already know people have died as a result of this, and, many responsibilities, a lot of upheaval, but now we learn in Acts 8 that many of the believers actually were scattered. They had to leave their homes. In Acts 8:1, it says, and on that day, a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. Saul was ravaging the church, entering house after house.

He's going into homes and dragging off men and women. He would put them into prison. Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word. In other words, because now they're coming into homes, there are believers who realize, what, we gotta move.

We can't live here anymore. And so these believers leave their homes. And go elsewhere. But wherever they go, they preach the word.

The thought is, well, I guess this is where the Lord wants us right now. And so we're gonna preach the word wherever God brings us. And I wonder if any of the believers at this point. Uprooted from their homes, maybe a believer that their family has been thrust out of their home, they're living somewhere that they've never had to live before and surroundings that they, they're totally, that are unknown and new to them, and they're thinking back over the previous year and they're they're thinking to themselves, what.

We're uprooted from our homes. We've lost loved ones. who have been killed and imprisoned for their faith. And look at where our lives are now from a human standpoint.

And if we trace back the cause of all of this, It was that the resurrected Lord poured out his spirit upon us. And we became filled with the spirit and that set in motion a chain of events that have been profoundly glorious. And yet extremely painful. To us.

Upheaval Resulted From Their experience of the fullness of God. A final result. That ensued from their experience of God's fullness. Result 7.

Is that they found themselves continuously stretched in ways that were formerly unimaginable to them. These believers found themselves continuously stretched in ways that were formerly unimaginable to them. Just as an example of this Acts 51 of the guys who was scattered and went about elsewhere preaching the word was Philip. Look what it says in Acts 8:5.

Philip went down to the city of. Samaria, and began proclaiming Christ to them. Understand, guys, biblically, the Jews and the Samaritans had nothing to do with one another. The Jews wanted nothing to do with the Samaritans.

In fact, they had such a low view of the Samaritans that the Jews opened up the door for all the nations of the world to be allowed to become Jewish proselytes. Except the Samaritans, the Samaritans were the only people that the Jews said absolutely not. You can never ever become a proselyte to Judaism and many of the Jews believed that Samaritans were forever barred from eternal life. Their view of Samaritans was so low that if a crime was committed and the only witness was a Samaritan.

Too bad their testimony was not admissible in a Jewish court of law. They were hardly viewed as even being human beings. On the other hand, the Samaritans hated the Jews. They thought they were better than the Jews.

They actually believed that they had an older copy of the Pentateuch, the 1st 5 books of the Old Testament, than the Jewish people had, and so they thought they were better than the Jews. So there was a lot of animosity that went back hundreds, even thousands of years, or at least 18,000 years. So they hated one another. They wanted nothing to do with one another when Jews would be traveling.

to Jerusalem, instead of going through Samaria, often they would go around so as to avoid Samaria altogether. And yet Philip is uprooted from his home, along with many other people. He comes into Samaria, and he's like, what, I think I know what I'm gonna do here. I'm gonna preach Jesus to these people.

And what, believe it or not, he preached Jesus to them, and they believed. They believed these people that the Jews believe were barred from eternal life. Philip preaches to them, and the church in Jerusalem sends a couple leaders from the Jerusalem church to lay their hands upon them. And guess what, they received the spirit.

And so people are now being saved in Samaria throughout that whole region. And then even beyond that, guys, think about it. There's a point in Acts chapter 9 verse 31, where the church actually does experience a moment of comfort, and the word comfort is actually even used. the word of God has spread throughout all of the land of Israel, even through Samaria.

The apostle Paul was confronted by Jesus on the Damascus road. He gets saved. And look what it says, Acts 9:31, and so the church throughout all Judea in Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace being built up and going on in the fear of the Lord. And in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase.

If there ever was a time for a guy like the apostle Peter to sit back and say, what, God has done a mighty thing and who would have thought that all of this would have happened and there's been a lot of discomforts along the way, but look at what God has wrought in us and through us as a result of all of this. If there ever was a time for him to maybe sit back and chill a little. It would have been now. And yet right at that time in the same chapter.

We learned that Peter is. On a rooftop and waiting for a meal to be fixed for him to eat, he's up there praying and he falls into a trance and in the trance this sheet comes down from heaven that has a bunch of unclean animals on it and a voice says to him, get up, Peter, arise, kill and eat. And Peter's like, he gets real uncomfortable. He's like, oh, no, Lord, I, I, I've never done anything like that.

I've never eaten anything that's unclean, and I I never could. And then the voice from heaven says, do not declare unclean what I have declared holy. And so Peter still doesn't obey and the sheet goes back up into heaven. Peter gets comfortable again, but then before he knows it, the sheet comes down again.

There's all those same animals and the same command, Arise, Peter, kill, and he, he's like, I can't do this. I've never done this before. I never could do this. And then the same rebuke from heaven, but then the sheet goes up again, and Peter's like, OK, that's over.

But then here comes the sheet a 3rd time. And God says, get up, Peter, kill and eat. Peter says, well, I can't do this. I never have, I never could.

And God says, do not call unclean what I have called holy. And the sheet goes up into heaven, and Peter's sitting there going, what in the world does this mean? I know it's not something I ate because I haven't even eaten yet. What, what in the world does this mean?

And as he's pondering that, some messengers from a Gentile. Show up at the gate And basically get Peter's attention and say there's a Gentile that wants you to come to him. And preached to him in his household the message of salvation through Jesus and Peter's like. Let's go let's go and just imagine what was going through his mind how the Jews viewed the Gentiles wanted nothing to do with them.

In fact, when Peter gets to Cornelius's house and he begins to speak. He starts off by saying you Gentiles know us Jews, how unlawful it is for a Jew to do what I. I am doing right now. But nonetheless, I've learned something just recently, that God does not show favorites.

And that he is opening up his salvation to all Jew and Gentile alike and so Peter begins no doubt way out of his comfort zone throughout his life having very little ever to do with Gentiles and here he is in the house full of Gentiles and he preaches the gospel to them. He's not even halfway done with his message. When Cornelius and his household believe and the spirit falls upon them. And they began speaking in tongues and worshiping exactly like the 120 did on the day of Pentecost.

And Peter and his companions, no doubt as uncomfortable as all get out, look at this and say, what can we do? It seems like they've received the spirit just like we have, and Peter says they have. Let's get them baptized. And it just seems, guys, one of the things that you get the impression about in the 1st 1011 chapters of the book of Acts is that God cared very much about the early church, about their fullness.

And about using them in a mighty way, but you get the distinct impression that God cared very little about their comfort. And about trying to keep them comfortable it seems like time after time after time God has them on their toes out of their comfort zone and God using them in a great way outside of their comfort zone. And if you take nothing away from the message other than this, take this away today, and that is a full church. is an uncomfortable church.

An uncomfortable church if we're gonna experience the fullness of God, we have to release our hold on our desire for comfort we have to be broken of our addiction to being comfortable and expect to be extremely uncomfortable if we want to experience God's fullness, we absolutely must embrace discomfort. As a way of life. And if we're not willing to do that, we never will experience the fullness of God as he wants us to experience it. And yet our problem is we want God's fullness.

Yet we also want to be comfortable. Comfort and fullness are often mutually exclusive. You cannot often have one without the other. And so what many times we do is we just settle for being comfortable rather than going after the fullness of God and letting come what may, whatever results from that.

Guys, if every one of us are just committed, what? Come what may, God, I wanna experience your fullness. I wanna experience it in the context of this local church, and I'll leave the rest up to you. If all of us were committed to that, what can God do through Cornerstone Fellowship Bible Church over the next 12 months?

I guarantee you we'd spend much of the next year outside of our comfort zone, but we would see God moving in a mighty way through our worship, through our evangelism, through our ministry to one another we would find ourselves no doubt continuously being stretched to do things that right now are unthinkable for us. But we would glorify God, and that is what our lives are to be all about. I wanna ask you to bow your heads this morning. We live in a society that values comfort.

Sometimes above all other values we want to be comfortable. Our economic decisions are based On a desire to be comfortable. And we get so used to that. That when it comes to Christianity, we, we look for a comfortable brand of Christianity.

Church brochures are sent out to neighborhoods. I've received some of them saying come to our church. Here you will be comfortable. And I know what they mean by that.

But what that is the spirit of our age. We want to go somewhere. Where we're comfortable. But what, the Jerusalem church was hardly ever comfortable.

They spent most of their time outside of their comfort zone. And yet behold what God did in them and through them. And the glorious thing too is that even though we might find ourselves out of our comfort zone, we will never find ourselves outside of his loving care. And his sovereign Plan.

I want all of us as a church body to just go before the Lord now. I want you in your heart to honestly ask yourself, given what we've learned today, do you really want To experience the fullness of God. Be careful what you ask for. Because it just might set in motion a chain of consequences that are extremely uncomfortable.

For all of us. But if you're willing to take that discomfort, say, God, I don't know what the future holds, but I want this. I want this. Then come to the Lord along with me as we pray.

And ask God to fill us. With his fullness and to use us. To glorify Him, come with me. Let's pray together Father, it is a frustration, an immense frustration.

In my own heart to. Have to convey ideas that are so big and beyond my ability to. To give They're due justice. But I pray that through this weak vessel standing before these people this morning that That your truth Your teaching gets through to hearts, to my own heart.

And shows us a better way than the comfortable path. We come to you this morning, Lord, and we confess our emptiness. Our lack of fullness. We confess our love of comfort.

There are ways that we have not grown, lessons we have not learned. There are ministries we have not engaged in. There are ways that we have not stepped out and actually done as you've led us because we love being comfortable. Lord, instead of choosing comfort this morning, we choose fullness.

And we ask you to fill us with your spirit. And then do with us and in us as you please. And if that puts us outside of our comfort zone, well beyond that, Lord, we give you our permission and acknowledge that you have every right to do that. Our life's goal from day to day should not be to be comfortable.

That's not your agenda for us from day to day to make us comfortable. You want us to be full. And you want to use us. To glorify your name.

And so we give our hearts to You, Lord. And we invite you to Phyllis. And give us the grace. Give us even greater fullness.

To be able to deal with the discomforts and the challenges, the responsibilities, the changes. The revolutions that take place, the upheaval that takes place in our life and in this church as a result of the mighty movement of our God amongst us. We surrender, Lord, in fear and trembling to you. And to your purposes in this way.

Teach us, Lord, as we process these things together tonight. And tomorrow in our care groups. Teach us, Lord, what it means to be full. We ask all of these things, Lord, not for our glory.

But for your glory And it's in the name of Jesus that we pray. And all God's people said,