On Mission wtih God

Good evening. Glad you're here this evening. It's a joy to see you. Go to Acts chapter 5. Would you turn there with me? Your pastor has asked me to stay on the church and I'm glad to do that. He's called me a one-trick pony. I don't know if you know that. I've never been called that. Because of my tenacity and passion for the local church. But I told him that's the pony Jesus rode in on when He went to Jerusalem. And the white charger, He's going to return on when He comes again. But we're going to talk about the church. And why shouldn't we? Jesus gave His life for the church. The centerpiece of God's purposes and God's glory is His church.

And we can talk about this invisible universal church. The Scripture does refer to that truth. But not very often. Overwhelmingly so, the word "Ecclesia," translated "church," is talking about a local congregation. Because you can't tithe to a universal, indivisible church. You can't submit to the elders of a universal, indivisible church. You can't meet with a universal, indivisible church. You can't use your spiritual gifts in a universal spirit. I mean, you've got to have a local congregation to do all of that. So almost 98% of the New Testament becomes obsolete.

If you don't understand and grasp, God's ordained to do His work through His local churches. All other ministries that have come about are men's ideas. I'm not saying they're all evil. I'm not saying they don't have any good in them. I'm just saying they're secondary and possibly diversionary at times to God's local church. So we're going to look at Acts chapter 5. We'll begin in verse 1, and we'll go down through verse 14. "But a certain man named Ananias with his wife Sapphira sold a piece of property and kept back some of the price for himself with his wife's full knowledge, and bringing a portion of it, he laid it at the apostles' feet.

But Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back some of the price of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God. And as you heard these words, Ananias fell down and breathed his last, and great fear came upon all who heard of it.

And the young men arose, covered him up, and after carrying him out, they buried him." Now the lapse in interval, rather, of about three hours, and his wife came in not knowing what had happened, and Peter responded to her, "Tell me whether you sold the land for such and such a price." And she said, "Yes, that was the price." Then Peter said to her, "Why is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test?

Behold, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they shall carry you out as well." And she immediately fell at his feet and breathed her last, and the young men came in and found her dead. And they carried her out and buried her beside her husband, and great fear came upon the whole church and all who heard of these things. And at the hands of the apostles, many signs and wonders were taking place among the people, and they were all with one accord in Solomon's portico, but none of the rest dared to associate with them.

However, the people held them in high steam, and all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women, were constantly added to their number. The book of Acts mentions the work of the Holy Spirit 50 times. The book of Acts is a great transition book. It's a transition from the Lord's personal ministry to the apostles' ministry. The New Testament even says we're built upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. God working out His truth through these apostles wrote the New Testament, and they give us the once for all delivered to the saints' doctrine upon which His church and His work is built.

So we transfer from Christ to the apostles, from the old covenant to the new covenant, to Israel being the centerpiece of God's work and God's purposes, now to the church being the centerpiece of God's purposes and God's glory. That's a fascinating thing, and if you had lived in that day and were a Jew, that would have been a huge pill to swallow, that now God is building His people not out of one nation, but out of all peoples, tongues, tribes and nations, Jews and Gentile nations. That was a radical concept in this day. So we're transitioning to that.

We're transitioning from God the Son being in immediate context with His work to now the Holy Spirit is the person that the God had in immediate context with His work. So it's a book of great transition, but here's the glorious overarching truth, and that is it's a book of great continuity, and that is that God's eternal divine purpose to save for Himself a people who will know Him, love Him, treasure Him, and through which He will be glorified continues on. Let me say that again. God's grand purpose to save for Himself a people that will know Him, love Him and treasure Him and through which He will be glorified, that continues right along.

It just comes into fuller bloom. Matter of fact, Acts puts this whole eternal decree of God into full bloom. And as you read the book of Acts, the lights begin to come on and you say, "Oh, that's what God intended to do. That's how God is going to build and establish His eternal people. His called out ones, His ekklesia, His church, if you will. Today made up of local churches." Now, foundational to getting this job done, this job of God calling for Himself an elect to set apart special people. Foundational to that, as we see both in the Old and the New Testaments, is the preaching of the Word of God and the power of the Spirit.

And all of our churches, our partnership churches, our church plants, our mission points around the world and Anchored in Truth ministries, I spend probably more time than anything exhorting the churches as to how they must free up the man of God called to preach to do His job and not be encumbered with many other interests or busy works or obligations because preaching is terribly emotionally draining. It's the most draining thing I've ever done. I used to work non-union heavy construction. We built concrete forms and tore them down and tied a reinforcement bar together. I know a little bit about hard work.

I hauled hay before that and that's back before they were round bales. They were square bales. We had to throw them on the truck. That was the old days. But nothing is as tiring as preaching. And you're going to have to really fight. Your church is already to the size where the greatest challenge your pastor is going to have is to say no to good things so he can pour himself into the one thing the church must have, a prayerful, studied up preaching of the Word of God. And that's foundational. God has chosen, that is the primary means by which He's going to save for Himself this people from every people-tongued tribe and nation.

He's called out ones and become His people for both time and for eternity. As a matter of fact, the Book of Acts points this out very pointedly. Scholars tell us there are 14 different sermons recorded in the Book of Acts. I didn't know that. 14 different sermons. Peter preached three of those, one at Pentecost, one in the temple, and one before the Sanhedrin. Now, building off the mainstay of preaching the Word and the power of the Spirit, we see some other things that make up for what I would call a biblically structured church. I call these the structures of grace. We may talk more about that through history.

We've talked about the means of grace in the church, like preaching the Word, ordinances, prayer, fellowship, etc., etc. But God's ordained some structures, I'm convinced, from the balance of biblical teaching and primary the New Testament teaching. So, as I often use a will illustration, I'll say the preaching of the Word and the power of the Spirit in congregational worship is the hub of the will. There are some spokes that come off of there that are essential. And one of the spokes off of that hub would be every member ministry through small groups. It's not time to go into that tonight.

That's hours and hours of teaching on the biblical concept there. But a church of any size must begin to break itself down into smaller units. So people can learn one another. They learn each other's weaknesses and strengths. They begin to trust each other. And you have a transparency and a bond that allows us to truly minister and care for one another the way the New Testament teaches, which is good. And I know you guys have a problem with space. Well, you just need to be praying that you can be as effective as possible in household groups, perhaps. But that's a tough, tough thing to do.

And over many, many, many years, we've really realized that the old Baptist approach that began in probably the '40s, '50s, and really first in the '50s, '60s, and only into the '70s of Sunday school for everyone, children through adults, nobody has come close to having the percentage of church members active in small groups as Baptists did during those days. Now, it is unfortunate that too often in our Baptist churches, doctrine was real weak and spirituality was real weak, but that doesn't mean the structure was wrong. Now, are you listening to me tonight? You don't have to throw out the baby with the bathwater and getting the church right.

How about an Amen right there? There's some things our forefathers did, and I mean our recent forefathers, that are good things. They just need to be sharpened and cleaned up and used more effectively. And one of the things we've learned at our ministry, and I'm going on four decades now, the things I'm teaching you are the things we are living out. I'm not teaching you something I studied a year or two ago and throwing them out there. These are things we're living out, and we're finding that there's some things that our forefathers did that we just need to continually revive them and clean them up and reuse them.

And one of those would be small groups or Sunday school work. And I call it every member of ministry, where every single member of a local church can have some form of spiritual ministry in the lives of others, and you can't do that by just throwing 70, 80, 90 people in one room and saying, "Y'all take care of each other." It's not going to happen. It's got to be organized. And we see that principle in the Old Testament. We see it taught in the New. Well, another spoke in this will would be what we call personalized strategic world missions.

And from this point in Acts, really earlier in Acts, and all the way through Acts 8, 4, then Acts 13 coming out of Antioch Church with Paul and Barnabas going on the first missionary journey, we see the local churches personally and strategically involved in global missions. Missions is not the job of some distant missions agency. There is the need, matter of fact, the New Testament, I can't say requires it, but is redundant with the illustration that churches of like doctrine and like conviction need to join together because together we can get more done than we can separately. You guys are partnering with Anchored in Truth missions.

I thank God for that. You're a blessing to us. But we need each other. By partnering with us, you're part of 60 plus ministries, church plants and missionaries around the globe that by yourself you couldn't hardly begin to support. But together we can do more. And that's taught throughout the New Testament. So every member of ministry through small groups, we once spoke off of preaching the word, personalized strategic world missions, and then what I call family discipleship. And under family discipleship, just to be honest, Old Testament New, we have almost no guidelines.

So if you think you've got the corner on the market of how family devotions and family worship is supposed to function, I'm going to tell you something you don't because there can be a thousand different ways because the Bible is mostly silent there. And I think there's a reason why it's silent. Because when we get a real hardcore structure in the home, it becomes an idol too often. It becomes a legalism. And the children learn to watch their watches when family worship starts and then when it's over so they can go back to being carnal again. So I think that's a wonderful thing. If you have family worship, I think it's a wonderful thing.

If you have family devotions. But I think it's also a wonderful thing if you approach family discipleship by just being real with each other. Take the Sunday sermon home and talk to it with your children. As Deuteronomy 6 says, when you get up in the morning, when you walk along the way, when you sit by the wayside, when you recline at night, and just make it real at home. Talk about the truths of Scripture when you see something on the Andy Griffith Show, like I said at our conference. And you know, often Andy and Barney would tell lies. Have you noticed that? It's the best show on TV, but they still lie a lot on there.

It's a good way to bring up the Word of God and say, "Hey, what does the Scripture say about that? What's my point?" Make it real at home. If it's just real at church and not real at home, you're going to have a weak overall church. So these structures are all through the New Testament. Family discipleship, though not implicitly commanded, is understood throughout the New Testament.

Now, if you're going to take the mainstay of preaching, every member of ministry through a small group, personalized strategic world missions, and family discipleship, and say, "That's the things we want..." By the way, Chris, when we get to doing all those well, that's a lot of work. It tickles me all the goofy, nonsensical things churches do, and they're not even doing those right yet. If you don't have the hubs and the spokes right, what are you worrying about other stuff? Can I get "amen" there? And I see churches emphasizing everything in the world and missing what the Bible lays out as foundational.

Now, there are two key pillars that uphold these structures of grace. One is, of course, they have to happen in a local church. When I was first converted, what were you talking about, right at 40, 41 years ago, the discipleship movement was huge. The navigators and college campus discipleship groups. There was good in them, but they had a fatal error, and that's why many of them don't exist anymore. You know what that fatal error was? They were not connected to a local church. They were independent of the local church.

So what I'm telling you is, whatever else you get involved in outside your local church, just hold it kind of lightly, because those things come and go. Didn't you all remember Promise Keepers, the giant men's ministry? There were some good in Promise Keepers, and some of my guys, Chris, went to one of the first Promise Keepers meetings in our area, and it was gigantic. I mean, men everywhere is going crazy about it, but we didn't do much about it. Well, we didn't do anything about it in our church. And some of my men went, and they came home, and they came to me and said, "Pastor, we went to a Promise Keepers meeting." I said, "You did?

Why was it?" He said it was good, but everything they talked about, we're already doing in our local church. That was one of the greatest things I ever heard. Here's my point. If the church is right, men don't need anything else. Their point was we have the same kind of accountability and encouragement in our men's small groups they're talking about. So folks, you want to be a local church that proves to the world, "We're all you need because God Wisdom says the local church is all we need." We have ladies' Bible study groups all over the place. I'm not saying those are evil. I'm not saying they're wrong.

But if you're doing what the Bible tells you to do for the ladies in your local church, you don't have much energy left for the ladies in town. Can I tell you something? When you joined a church, you took a bride. You took a spouse. You have an obligation. You have a duty. You have a place to minister. And so what I tell my folks, "I'm not against you doing other things, but make sure you exhaust what we need you to do here." Then go somewhere else. So one of the pillars that supports preaching of the Word, small groups, world missions, family discipleship, the pillar is the local church. Now here's the second pillar. Are you listening?

Spiritual power. Spiritual power, one of the great errors of our age is so many guys get on truthful things. They can write about them. They can speak about them. And they're impressive, but they lack spiritual power. Unless the Holy Spirit empowers it, it's all worthless. You can have the best structures in the world and be thoroughly biblical, but you have to long and seek for God's power to anoint it. That's why the book of Acts is in a more broad way considered the Acts of the Spirit. In one sense, the Holy Spirit is the pastor of this church as it begins in the book of Acts.

The pastor said, "I'm going to send you another comforter, another one like myself." And that's the Holy Spirit. And what we have in the book of Acts is a blueprint of what God wants all of our churches to be about in all the ages. The book of Acts isn't just a history lesson of what happened to the original church. It's a blueprint that you and I can expect to be played out in our own churches if our churches are sound and solid. So we've talked about the hub of the wheel in the local church preaching the word. We need the organizational structures to be functioning and working well.

Your pastor and I have talked about that some in a few conversations recently. I know your hearts are there. But in addition to all of that, let me talk about five principles that will always be functioning. I would use the phrase, "These are ever deepening principles in the life of a true church." I would say ever deepening in the sense that you are deepening in your grasp of them but not deepening in the aspect of needing all of them. For example, one of them may be primarily exercised early on and not so much later. But you will more deeply grasp the importance of all five as you mature as a church.

And we pull these right out of Acts 5, but they are systematically supported in the balance of Scripture. Number one, the first principle I want to bring out that's ever revolving, ever being recycled in the church is the purification of the church. The purification of the church. What do you think God was teaching us in Acts 5, verses 1-11, giving us this whole narrative of this couple named Ananias and Sapphira, who said they gave everything they got from the proceeds of the sale of their land and gave it to the church. And that was their sin, not what they gave. That was not the sin.

The sin was they were boasting that they gave everything when they actually kept back part of it. So they wanted to lie and be considered as unselfish and devoted as others were when actually they were not. And so God deals with them. You know why? I mean, look, the church is just getting started. Brother Christ, you know, if I was pastoring the church and we were experiencing the revival, they were experiencing Pentecost, I think I'd put off dealing with Ananias and Sapphira for a while. I'd say, look at all these people getting saved, not God, because God doesn't care about souls any more than He cares about being pure.

He halted the whole revival to deal with two sinners in the church. That's how deeply God cares about the purification of the church. You've got to understand something. Are you listening to me this evening? Say amen if you're listening to me. God purifies everything that belongs to Him. Everything that belongs to Him God purifies. Aren't you glad He purifies us through His Son Jesus Christ? That's a glory right there when you think about it.

1 Peter 1, 14 and 15, "As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your arrogance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior, because it is written, 'You shall be holy, for I am holy.'" So when God removed Ananias and Sapphira, we know they just died right there in the service, right there in front of everybody. That was a dramatic event. But God was accomplishing two things. It was needful for this particular church at this time, and secondly, it was a needful instruction for all the churches of all times. Both of those are true.

It's a divine principle we need to understand, the purity of the church, the purification of the church. In 1 Corinthians 5, 6, the Bible reminds us that a little leaven leavens the whole up a doe. Actually, this was a church discipline case. A boy in his church was having more relations with probably his stepmother, and Paul was writing saying, "You've got to deal with this issue. If you allow this to go on, it's going to corrupt everything in the church. It's going to multiply and metastasize in the church." So this was the commencement of the church age.

Ananias and Sapphira are dealt with severely because of the significance of what was at stake. They lied about their gifts, and in effect, here's what they were doing. Ananias and Sapphira were using the church not for Christ's gain and Christ's glory, but for their own gain and their own glory. Now that should challenge all of us. Why do you come to church? Do you stay repentant up to date? You do understand when you got saved, you didn't repent. You became a repenter.

And so as you come to church regularly from the pastor on down, you continue to repent of our proneness to want it to be about us and our credit and our glory, and say, "Lord, we're here for your gain and for your glory, not ours." Ananias and Sapphira were not repenters like that. They held on to the flesh of wanting to promote themselves. And this kind of wickedness must be rooted out, or it would corruptly multiply and metastasize in the church, and it would pollute the church for the foreseeable future. Now we have the parallel truth of the story of Achan in the Old Testament. They cross over into the Promised Land.

They have this wonderful victorious conquering of Jericho, that some of the men, Achan and some of the others, kept some of the spoils. They were under the band. They were not to keep any of it. And then they go up against tiny AI, and they said, "Well, you won't need very many to defeat AI. They're just nobody." And so they go and try to fight AI, and they all got whipped. And they come back there, "What's wrong? We defeated mighty Jericho, and then we fall to little AI. What is the problem here?" And Joshua, their leader, is crying out before the Lord, "Read the story again one day." And that's what God says to Joshua.

God in effect says, "Joshua, stop praying. This is no time for prayer. Go deal with the problem." They didn't literally say, "Stop praying," because we always pray. But his point was, "Pray while you're acting on what you know to do. Don't just sit here and pray and cry." Brother Chris, I can't tell you the number of churches, associations, and pastors. I've seen all kinds of prayer meetings cry out to God, "Pray before God. Bring revival. Save souls." When they got dozens and dozens of people living in open wickedness in their church, and they never deal with it. And God would say to them, "Hush up your prayer meeting.

Pray, but go deal with the problem." That's what God did with the Anaphyla fire. So Joshua dealt with the problem. Guess what? God's blessing and power came back. Why? Because this was the conquest of the Promised Land, just like the beginning of the church age. It was too important to deal with this evil and make sure the people were pure. We have to remember something in our evangelism. Are you listening? The purity of the church affects the power of the gospel. The purity of the church affects the power of the gospel. You want your pastor's gospel preaching to bear fruit and see souls saved? Then you make a covenant to God.

Look, we're always gracious. We're always humble. We're always compassionate. And we're always as confident, or hold to confidentiality in dealing with people's sins. But we must be persistent about the purification of God's church. It's a principle that must be lived out in the church. The New Testament gives us very specific steps, what a church is to do, as is to deal with sin that's unrepentant of in the church. And notice how I'm saying, now we're all sinners and we're all repentors.

When you deal with sin in the church, it's because a sinner becomes hardened and brazen and will not yield and will not even try to deal with the sin in their life. We've had all kinds of people in our church that have been discovered in all kinds of sins. But if they're humble and they'll say, "Pastor, our elders, man, I want to do better. I want to live better." You know what we do? We don't tell anybody. We keep it confidential. We put our arms around them. We love them and we help them through it. Amen. It only becomes public when they just refuse to try to be helped.

But if you don't strive to keep the church pure, you have violated a primary foundational principle of a true and biblically and spiritually healthy church, the purification of the church. J.L. Dagg was the first true scholar among Baptists in America. He wrote the first systematic theology written by an American Baptist. And J.L. Dagg has this famous quote, "When discipline leaves the church, Christ goes with it." When discipline leaves the church, Christ goes with it. Now here's what happens when you talk about something like that. Here's what's strange. This didn't used to be foreign to Baptist people.

You know there was one year in the 1800s when the Baptists of Georgia dismissed 75,000 people from their membership roles for refusing to repent of sin. Here's my point. It was just common. They just did it regularly. They dealt with things. You think you can go join the Mississippi State football team and just do your own thing and make up your own rules and they leave you on the team? You'll be dismissed from the team. You know why? Because Mississippi State football is important. How important is the bride of Christ? How important is the local church of Jesus Christ?

Why are we treating the local churches if it's less important than the secular sports things in our lives? Some will say, "Well, now if we do that and we try to be obedient to this, Brother Jeff, then people will be afraid to come to our church. People will be afraid to join our church." What you should be afraid of is a church that tolerates the Ananias and Sapphira spirit, not one that tries to righteously, humbly, capacitantly deal with it. That's what you should be afraid of. And that's what's happened at our church back home. We began practicing biblical church discipline literally three decades ago.

It's just part of the life of our church. And today, if we were to knowingly and willfully stop dealing with people who refuse to repent, the elders would fire me. You know why? They've seen the sweetness and the blessedness of God on the church when we've tried to walk in these truths. Others will say, "Well, I'm a member of the church and I don't know if I like this because I struggle with sin and I have to repent of sin." Well, listen, folks, if you're a struggling repinter and a sinner, you're in league with the rest of us. That's where we all are, amen? But we're talking about the hardened debt. We're talking about the brazen heart.

We're talking about a person who refuses to try to humble themselves. We've seen so many marriages go bad where we would go to that spouse and we would begin to deal with them and bring the Word of God to bear. And, Brother Chris, all of a sudden we'd see their hearts turn and they would start working with us. And it took a while, but we've seen so many marriages saved and restored through that process. And that's what God wants, the purification of the church. You know, it's a good thing too because when your church purposes, never perfectly. By the way, did you discipline your children perfectly?

And if you couldn't discipline them perfectly, did you throw the whole concept out like the liberals want us to today? Say, "Well, no more discipline, never again." No, you didn't. You knew it was essential even if you were imperfect at it. Well, that's the way churches are. We're not perfect at it, but it's essential to being a true and healthy church.

And it helps all of us because, you know, when you go out there to sin, you think, "Man, my church will hold me accountable if I do something with some public scandal to it." It's just like when you're reading the paper, somebody got killed because they were speeding, going too fast down the highway. What's the first thing you think? You think, "Man, I need snow to slow down too." Well, that's what happens when you hear that your church is trying to deal with sin. You think to yourself, "Man, I want that." And you know what you'll find?

If you have a church that deals with people who refuse to repent of sin, then you'll have people join your church who want their sin dealt with. You'll build the right kind of church. What I call a true church. You know this is true. The overwhelming majority of congregations are not churches. I tell pastors, "I'm going to this church, I'm going to that church." And I say, "Here's what you got to do. You got to get up there and preach the Word of God and somehow find a church in there somewhere." Because you'll have a lot of people, but they may not be the church. The purification of the church.

Here's another principle that you will continue to grasp and grow in, and it has a powerful beauty to it, and that's the unification of the church. The unification of the church. Down here in verse 12, notice after now, notice this, "After Ananias and Sapphira are dealt with, then the Bible says," verse 12, "at the hands of the apostles, many signs and wonders were taking place among the people, and they were all with one accord in Solomon's portico." That's unity. They were all unified. You know what's interesting?

When sin is dealt with, we all get over the petty stuff that might divide us, and we get our hearts anchored on what really matters. We can just overlook. It don't matter what color the carpet is or what color the new paint is, or a thousand and one things that anybody can do. We just get over petty stuff that don't matter, and we become unified in the church. Now, here's what I'm telling you about. Look, there is a vast, vast difference between what most churches call unity and what is the true unity of the Spirit. The big difference between what most people call unity is not unity. It's a toleration of flesh. That's what it is.

They're tolerating wickedness in order to call it unity, when that's not unity because the wickedness and the flesh is against the Holy Spirit. It quenches the Holy Spirit, and when it quenches the Holy Spirit, He is the Spirit of unity, and you can't have unity without Him. If He's Christian holding back, you don't have any unity. You have toleration. You have accommodation of wickedness, but no true spiritual unity.

The Bible is talking about true spiritual unity when Psalm 133.1 says, "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity." And Jesus, in His high priestly prayer before He went back up into heaven, went to the cross and then ascended back up into heaven, says, "I in them, you in me, that they may be perfected in unity." Now, now listen to this. "So that the world may know that you sent Me." In other words, there's a special, unique, Spirit-rought unity you should share as a church that causes your community to look at you and say, "God must be among them." Because it's a unique unity.

It's a different unity than the world knows anything about. It's a Holy Spirit-rought unity. Jesus prayed that His unity would be perfected in us. So as we mature and as we grow, sweet Holy Spirit-rought unity marks us and becomes commonplace among us. And the world marvels. And I can say this with no exaggeration, at least for 15 years in my church, there has been no incidents of malice, slander, envy, jealousy, strife, contentions, bitterness, divisions that were known in any dimension whatsoever. I'm not saying that never existed, but none of this stuff that becomes known in the average congregation over and over and over again.

Just wasn't there. And these are things that are so commonplace in the world today. I mean, look at social media in the political spectrum. All the ugliness, the strife, the malice, the meanness. But a church that is purifying and is unified by the Holy Spirit of God, those things are dealt with when they first pop up and they're completely through a biblical process eliminated and that sweet, sweet spirit-rought unity prevails in the church and the world marvels over it.

And would we be exaggerating to say that most badness and evangelical churches find these fleshly expressions, strife, bitterness, contentious divisions are commonplace in congregation today? Matter of fact, this is how most badness churches do their business. You have a badness business meeting in this mob we get together and this mob we get together, and it's all about strife and conditions and divisions. That is wrong, you know why? Because a big number of those people don't know what the Holy Spirit is because they've never been born of the Holy Spirit. They became badness, but they never got born again.

Only the Spirit can bring each individual believer to a humble, contrite view of themselves. And then when you come to a humble, contrite view of yourself and then you love with a special deep love for your brothers and sisters in Christ, because they also have a humble, contrite view of themselves. And that's the way God means for us to be. It's almost like the old illustration, it's been used many times, but the way you tune a piano is to a piano fort. All the pianos are tuned to the same fort. We are all tuned to the same Savior, the same Holy Spirit. You see, unity is not about unity. Unity is about truth.

Jesus said one time, "I didn't come to bring peace, I came to bring sword." Whoa, time out, that doesn't sound loving and unifying. Here's what he meant. He said, "No, but truth will go to war." But you get me a body of people who all embrace the same truth, then we have unity. Truth is first, unity follows. And that's the kind of sweet spirit-wrought unification that we want in our churches that we look for in our churches. Oh, for time I'm skipping stuff, skipping stuff, skipping stuff. Oh, I have to. You've got to go home and go to bed and go to work in the morning.

Now, if you're a spirit-reborn person with a genuine spirit-wrought humility and love, there is nothing that can separate you from the truly spirit-born Christ-saved elect that are around you. It's what one guy called, "There's no defectability among the elect." There's no defectability among the elect. Let me see if I can unpackage that for you. "To defect" means to desert a cause. It means to go embrace a contrary cause. When God really saves you and puts you in His church, you find that you are bound to those people and nothing can separate you from them.

And when we see these folks that begin to leave us sometimes and leave the church, and it's over this thing and that thing, and there's not much substance to us, all that's telling us is they're missing something that draws the children of God to one another. There's an item missing in their lives. Well, in Ananias and Sapphira's life, they're removed from the fellowship, and there was a purification which followed a sweet spirit-wrought unification. They were all with one accord in Solomon's portico. Let's go to the third thing, and that would be sanctification. The sanctification of the church. Look at verse 13, the first part there.

Again, all of this is after the dealing with Ananias and Sapphira, and it says, "But none of the rest dare to associate with them, however the people held them in high esteem." Now what's happening here, there were a lot of people who are not yet Christians who were just kind of hanging around the church, kind of listening and learning. And when God dealt with Ananias and Sapphira, a whole host of thousands and thousands probably separated away from them. That's sanctification. Sanctification means separated off. So God was, God was, let me say, God was sanctifying His church.

In every church where God's moving, God will separate those from you. They're not really of you. Now we don't like that in our humanity, but in every true church that's going to happen. Now sanctification is unification's first cousin. They really like each other. They're always close to each other, always running together. One is always accompanied by the other. Where there is no true unification, or rather there is no true unification without true sanctification. And where there is true sanctification, there will be unification. In other words, you can't have spirit-wrought unity unless those are removed who are not of the spirit.

And here's the problem, you can't make a person get born again, only God can do that. Are you listening to me? So your job is to discern who are the spirit-wrought ones God's added to us. And if there's one who isn't and God moves them away, we accept that as God's sanctifying process of His church. Happened in Acts chapter 5. However, the people would not associate with them. That's what the text tells us.

So we see in verse 13, "There was a falling away of those who previously appeared to be with them, and a hesitancy of others and a cautious spirit of many to even come and visit with them." That's exactly what it means in verse 13 when it says, "But none of the rest dared associate with them." I guess so if God kills two people in your church on Sunday morning, I guess the people say, "I don't know if I want to go down there or not." That's exactly the context. But think about it. Now think with me tonight, someone said one time, "Think, there's so little competition." Use the brain God gave you.

If a church is a place where depraved fallen sinners come into contact with the triune holy God, then visiting a church is not the same as going to the lake, to a movie, or to a barbecue cookout. And it shouldn't be the same. The world wants it to be like that. The world wants it just to be a little cleaner version of the fun we have on Saturday. But you're visiting a church that worships a God who would kill Ananias and Sapphira if they don't repentant. So your visitors should come in with a sense they don't play here. Their God is real and they're real about serving their God.

Now this approach may, that is making your church like the world, making your church like a barbecue dinner, making your church like a little cleaner entertainment that the world offers, it may grow a crowd but it will not grow Christ Church. It will not build this church. A true church is actually something of a paradox. A true church is the most loving and accepting place in town. And at the same time, it can be the most intimidating and unsettling environment because they preach about sin and the holy God and His justice and wrath. So it's kind of a paradox.

They say, "What's your church like?" And you say, "Well, you have to come and sing." But it's real. It's genuine. But if someone wants to find God, they should know that your church is the place they can find Him. It may not be happy church. It may not be relevant church. It may not be entertainment church. But if you want to know God, come to Nola Baptist Church and you'll find Him. That's the reputation you want to have in your town. The church is those who God has set apart for Himself. It's the local church. It's the local family of called out ones. We are not of the world. We are not into the world's treasures or the world's pleasures.

Those are not for us. That doesn't mean we can't enjoy some common graces in the world. They're just not our ultimate joy, not our ultimate treasure. Those are the things that have crept into the church today that we begin to use as if to say, "We want to make Jesus attractive, so let's make Jesus look more worldly." No, we should make Jesus look otherworldly. We should make Him the beautiful and holy one that He is and watch Him draw all men unto Himself. So we see here, Ananias and Sapphira are killed for their lack of repentance.

That's a purification of the church, which led to a beautiful spirit-wrought unification in the church, which led to people saying, "We don't know if we want to be a part of that or not." A sanctification of the church, that leads to number four, the admiration for the church. This is something that it took many years in my community for us to realize. We had been dealing with issues and had been dealing with a lot of people on our membership roles who didn't come to church anymore, and we couldn't get them to come no matter what we did, and eventually we dismissed them from the church membership.

That got the antagonism started against us, trust me. In our community at that time, there were about 8,000 or 9,000 people, and so we're dismissing hundreds of people from our church roles, a large congregation. You just wouldn't believe it. Even many, as a matter of fact, most of the criticism came from other Baptist churches, just reproof and slander and malicious stuff. So all this ugliness is going on in the community, and I thought, "Will I ever be able to go to Walmart and not see 20 people that hate me?" Literally, it was depressing. It was difficult. Years of that went on, and then something began to change. You know why?

We just kept doing what God told us to do. We kept doing it week in and week out, month in and month out. I'm in my 38th year now, same church, just doing what God calls to do. And all of a sudden, we saw things change. We saw an admiration and esteem for our church begin to grow from people who would say something like, "You know, we don't agree with you. We wouldn't join your church, but we do respect you." What's it say down here in verse 13, the last part? "None of the rest dared to associate with them, however, the people held them in high esteem." Did you see that? The people held them in high... Now, that didn't...

But the Christ said, "It don't happen overnight." But over time, you keep staying faithful. You've got to do that. I was getting alone with a lady in our community, and actually, a number of our staff members had been using this lady and a number of church members, and she was doing my loan papers. She just stopped. She took her glasses off. She said, "But, Jeff, you know, I've never been to your church, but your members are different. There's a different quality about them. There's a different genuineness and goodness about them. And I just want you to know as they're faster, I see the difference. This woman, likely, is not a Christian.

But the respect for the church was growing. Some time ago, we had a lady who started visiting our church, and I met her and I asked her why she was visiting, and she belonged to... Now, when I was growing up, we called them Holy Rollers, but I think it was technically a Pentecostal church. And some good, sweet people loved Jesus. I don't agree with some people who loved the doctrine, but I'm not saying all of them are lost either. But nevertheless, she was trying to get her husband to come to church. He was a lost man. And so she goes to her Pentecostal pastor. Now, he was going to cross the river from us.

And she asked her pastor, said, "My husband will not come to an assembly of God or a church of God or a Pentecostal church. He says they're cults." She said, "I'm not saying that. My husband says that." So what should I do? And immediately, that Pentecostal pastor, I'd never met him, said, "Take him over to Grace Life Church to the Shoals, and he'll get saved." Just like that. He came to our church, and it was a few weeks after he began visiting that I met with him in his office, and he made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ. Here's my point. The people held them in high esteem. We may not agree with you.

The text says the people held them in high esteem. We've had so many blessings through the years. As again, in the community, there were so many negative things out there. People thought, literally, Pam and I were monster one and monster two, I think. Just unbelievable stuff. And then our girls got up into grade school, and then up into high school, and especially Pam began to meet some of the mothers. And she was on a field trip one day, and one of the mothers of one of the other girls in the class, they were just talking. She said, "I want to tell you something.

I've really grown to love and respect you, and you're not nothing like people said you were." And first of all, before that, and this is the main thing I left out, she said, "As I've gotten to know your daughters, I've seen that they're excellent young ladies, and they love Christ, and they're kind and good people, so I know you're not what people say about you." And over time, God has just changed that. And I mean, literally today, I can walk across. I know every mayor of the four towns nearby, I know the chief of police, everybody. God has given us a high esteem because we've stayed with what the word of God said.

And even though I think a lot of these people are unconverted, there's something in their heart that says, "You know they're right." I was invited to be a part of what was called the large church round table. That means nothing to you, and it don't need to mean anything to you. But I was invited to be one of 30, 35 pastors across the country to come to be a part of a group that, quote, "We were supposed to be the next movers and shakers of pastors in America." I didn't really know what it all was, but I went to a couple of the meetings.

And we'd go to those meetings, and I would just sit there like a stump because the things they'd talk about are things that were foreign to me. All of this new gizmos and gadgets and new approaches to music and all this kind of stuff that they were going to do in their churches. And toward the end of one of the meetings, one of the guys spoke up.

And these guys from all over the country, some of the biggest churches around the country, and he said this, "If we're not doing what Jeff Noblet's doing, then none of the rest of this stuff matters." The text says, "However the people will hold them in high esteem." And you want to be known for a church of fidelity and godliness and purity and genuineness. Not all of this silly, entertainment, gimmicky nonsense that's going on in the church today. The admiration of the world. I could give you so many. One last testimony. There was a man in Huntsville, Alabama, and Huntsville is about 50 miles to our east. And Huntsville is a booming economy.

The Space and Rocket Center is there. And it's just every few months, I have a new big plant, some aeronautics thing, or some big car plant opening there. Just a great place to live if you want a good job. And there was a man who was in the hotel industry there. A hotel. Hospital. He was a leader in a hospital chain that's across the south. And he had left his church. Something really bad had happened. And he was right about it. It was really bad. And he'd just quit going to church. He'd gotten hurt. He'd gotten disappointed and just quit church. And he was listening to me on the radio regularly.

And after listening to me preach for a while, he became convicted that even though what he'd experienced in church was wrong, and he was disappointed, he knew he had to get back in church. And he found a sound church and rededicated his life to Christ and began going to church. And he began following our ministry. And in that time, his daughter moved to Muscle Shoals, and she joined our church. And he began going faithfully. And he needed a new administrator in the hospital that was in our town. It's part of the chain that he worked with. And he called one of my associate pastors, and here's what he said.

He said, "I've been following y'all's ministry a long, long time. I know you guys are for real. I need somebody I can really count on. It's a very good paying job, and I need somebody that can handle this administration here. You tell me who to hire, and I'll hire them, because if they go to your church, I know I can count on them." And you're the people the Bible says held them in high esteem. That's the kind of reputation you want in your community. And you've got to stay with these principles, the biblical principles of a true and solid church. Now, if you're a pastor or a faithful member of a true church, you will be rejected by many.

Don't expect everybody to love you all the time. But in time, you will be respected by most. And in time, you'll begin to be loved and respected by those who originally rejected you. Did I say the last one was number four was the last one? I do have one more. Multiplication. Now that God's working with this church in Acts 5, He's purified them. He's given them a sweet spirit-rock unification. He's sanctified them, some that were hanging with them, separated out from them. He's brought admiration from those around them in the world, because they saw how genuine and true and real they were. And now we come to multiplication.

Look at verse 14 of Acts 5. "And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women, were constantly added to their number." So notice this breathing. You see, a church is a living organism. At the same time there were some separating off, verse 13, there were others being brought in. There was a going out and a coming in. You see, a church is a living organism. It breathes. A church must put off the carbon dioxide of the unsaved and take in the oxygen of true converts. And that kind of breathing, it's usually more drastic when you first revitalize a church or you first get started getting a church.

But it will always happen to some degree. There will always be some going and always be some coming in. That's what happened in Acts 5. That's a good sign God is moving. I've heard preachers say before, "Man, we've got to close the back door and open the front door." I think it's right the opposite. Most churches need to close the front door and open the back door. Look, are you listening to me? You don't get Acts 14. Multitudes are added to the church unless you get Acts 1-11. God deal with Anise and Sapphira.

See, everybody wants to get to Acts and jump Acts 1-11 and get all the way down to 14 where evangelism and multiplying, building up the church numbers wise happens. Don't shortcut it. You need to go through purification, unification, sanctification, and then finally into admiration and then multiplication. Look, this is the normal pattern for a church. This is the regular pattern of a church. If you go several years and nobody leaves, you ought to be concerned.

Heaven's sake, don't try to make anybody do all you can to keep folks work with them, beg them, pray with them, but ultimately realize if the Spirit of God has not given them a heart for what you are, you can't do it. Your winsomeness, your kindness, your sweetness, whatever, you can't regenerate the heart. Only God can do that. Are you hearing me tonight? God hasn't given them a hunger for a true church. You can't give it to them. It's impossible. It's of Him. Jesus said, "I will build my church." He didn't say you will build His church. He said, "I will build my church." He didn't say He would build your church.

He said, "I will build my church." Now, you want to get in on it with me because that's the title of this message, "On Mission with God." On mission with God. Are you cooperating with God in the principles He's ordained for His church? This is the normal and regular pattern of spiritually, scripturally healthy church life. Now, let's participate with God in it. Now, the last word, and it's not really a part of the outline, it's just my concluding thought. If you are functioning as a true church, you will be experiencing that purification. It's varying degrees, but it'll be a part of what you understand God does in His church.

Sweet spirit-rought unification, not the world's idea of unity. Spirit-rought unification. Sanctification where some will not associate with you. Admiration of the world. Multiplication, God will start bringing in those who are truly His. Now, here's the last word, and it's the most important word of all, glorification. As the church is right and functions right, God is seen like He is not seen in anything else on earth. God's glory is seen in creation. God's glory was seen in how He dealt with Israel. God's glory was seen in how He dealt with Israel's foes. He hardened Pharaoh's heart that God would be honored among Pharaoh, the Bible says.

But there's nowhere God's ordained to bring Himself esteem and glory like the local church. Ephesians 3, 21, "To Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever." And that's what's got to keep you going, church. You've got to grasp. We want God to be made much of in this church. We want the world to look at an old, Baptist church and say, "God's doing that." And we deem God worthy of honor and praise by the way He's working in that church. And He gets the glory, and that's why I get up in mourning. And that's why we're part of our churches, and that's why we serve and work the way we do.

So our Lord gets the glory. We don't want the church to be built on Christ's wisdom or on Jeff's wisdom, on God's wisdom. Because if we build something that grows, we get the credit. But if you just follow the manual, the man who wrote the manual gets the credit. Amen. And he gets the glory. Well, I skimmed over some stuff, but I believe I've shared what I needed to share tonight. Could we pray together? Heads bowed and eyes closed. I want to especially talk to the men of the church. You might be a man of the church, maybe not be this particular church, but I'm talking to you too.

I would challenge you men here tonight, and I know you're good men. I know your pastors told me about you, but I would ask you to rededicate your life tonight to these biblical precepts. Would you say tonight, "Lord, I will follow my pastors, and I will seek to honor You and Your church." Lord, we want to be about the purification of Your church. We want to cooperate with You on that. Lord, we want to get in on the spirit-rought unification of Your church. We want to cooperate with You on that. Lord, we accept the sanctification of the church. There's times when You separate out from us.

And Lord, we pray that for Your glory, that we'll have the admiration of the world, just like the church in Acts had. That people will look at us and see Your principles and Your truth, and see that Your Word works. And then, Lord, above and beyond all, Lord, we rededicate ourselves to function in our churches, and in this particular local church, that You might be made much of. That men would look at us and say, "God is worthy of honor and praise for what He's doing in that church." Oh God, let it be for Your name's sake. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.