This is Church(?) ... The Challenge (Pt. 5/5)

When we look at the New Testament church, we see that it wasn't about buildings, or programs, or services. What Christ wanted of the church was so different. 1 John 4:12 says "No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us." Jesus said the second greatest commandment is that we would "love our neighbour as ourselves", that we would meet, as much as we could, the needs of those in and around this community. The challenge to me, and our first challenge as a Christ-centered community, is not to explain all of that away anymore. I was talking to my Dad about this. And he was trying to explain to me that the believers in Acts 2 lived the way they did because they thought Jesus was coming back really soon. In my mind I was thinking, "And you know that any better? We're allowed to live our North American lifestyle because we know when Jesus was coming back any better than the Acts 2 church did?"

We need to put away the million reasons and teachings on why we can't be church like that anymore, why we won't aim for that anymore, why church ought to be about something else now. Shouldn't it bother us that we have to say Acts 2 church as if its some other different entity than the church today? That we have to say Acts 2 church like its different from our church? God's challenge is for us to come at "Fellowship of the Believers" with reverence and humility, embrace that I'm that camel that needs to go through the needle, and ask God for help, to fill me with the love that compelled him to sacrifice abd abandon everything.

And here I have to apologize to you guys, flipping over the table and changing everything all at once wasn't the wisest thing to do. That in my exasperation I threw my hands up and said "you guys figure this out" rather than be a Godly leader and push us through the small steps that would take us from who we are to who God wants this community to be. But that is the commitment we're making for this coming year. To take this community, take it one step at a time, one Holy Spirit-enabled moved at a time, to the church that Jesus spoke of when he said "you will be known as my disciples by the way you love one another". Bit by bit we will become more like Christ in the way He loved, bit by bit we will be more like the community Christ left behind in the way we give ourselves away. I don't know how long that will take, I don't know how many baby steps we'll need to go through, but I will not, this community will not, aim to settle for anything less.

So our first baby step, can we give a bit more of our time and care to those around us? Those who aren't praying in community make a 30 minute commitment to doing so, even if its just staying around after service to pray over someone you don't know. Those who are already doing that I challenge you to come out to prayer meetings, to pray for what this community is touching. Those who are doing both those I challenge put a 30 min commitment a week to sharing life deeply with their non-christian friends and family.

This is Church(?) ... Fellowship of the Believers (Pt. 4/5)

42And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Isn't that beautiful? They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, they were living it out. They were praying, communicating with God, and God was responding in signs and wonders. Then Luke spends the rest of the passage talking about this community. This community that ate together, share everything together, gave themselves away, and were happy about all that, joyous about doing that. Luke found this community of sacrificial love, giving one's self away, so important he repeats it in 4:32.

I was having a conversation with my co-workers the other day, another one of those conversations that proves to me that people want God, people just hate church. I was just sharing with them, as another perspective to their horrible stints with church, that the original church was as described in Acts 2. They all thought it was crazy, but they all thought it was good. People thought exactly the same back then too, 5:12, people thought they were nuts, didn't dare to join them, but held them in high esteem.

The priorities are exactly reversed in church goer's today. What do people want in a good church? Deeper teaching, good worship. Our church has focused on those for a long time. And there's nothing wrong with either of those, but really, what are important priorities for people's relationship with God has become people's sole focus in their relationship with the body of Christ. Church simply becomes a place for spiritual consumers to go and get what they want, with no regard to what God wanted of His royal priesthood, His holy nation. Luke didn't describe the first church as a school, or as a rock concert, or even as a building. He described the first church as a community, a community of Christ that was giving themselves away to each other and to those around them, giving ridiculously, insanely, and in the eyes of the rest of the world (as I sensed from my co-workers), retardedly.

The Acts 2 church heard the gospel, they received it. They repented. They were baptized and received the Holy Spirit. And in response they lived the "Fellowship of the Believers". The question that dawned on me was, if my life doesn't look like that then what does it say about where I am with the gospel? What does it say about my repentance? What does it say about my baptism? What does it say about where I'm at with the Holy Spirit?

Hard question. Harsh question. The period of time this year when I was angriest was when I was finally facing and wrestling with this question. If these people received the gospel and lived Acts 2 in response, then where am I in that? Where am I with God? The realities of the contrast between my life and the life of the Acts 2 church was starting to condemn me. I guess God saw that too, because He immediately brought my mind to Luke 18:18.

18 And a ruler asked him, "Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?"

19And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 20You know the commandments: 'Do not commit adultery, Do not murder, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother.'"

21And he said, "All these I have kept from my youth."

22When Jesus heard this, he said to him, "One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me."

23 But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich. 24Jesus, seeing that he had become sad, said, "How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! 25For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God."

26Those who heard it said, "Then who can be saved?"

27But he said, "What is impossible with men is possible with God."

28And Peter said, "See, we have left our homes and followed you."

29And he said to them, "Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, 30who will not receive many times more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life."

"Who then could be saved?" I'm glad someone asked that question to Jesus then because that was the question I was asking Jesus now. Jesus' response to disciple's question wasn't just grace; it wasn't just that rich people could go to heaven too. The church and the way they lived in Acts 2 confirms that Jesus was saying that it would indeed be possible, that God would help us, live with such insanity, such sacrifice, such love; that we are called, and would be transformed, to live Acts 2 to it's fullest.

This is Church(?) ... Acts 2 (Pt. 3/5)

The only place I knew where to start was Acts, I knew there was a passage on the church in it. So I start in Acts 1. We're not going to go through all of it in detail today, but I do want to walk you through what was the beginning of the church. So flip to it, and try to stay with me.

Jesus told them to wait for Holy Spirit (1:4). He told them, don't do this without me, without my power, without my blessing. Subsequently Jesus returns to heaven, and they choose Mathias to replace Judas, who hung himself.

We go on to chapter 2, and things just explode. The Holy Spirit rained down at Pentecost. Tongues of fire came, and each disciple was communicating in a foreign tongue. No matter how you interpret the whole situation on speaking in tongues, you got to admit they were given power to proclaim the gospel, not just in word, but in power, that something astonishing to the outside world was going on. You see that theme all throughout the new testament, also shown later on in recounts of people being healed, raised from the dead, and of Luke speaking about many signs and wonders performed among them.

Still at the end of that, some people didn't get it. They thought the disciples were drunk. So Peter addresses the people with this simple message. First explaining that the power that is displayed has been foretold by the prophet Joel, that they're not drunk. Then explaining to the men of Israel, who already knew about their sins and already were expecting a saviour, that Jesus was it (2:22).

Peter concludes with a call to repentance, baptism, and the receiving of the Holy Spirit.

36Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified."

37Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?"

38And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself."

40And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." 41So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

Here's the part that really dawned on me as I looked at this passage early in the school year. People always ask, well what does it mean to repent? What does it mean to be baptized? What does having received the Holy Spirit look like day to day? And I finally realized is that the answer is right in the next passage, the fellowship of the believers, a birds-eye view of how the first Christ followers lived. These people heard the gospel, these people repented, these people were baptized, these people received the Holy Spirit, and they lived this way. See the flow?

This is Church(?) ... How I Got Here (Pt. 2/5)

I'll be the first to apologize for the removal of snacks. I still remember me and Cedric having this huge argument about it, about how important snacks were to get people to chat and fellowship. And I remember saying that if people liked it so much, they should do something about it.

Not the greatest attitude back then. I was so tired. We grew bigger and bigger, more attendance, more programs, more events. We had a small group of people who cared for this community deeply, but increasing our time and effort was spent administrating this corporation, and trying to recruit more people so we could cope with what we wanted most, which was people coming to service. And silly us in response to our tiredness we just created more programs where we invited them to come and sit: more encounter nights, more prayer meetings, more retreats, more bible studies, in hopes that some people would be inspired to partner with us in this ministry. During this time I was on the elder board watching Mississauga campus collapse after a decade in the same mode of growth. Dozens of people were leaving, almost all of them the ones who had given their effort wholeheartedly at Westside for so many years. We were 2 years in here and I was certain with the way we were going we were heading for the same fate.

I was distraught. I cared for this place, I loved this community. I had moved from my childhood church where I really didn't encounter God, to this community where for the first time I haven't just read about and memorized my being forgiven, I actually felt it, received it fully. I'd say I went from a church goer to a Christ follower here. The hardest thing was that to me we weren't doing anything overtly wrong, all of these programs and events had great intentions; they were in pursuit of God. People grew closer to God here, I grew closer to God here, no doubt that was real. So I couldn't figure out why God had seemingly pulled his hand of blessing away from Mississauga, and why even with all of our events we weren't seeing more of the disciple makers that God said in the Great Commission, like it says on the front of our bulletin. And because I'm me, I was angry. I was frustrated, I was lost. I didn't know what to do.

In a move that I now realized was long overdue, and severely backwards, I turned to the bible, leaving behind years of what I was taught about church, to figure out how a Christ following community was supposed to look like; rather than what we wanted church to be like, what God wanted church to be like.

This is Church(?) ... Introduction (Pt. 1/5)

So I don't know how many of you noticed, but we just had the return of snacks to our service about 2 weeks ago, with them wonderful baked goodies brought by Katie and Maria. And I'm not sure how many of you were here this time last year, but for better or for worse, our weekly gathering has changed a lot since then. Our community has changed a lot since then.

What I realized though, is that we never officially sat down and talked about where we as a community was going, and how me and Paul and Ced and Dom got convicted of where God wanted us to go. We're definitely not going to be able to talk about the entirety of that today. We'll probably be talking to you all summer about it, and definitely spending a ton of time in Sep to hit the ground running with it, but right now I just wanted to share with what I went through in this past year at Westside Hamilton, and the passage of scripture that really convicted me about where I feel God is wanting us to go.