Preparing for & Handling the Blessing of God

Acts chapter one, we're a tad short on time. let's try to get right into this. I wanna address the subject of preparing for and handling the blessing. Of God and this certainly can apply to your life as an individual and especially to us as a church.

I intend for this message to serve as something of a segue from Mike Barry's message last week to the subject of deacons that we're going to be getting into in earnest in 1 Timothy chapter 3. When I speak of the blessing of God, I'm talking about the blessing of people, all right. preparing for and handling the blessing of God as it comes, especially in the form of people that God brings into your life and in our case, as a church, people that God brings to cornerstone. Next Sunday So, this, this.

This may be happening throughout the message, But you'll have to pardon, pardon us there. But, next Sunday, makes exactly 18 years since my first Sunday preaching at Cornerstone. 18 years, and no. And I became pastor about 6 months later, but the first time I filled the pulpit for Jim Brown, who was the pastor at the time, was almost exactly 18 years ago, and one of the things that struck my wife and I coming to this church was just the people, the quality of people that were here at Cornerstone.

We fell in love with the place and with the congregation. It was a congregation of about 75 people., coming on Sunday mornings. Over the last, 18 years, I've been blessed along with the elders and stuff, all of us have been blessed to just witness God working and growing, me growing you, all of us growing together, learning from each other, and God bringing, many blessings to us in the form of people to where nowadays it's not unusual for us to have 400 or more in a Sunday morning.

service.

And I, I happen to believe that that's a blessing, for God to be bringing people to Cornerstone, and I believe that it is the work of God. It's not like we're doing gimmicks like free watermelon if you come to Cornerstone on a Sunday morning or a $20 bill for anyone that that attends. We're not doing any gimmicks. We're just showing up and doing what we do and celebrating the gospel and preaching the word, and God is bringing people to to this church body.

And if you don't like the fact that our church is growing, just realize it's partly your fault, OK? you're inviting people and they're coming. And also, one of the things that I have noticed is that when people come to Cornerstone and they visit Cornerstone, they fall in love with the people of Cornerstone. in fact, just a, a few weeks ago, we had, someone visiting Cornerstone for the first time and after the message, I went up to this person and was talking to him and And he was just raving about, about the church this in his first Sunday, and he never said a word about the message that I had just preached my heart out on.

never said a word about it, but he's like, I'm definitely going to be back. I just, the, the love of God is here and the people here have made me feel so welcome and he fell in love with the people here. We've got some really amazing people here at Cornerstone. And so God has been bringing people to Cornerstone.

He's going to continue to do that to such a degree, guys, I don't know, but 5 years from now, we may be saying to each other, remember back in 2009 when we were only 400 people. And we actually personally knew 10% of the people here, remember those days. And we may be missing these days from some standpoints, but we have every reason to believe that God is going to continue to bring people that we can minister to. And then if they already know the Lord or come to know the Lord, then their gifts can be a blessing and enrich all of us.

The question is, how do we prepare for and handle this blessing from God as a church body? Let me give you a quick analogy. Children, children are a blessing from the Lord. Amen.

My wife and I have 4 of such blessings, and many of you who are parents here have 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5. I don't know, maybe more of such blessings. Psalm 127, Children are a gift from the Lord. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.

Children are a blessing from the Lord. Amen. However, How many of us as parents felt sufficiently prepared for those blessings? And to handle those blessings.

And how many of us as parents often feel overwhelmed over how to handle these blessings that God has brought into our lives. And the truth is that probably none of us felt sufficiently prepared. And we often realize, man, that these blessings from God, there's responsibilities that go along with these blessings and sometimes frustrations, and so we do well not only as parents, but also as, as a church to give thought to how to prepare for and then handle the blessing of God as God brings people to our church family.

And just for the sake of time, let's just jump right into what I want us to do is look at Acts 1 through 6, and I want us to observe 8 things that the early church did and primarily we're going to focus on the 120.

When the Book of Acts opens, there's a group of 120 people, just a small congregation. 120 people and we're going to observe some of the things that they did to prepare for the massive influx of blessing that God is going to be sending their way in the form of people and I think we will find their example instructive for us. The first thing that we observe is them doing this. They located themselves in the place where God's power would be bestowed.

They located themselves in the place where God's power would be bestowed. Make a long story short, Jesus is with them on the Mount of Olives, and he's about to ascend. He's, he gathers them together, and he tells them, he's like, go back to Jerusalem, and don't leave Jerusalem, but wait for what the Father had promised, which he said, you have heard from me. Goes on to say, for John baptized with water, but you're going to get soaked with the Holy Spirit, drenched with the Holy Spirit, baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now, and you're going to receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you're going to then be my public witnesses in Jerusalem and beyond.

And then look at how they respond. So he's basically saying, I've got a gift for you. It's my Holy Spirit. I'm going to pour out my Spirit in abundance, but it's going to happen in Jerusalem.

So stay in Jerusalem, because that's where the Spirit's going to fall. And that's where the power is going to be bestowed. So what do they do? Chapter 1, verse 12.

They left the Mount of Olives and they returned to Jerusalem. Verse 13, when they entered the city, they went up to the upper room where they were then staying. So they went to Jerusalem, inside the city, and then They stayed there. 10 days later, chapter 2, verse 2, we find them on the day of Pentecost when it had come, they were all together in one place, and you learn a few verses later that they were all sitting in a house, sitting in a house.

So Jesus is going to send us a gift. He's going to bestow his power through the person of the Holy Spirit. And pour out His Spirit. That's going to happen in Jerusalem.

And if it's going to happen in Jerusalem, then Jerusalem is where we want to be. When the Spirit falls, when God's power is bestowed that Jesus is telling about, telling us about, it's going to happen in Jerusalem. And when that happens in Jerusalem, we don't want to be in Galilee. We don't want to be anywhere else other than where his power is going to be bestowed.

It doesn't matter. If our home is in Galilee, if our old livelihood is in Galilee, it doesn't matter if our family is in Galilee. It doesn't matter if we're natives of Galilee, which many of them were, none of that matters. We want to be in Jerusalem because that's where God's power is going to be bestowed.

So they located themselves there. I think we can learn something from their example. Nowadays we don't have to mess with locating ourselves in Jerusalem. The New Testament teaches us the location where God's power resides in its highest concentration, and that is inside the Gospel.

Paul says in Romans 1:16, I'm not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God. He says essentially the same thing in 1 Corinthians 1:18. And so if the Bible tells us that the power of God, even for us as believers, is located inside of the gospel, then that's the location.

Where we want to be. Amen. I don't want to be anywhere else. good night, we need power, don't we, to be transformed, changed into God's image.

We see stuff in us that doesn't belong. We see good things that should be in us that aren't there. There's things that God has called us to in the way of ministry. to our spouses, to our children, to our brothers and sisters, and to the loss.

We don't have the power for that. We desperately need power. And if we want that power, we need to locate ourselves right in the spot where his power is bestowed. And that's in the gospel.

You say, Pastor Milton, I've been saved by the gospel. I love the gospel. It saved me. And now since then, I've moved on.

That's not the message of the New Testament. The message of the New Testament is once you've been saved by the gospel, never move on, live inside of it, be obsessed with the gospel every day. Colossians 1:23. Paul says, remain in the faith, which is a synonym for the gospel.

Remain inside the gospel, firmly established and steadfast, and don't be moved away from the hope of the gospel. Don't go anywhere else other than the gospel. And if we live that way, we will never lack for the experience of God's power operating in our lives. And anyone we minister to, anyone who comes in contact with us, will never lack for a vision in us of God's power at work.

There's a second thing that the 120 did to prepare for the blessing of God in the form of an influx of many souls, and that is that they appreciated their need for God, the Holy Spirit. They appreciated their need for God, the Holy Spirit. We, many, many Christians don't, many Christians obsess on the Holy Spirit, and then some, hardly ever give second thought to the Holy Spirit, and there's extremes either way. But one of the things you see of the 120 is, they were like, what, we dare not do this church thing, and public ministry thing that Christ has called us to.

we dare not do any of that without the Holy Spirit. So we'll go in Jerusalem, and we'll sit and we're going to wait for the Holy Spirit to come before we launch out and do this. Think about it. These guys, these 120, many of them have been with Jesus for 3 years.

They've been on evangelism trips that Jesus sent them on, they came back and process with Jesus, all that happened. And were discipled by Him. They've witnessed the crucifixion. They've seen the resurrected Lord.

They've been instructed even by the resurrected Lord. They have now actually witnessed the ascension. Those are some pretty impressive credentials, you think? that they could say, what, we know everything we need to know.

We have seen all that we need to see to get out there and begin to publicly minister in the name of Jesus and get this church thing going. But they didn't do that. Because they appreciated their need for God, the Holy Spirit. And they said, what, we're going to wait until we're drenched with the Spirit, soaked with the Spirit, before we launch out publicly and do this church thing.

We can learn so much from From this, we can learn that The truth that if we as a church, if all of us did absolutely everything right, everything right in our life and ministry, and yet if God the Holy Spirit did not choose to show up and work in a powerful way, all of our efforts are fruitless. Do you believe that some people get really caught up with certain strategies, and man, if we just implement this strategy, here's the inevitable result of what would happen. There's even seminars that they might attend and pick up these strategies and it's like, man, let's implement this and here's the results that will be inevitable and the question is, where's the Holy Spirit in that?

We can't do anything without the Holy Spirit.

But here's the encouraging thing for me, who often fumbles. If the Holy Spirit does show up and does decide to work, Then that means that God can take our fumbling and weak efforts and do something really great with them. Amen. He can take our 5 loaves and our 2 fish and just make it feed 5,000+ people.

He can take a trembling man like the apostle Paul, coming into Corinth. Paul says, I came to you with, with fear and with much physical shaking. The guy emotionally was not doing well when he went into the city of Corinth. The city loves smooth orators.

And they love, philosophical speech, and so they prize that and even physical appearance. And Paul, as he stood there preaching, the Corinthians later observed that his speech was contemptible compared to the other speechmakers in Corinth, and his physical presence was unimpressive. So here's this guy, he comes into Corinth. He's not doing well emotionally.

He's worried about the Thessalonian believers. He's got some fears that he's dealing with. Jesus has to appear to him and tell him, Calm down, stop being afraid. But this man physically shaking, trembling, gets there in Corin and begins to preach Christ crucified.

And what, people get saved by the power of God and a church is born. That's what God's spirit can do, even with our fumbling efforts. Even when we're not doing as well as we think we should do. The truth is, we're never going to do everything perfectly here at Cornerstone.

But we have a God who can overcome those imperfections and do great things, who can show up. And touch our ministry and do great things in the lives of people. And what, when he does, we won't take any credit for it. I often pray to God, God, do something so amazing here at Cornerstone in Riverside, that is so great that no one would ever accuse us of having done it, that everyone would know this is the work of God.

And no doubt even if that happens, people are going to stare at us and think that we did it just like Peter and John heal the lame man in the temple, and then they go on through the temple and they're in Solomon's portico and the lame man's jumping up and down and clinging to them and a crowd gathers and they're all staring at Peter and John. And Peter responds and says, why do you gaze at us? What are you looking at? Why are you looking at us as if by our own power or piety, we made this man to walk?

And he goes on to say, I'll tell you who did this. It's God. Who did this? The reason he could speak this way is because he, along with the other 120, had adequately prepared themselves.

They waited for the spirit. They did not want, they dared not do this church thing without the Holy Spirit, and let us in all of our ministries, in the home and in the church, let us labor in a spirit of dependence upon the Holy Spirit and confidence in his power to work. There's a third thing that we see the 120 doing to prepare. themselves and to ready themselves for the blessing of God that was to come in the form of many, many people and souls, and that is they were devoting themselves to prayer, devoting themselves to prayer.

Chapter 1, verse 14, they were gathered in a room. In somebody's house, they're in Jerusalem, and look at what it says in verse 14. These all, the 120 with one mind, were continually devoting themselves to prayer. In other words, they didn't just have a one prayer meeting, they were continuously devoting themselves to prayer.

They were passionate about prayer. They were persisting obstinately in prayer. This was something that was a high priority to them and look carefully at the wording here. These all with one mind.

In other words, they were unified. no doubt unified intellectually, theologically unified in love, prizing that. But let me say a word about this word, this expression, one mind. It's an interesting word, and I would suggest translating it one passion.

One passion. This is the Greek word homo thumadon. Homo, which means same. Thumadon is from the Greek word thummas that, that most of the time in the New Testament is translated wrath or anger.

But in a context like this, at the very least it means passion. So it's not just the mind and the sense of intellect. These 120 with one passion, they were united in the things that they prized, united in the things that they were passionate about, and we know obviously from verse 14 that they were passionate. About prayer.

In fact, let's read it this way. These all with one passion were continuously devoting themselves to prayer. They loved to pray. They were passionate about prayer.

They saw the importance of prayer. No one needed to persuade them. Of the priority of prayer. But I think the idea here not only means that they were passionate about prayer, but when they prayed, they brought their passions, the things they were passionate about into their prayer.

And the one passion that they were all unified on, no doubt was their passion for God, their passion for Jesus Christ. As far as their lives were concerned, Our lives no longer belong to ourselves. We are owned and operated by Jesus, and our lives from here on out. is, is only about Jesus Christ, and his agenda for us on this planet.

That's it. That's, that's what we live for. That is our passion, Jesus Christ, and his agenda. And so that's what they're all agreed on.

That's their passion. And they take that passion for Jesus and his agenda, and they bring that passion into their prayer life. And they prayed that passion together. Just, I want you to dream a little bit and imagine what it must have been like to listen to.

The prayer meetings. I don't think they were sitting around saying, we got any prayer requests and people are slouching, just bored any prayer requests. A lot of silence and what, pray for me. My pinky's been stiff lately.

Just lift that up. OK, got you, remember that. Anything else? yeah, I got such and such problem.

I want you to remember that. anything else? And then a few requests, and then, OK, let's go to prayer, and then they just pray for those things. There's nothing wrong with praying for your pinky.

God cares about everything. But, but imagine the prayer meeting where they are passionate about Jesus and about his agenda, passionate about the gospel, and they bring that passion to their seasons of prayer together and express that, and they're unified in that passion. And would to God when we come together in prayer that we're not scrambling for stuff to pray for, but that we're, we're just immersed in Jesus and his agenda on this earth, and we just come to God and we're calling for his will to be done, for Christ's name to be exalted, for the gospel to go forth and operate in our lives and in the lives of those that God has called us to minister to, that the world would be impacted and turned upside down.

For Jesus.

This is passionate praying. Bringing their passions into their prayer, and they're all unified. They all agree on the things that they're pumped and excited about Jesus and his agenda. There's a 4th thing that we observed them doing, the 120 by way of preparing for God's blessing in the form of people, and that is they made sure sufficient leadership was in place.

They made sure sufficient leadership was in place. Long story short, beginning in verse 15, coming out of this season of prayer, Peter stands up and says, hey, what, we had 12 apostles, Judas was one of us, and he was counted among us and received share in this ministry. However, he betrayed the Lord and he met his doom. As a result of that, this was actually foretold in the Psalms in Psalm 69 verse 25.

And in Psalm 108 9, I'm sorry, 1098, it says, Let another man take his office. That's at the end of verse 20. And so therefore we need to replace him. And so they bring two men out.

They pray to the Lord and say, God, choose between these two men, and the lot falls to Matthias, who then takes his place as the 12th apostle. And so they were, during this waiting period. They don't know what God's going to do or when he's going to do it, but while they're waiting, they're making sure that leadership is in place for whatever it is that God is going to do. Now if it's just going to be the 120 forever, I'm sure they wouldn't have felt a big burden to To fill that slot that was vacated by Judas, but they know there's great things to come as God's will explodes on the scene in Jerusalem and beyond.

And so they're thinking ahead. We need, we need this vacancy filled to where we've got 12 apostles and the leadership is in place for whatever it is that God has in store for us. I just, I want you to know our hearts as elders that, we, we believe that our church will prosper and experience the blessing of God precisely to the degree that we have leadership in place. To take care of God's people that God brings to us and to carry out His will for us as a church, and we already even now are behind the eight ball.

We, we're seeking to develop leadership even for now if God never brings another person to, to our church body, but, but anticipating God's continued blessing. as, as elders, we're working on these things. We're meeting, with individuals and developing, some men that will be future elders here at Cornerstone. At our men's breakfast, we're trying to develop men and encourage men in their role as leaders in the home and in the church.

We have a once a month leadership class, on the last Thursday of every month where we're going through a theology book and a book on care groups and having the guys listen to to messages on various topics where we're trying to develop men in this leadership class. because what we, what we realize that we need, we're going to need care group leaders in the days ahead. We're going to need more elders in the days ahead. We need men to step up to the plate, and praying about does God want me to be an elder possibly?

What might be required of me and will I be available to be not just a guy privately pursuing holiness, but to be a leader amongst his people. So we want our men and women thinking this way, and we as leaders, we need to be following the example of the 120 and thinking about leadership and making sure that sufficient leadership is in place for whatever it is that God decides to do. There's a 5th thing that we observe the 120 doing, and this brings us into chapter 2, and that is they worship God.

They worshiped God.

there's so much we could say about this. Keep in mind as we come into Acts 2 that it's still only the 120. That's it. It doesn't become 3120 until, chapter 2, verse 41.

All right. Well, look at what happens in Acts chapter 2, verse 1. When the day of Pentecost had come, they, the 120, were all together in one place. 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 of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance. So the Spirit comes, they receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They begin to speak audibly. The Spirit was giving them utterance.

The question is what were they saying as they were speaking in these languages? Well, as you read the narrative, it says now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. Who no doubt spoke a variety of languages that are listed here in Acts chapter 2. When the sound occurred, the crowd came together.

They were bewildered. And the reason they were bewildered, listen to what the observer said. We hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God. Now my interpretation of Acts 2 is that the 120 are not evangelizing right now.

They're not speaking to those that have gathered around. They're speaking to God in worship. They're magnifying God. This is the language of worship.

In fact, the expression that is translated mighty deeds is the Greek word we get our English word mega from. They're, they're magnifying God. They're speaking of the mighty things about God, about his person, about his character. They're also giving.

voice to the mighty things that God has done. They're worshiping God just like we did earlier in our service, only they're supernaturally doing so in languages that these Hellenistic Jews can understand. Even later in Acts, when Cornelius, his household speaks in tongues, Peter and the men who were with him, look at what they say in Acts 10:46. They were hearing them speaking with tongues, exalting God.

And by the way, that word exalting, that's the same Greek word that the word mighty is a translation of in Acts chapter 2 verse 11. They were magnifying God, exalting God, they're worshiping. This fits with 1 Corinthians 14:2 where Paul says, one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. There's a vertical dimension to tongues.

I'm not going to deny there's a horizontal dimension, but there's a vertical dimension. Later in chapter 14, he refers to tongue speaking as blessing in the Spirit, giving thanks, which is the language of worship. Now, I don't want to get into this morning the issue of our tongues for today or for every age or not. That's beyond the pale of, of, of this message, but, and I know in our congregation there are people all over the place on that issue, but I know that, that probably all of us would agree.

that these individuals are magnifying God. They're worshiping God, they're doing so in languages that could be understood. God saw to it that the unbelievers gathering around could understand their worship of God as they're magnifying him, exalting him and speaking of the mighty deeds of God. And what I want us to learn from this, is this, that when these 120 receive the Holy Spirit, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the first thing they did, was not evangelize.

The first thing they did was they worshiped. The first public act Of the first church on the birthday of the church age was as soon as they received the Spirit, they began worshiping God. And as they worship God, That attracted a crowd, and the crowd, look at the language here, they were bewildered, amazed, astonished. They continued in amazement and great perplexity.

They're like watching this worshiping community, and they're asking, how can this be and what does this mean? And some said, Well, I know what it means. It means they're drunk. And others were like, No, this, this means something different than that.

Peter then gets up and he ends up preaching the gospel, but ultimately what he's doing is he is saying to the observers, Let me explain what's happening here. And so the church's first act was an act of worship to God. They worship God in a way that aroused questions in the minds of nonbelievers observing them. And what guys, we have opportunity to do that also.

I want us to be really as an ultimate priority to be a worshiping congregation. That's our dream as elders, and I know you guys want that as well, where we are a worshiping community and every individual is even thinking about how he worships and she worships. We want to worship God in a way that any nonbeliever observing us would. think to themselves, something amazing has happened here, and that they would ask questions about that, that they would conclude that God must be amazing, and something truly phenomenal is happening in the midst of these people, and in the lives of these people.

We don't want to worship God in a way that someone might look at and, and think, well, they, they seem bored by whatever it is that they're celebrating as they worship. No. We want to be a passionate worshiping community because God uses the worship of His people, not only to glorify his name, but he uses it to evangelistic effect. In the lives of those that observe.

We get chances to do this. There are people in our church that worship God in ways that confuse and bewilder the lost. We have a sister in our church that a few weeks ago. she had been pregnant for 10 weeks and went to the doctor and met with her OBGYN, and after the tests and all the stuff were run, the OBGYN, Looked at this woman from our church and said the baby that's in your womb is not alive.

And the sister from Our church said immediately, God is good. And this OBGYN was like, no, and tried to correct what she was saying. And this sister from our church said, no, God is good, and he loves me, and this is part of his plan for me. Leaving this nonbeliever bewildered.

See, we have, we have opportunities. Some of you are going through heart-wrenching pain right now. You're experiencing loss. You've shed many tears over this past week.

Some of you are utterly confused. You're asking God questions that, that he doesn't seem interested in answering right now. You have been praying for certain things for months or maybe longer, and God is not answering in the affirmative, and you're just, you're, you're in agony right now. You're hurting right now.

You've wept much over the last several days. And Wondering what to do. And can I say this to you, worship God. Worship Him.

All hell will rage as believers in the midst of heartache and pain, worship God, even Job after he lost everything. we learned in Job chapter one, verse 20 after he lost all of his wealth, And then he receives the report that he lost his 7 sons and 3 daughters. It says in Job 1:20, he arose, he tore his robe, he shaved his head, he fell to the ground, and he worshiped God. Much to the chagrin of Satan, who had told God, if you let me take these things away from him, he will come into your presence and curse you.

The book of Job is a book about worship. Will Job worship God or not? He lost everything and said, Blessed be the name of the Lord. That truly glorifies God.

That bewilders the lost. It can touch their lives and arouse questions in them that could very well lead to their salvation. Be a worshiper of God every day. Whatever your circumstances, we hasten on a 6th thing that we observe is that they, the 120, preached the gospel.

Peter gets up and ultimately preaches the gospel to the crowd that had gathered that was asking these questions. He quotes from Joel 2, whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Even beyond that, as he preaches Jesus to them, he's telling them what they do need to do in order to be saved. And he tells them, repent and each of you be baptized, literally in the Greek text, upon the name of the Lord.

And the way I like to paraphrase that is repent and each of you be baptized, calling upon the name. Of the Lord. This is the first altar call in Scripture. Only it's not a call to an altar.

It is a call to step into a baptismal pool. And in the first century, what often happened is people came into the waters of baptism, and while standing in the waters of baptism, that was where they called on the name of the Lord, and then they got dunked right away. Read Acts 22:16, Ananias says to Paul, why do you delay? Arise, get up, and be baptized and wash away your sins while calling on the name of the Lord.

It all happened at the same time. Let's go get in some water, Paul, and you call on the name of the Lord while standing in that water, and then I baptize you. So Peter is calling them to respond, and he says, if you do this, you're going to get the forgiveness of sins, the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is for you Jews, for your children who are also Jews, and for all those who are far off, that is us Gentiles, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself, be saved, he says.

And that is our message to the world, be saved. Throughout Acts over and over and over again, Peter and Paul and Philip. And the believers, not just the leaders, not just the apostles, but everybody just went everywhere preaching the word and making the gospel known. And in response to Peter's Gospel presentation and his invitation, it says, so then those who had received his word were baptized, and that day there were added about 3000 souls.

Now we have a congregation of 3120 people. All right, I got 2 more points to make. We'll try to do this quickly. If you have tissue in your purse, ladies, get your tissue out.

This next point is an absolute tear jerker, OK. Powerful, if I must say so myself. The 7th thing we observed is that they made use of available facilities. They made use of available facilities.

I know admittedly that's not a powerful point, but it's worth us looking at just briefly., facilities are actually all over the place in the early chapters of Acts. They're meeting in an upper room. There was a house where the believers were seated. It says those who believe were baptized, you say, what does that have to do with facilities?

Come on, 3000 people being baptized. Someone had to make a decision somewhere about where there's water and where we need to go locate ourselves in order to do these baptisms in order to get 3000 people. Baptized. In chapter 246, they were in the temple, meeting house to house.

Peter and John's going to the temple. In chapter 3 verse 1, they're on Solomon's Portico, which was a portion of the temple. And by the way, they had facility problems. They had facility issues in these chapters, and one of their facility problems was that there was a security team.

they're at the temple that would arrest them at times for being there and after arresting them would tell them, don't ever speak the name of Jesus again and would even flog them. So that's some of the facility problems that that they had. It would be like EFC telling us, you're welcome to use this campus, but don't ever mention the name of Jesus. That's the facility problem that they had, but nonetheless, they kept using this facility that did not belong to them, and they preached Christ and the believers gathered their, we see in chapter 431 that they're gathering, chapter 512, they were all with one accord in Solomon's portico, and later they're entering the temple, they're in the temple and from house to house.

We just see them in, in various settings, meeting, both large group and small group in the temple and from house to house and occasionally having some problems with, with these kinds of issues. This is helpful for us. We as a church, need to take comfort in the fact that the Jerusalem church did not own their own building. They were using space that did not belong to them, and yet they were thriving.

They had facility problems at times, and yet they were right in the middle of God's will. God was blessing them, and we learned that a church to do God's will does not have to. On its own property. It'd be nice if that could happen, but, and there'd be nothing wrong with that.

That's an option to look into, but it doesn't have to happen for God's blessing to be upon us as a church. lastly, we need to hasten on. Let's just wrap it up with this. An 8th thing that we observe in terms of how they handled the blessing of God in the form of people is they delegated ministry to qualified deacons as needs arose.

One of the things That we observe is God was blessing them and bringing thousands of blessings in the forms, form of people to them. But with all of those blessings also came needs, and we'll break this open more next week that it seems like they unofficially, the believers were addressing those needs and then the apostles got involved in administrating the meeting of the needs of those that God was bringing to them. And by the way, the, the needs needs that God was bringing to them required great sacrifice on the part of the believers in order to be able to meet.

They had to sell property and possessions, houses in order to meet the needs of those God was bringing to them.

And the apostles were trying to administrate this, and it's not surprising. That eventually in chapter 6 verse 1, we learned that now at this time while the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose. Somebody was being overlooked. Whatever structure of ministry they had up to that point was no longer going to work, so the apostles sit the congregation down and talk to them.

And say, listen, we are called to do this and therefore we cannot give our attention to administrating this. And so let's find 7 men full of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom to oversee this task, and the congregation agreed and the apostles laid hands on them and delegated responsibility to these 7 men who many considered to be the first deacons in the history of the church. delegating ministry to responsible individuals in order to carry out the ministries of the church to address the needs of those that God was bringing their way.

And of course, God moves in a great way.

Their needs are being met and we learned that God's word kept on spreading and multiplying as a result of that. We as a church are at an interesting time in, in our history, and I believe that there are even greater things to come. There's a lot that we don't know as elders, but what, there's some things we do know, and we've just looked at a number of things we do know that we need to be doing and be focusing on, and we're convinced that walking this path, we will allow God the opportunity to bring his vision to pass.

In our midst.

Let me ask you to bow your heads. We're going to take up an offering in just a moment. We would encourage you to give as the Lord leads you to. To give There's a comment card in your bulletins.

You fill that out if you want to do so, and prayer requests, praise items, and put that in the offering bag when it comes by this morning. Just a moment. In our care groups tonight, just we, we want to call you again to prayer. In other settings and venues we want to call you to prayer.

We need to be praying and seeking God's face, relying upon Him. And let us dedicate ourselves to Him. Lord, if there's any in this room that has never placed their faith in Jesus Christ, what a wonderful savior you are. And our prayer is that through the not just the message, but through the songs we have sung that their hearts would be touched with such a loving Savior and that they would write where they're seated, believe in Him.

Put their trust in him today. They can do that and in a moment become your child. For those of us that are a part of this body, Lord, just keep us. seeking you, walking with you in all humility.

Seeking your mind and what you do reveal and make clear, help us to do those things faithfully. And what we don't know, may we wait upon you, Lord. And expect to find your will revealed as we walk the path of faithfulness and the things that you have already revealed. We thank you for the opportunity to give to you this morning and ask that you would receive the gifts that we offer to you.

And multiply their usefulness for the glory of Jesus. Who is our passion. And we just commit ourselves to You, Lord, in the name of Jesus, and all God's people said,