Real Christianity: The Model of the First Church - Pt 1

0:32 In 33 AD, when Jesus died on the cross, rose again, and then went back to heaven, there were only a handful of disciples, a handful of believers, about 120 believers, when Jesus went back to heaven. But within 300 years, those 120 believers had dominated the Roman Empire. Even Caesar became a Christian. It became the official religion of the entire known world. How did that happen? How did the church grow from just a few people to the dominant faith in the Roman Empire and now 2.3 billion people, one out of every three people around the world, is a follower of Jesus Christ? Why did the church grow so fast? That's fascinated me. Now, one of the interesting things is in that first 300 years, it was illegal to be a Christian.

1:27 They were under intense persecution. In fact, being a Christian was not a way to get ahead. It was a way to lose your head. More often than not, if you were discovered to be a Christian, you're going to be fed to the lions in the Colosseum. You're going to be tarred and feathered and burned on the cross, as Nero did for literally hundreds of thousands of people. They were persecuted ruthlessly for 300 years. It was not a socially acceptable thing to become a Christian and yet within 300 years, they dominated the world. Now, the book of Acts in the Bible is the story of the first church. It started on the day of Pentecost. That's in Acts chapter two. Today is the day of Pentecost. This is the birthday of the church 2,000 or so years ago. And as you look through the book of Acts, you discover eight characteristics of real Christianity.

2:25 You know, you guys, there are a lot of people today who are claiming to be Christians. A lot of things done in the name of Jesus Christ that God would say, what? You gotta be kidding. I have nothing to do with that. In fact, Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount that in the last day at the judgment, there will be people who come to him and say, hey, Lord, didn't we do many miracles in your name? And he's gonna go, I didn't even know you. Who are you talking about? You're not part of my family. There are a lot of things done in the name of Christianity in the church that Jesus Christ would disavow. There's fake Christianity. There's phony Christianity. There's pseudo-Christianity. What I want us to do this weekend is I want us to look at the real deal. What does it mean to really be a follower of Jesus Christ? You know, when you were born, you had all the DNA you were ever going to get. In fact, the moment that egg was fertilized in your mother, you had all the DNA.

3:23 You don't have any more today than you did the moment you were conceived. And when the birth of the church happened on Pentecost a couple thousand years ago, all of the DNA in the body of Christ was already there. And as I've studied it, I've discovered how different we are as Christians in the 21st century from Christians in the first century. So I want us to go back and look at what does it really mean? to be a real believer, real Christianity. And here are the eight things. You might write these down. They're all out of the book of Acts chapter two. Number one, real Christianity has supernatural power. Real Christianity has supernatural power. They don't just talk about God, they experience God. This is what makes the church different from every organization. We have the Holy Spirit. Microsoft does not have the Holy Spirit.

4:18 The United States government does not have the Holy Spirit. The Red Cross does not have the Holy Spirit. No other organization has the power of God in it. God has not promised his spirit to help anybody or anything else except his church. Now the background of the birth of the church is in Acts chapter one, and here on the screen it says this. For 40 days after his crucifixion, Jesus met with his followers many times. In other words, after he rose from the dead, he hung around for another 40 days. And he proved in many ways that he was truly alive. One time he met with 500 people. He talked to them about the kingdom of God. One time while eating a meal with them, Jesus told them, do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the spirit he's promised. He said, I've got some stuff for you to do and I'm going back to heaven, but don't dare try to do it until you've got the power and it's gonna come in my spirit.

5:19 He says, I'm with you now, but I'm gonna go back to heaven and I'm gonna come back in the spirit form and I'm gonna be in you, not just with you. Now down in verse eight of the same chapter, it says this here on the screen. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. And then you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Now we've talked about this before. Jerusalem was the city they were in. So he says, start in your own city. Then he says, you go to Judea, that's like Orange County. And then he says, go to Samaria, that's like LA County, the county next door with all kinds of different people. And then he says, go to the whole world. He says, you expand in increasing circles. And he says, the Holy Spirit's gonna give you what the power that you need to do what I want you to do. So for the next 10 days, Jesus goes back to heaven after 40 days. And for the next 10 days, all the people do is wait.

6:14 And they meet and they wait and they pray. And they wait and they pray. And they wait and they pray for God's spirit to give them the power they need for the life that he wants them to live. Now here's the connection. There is a direct connection in your life with power and prayer. The amount of spiritual power you have in your life is in direct proportion to the amount of time you spend in prayer. Much prayer, much power. Little prayer, little power. No prayer, no power. If you don't ever pray, I guarantee you, you're not seeing any miracles in your life. You're not seeing any supernatural power in your life. You don't have the energy to get everything done. God wants you to get done. Prayer is the connection point. It is the point that you get the power. Yesterday morning, I went down to the kitchen to make a protein shake, and we got a brand new blender, and it had like 30 buttons on it.

7:10 And I'm going, I'm pushing these buttons and trying, and I just can't get the thing to go, and I'm going, man, all I need is a blender that has an off and on switch. I don't need 32 buttons on a blender. Just give me off and on. I'm pushing all these buttons, and no matter what it was, this thing does not work. And then I realized it wasn't plugged in.

7:30 That is an analogy of life. You may be a Christian. You may be on your way to heaven. You may be pushing all kinds of buttons, but if you're not plugged into Holy Spirit power, you don't have any energy. And no matter how many Bible studies you go to, and how many churches you attend, and how many small groups you're a part of, and how much you're involved in ministry, if you're not plugged in, you don't have any power in your life. Jesus said, wait for supernatural spiritual power. And where does it come? It comes by praying. They prayed for 10 days. Now what do you pray about? You can pray about anything. In fact, here's the alternative. You can worry or you can pray. If you prayed as much as you worry, you'd have a lot less to worry about. Don't worry, worship. Don't panic about that job, pray. Don't tremble, trust.

8:24 Pray more, worry less. And you can pray about anything, I mean anything. Do you, let me ask you this question. Do you think you can pray for God to give you a parking spot? Yes, the answer is absolutely yes. You know, I was late coming to the first service this morning I said, Lord, I need a green light every way. And I actually got a green light every way. I think God just said, well, you're going to be preaching on it. I may well give you a good illustration. It doesn't happen all the time. But I'm saying you can pray about any little detail of your life. If it's worth worrying about, it's worth praying about. You know, I was actually reading a book on prayer this week where a theologian says, if you hear a fire truck coming down the road and you pray, oh Lord, please don't let it be my house on fire. He said, that's a self-centered prayer. And he said, because you're actually praying it'll be somebody else's house that burns down. And he said, what you pray is instead you should pray, Lord, let it be my house, but nobody get hurt. Now friends, there's a word for that kind of theology. It's when you cross a Crocodile and an abalone.

9:34 It's a crocobaloney. Okay, that is not what God says. The Bible says we're to come to God as little children. Little children aren't diplomatic. They just say, I want this. And they're just very, they're very bold. I want this, daddy, I want it, daddy, I need it. And they're not embarrassed by their request. They just blurt out what's ever on their heart. When my kids were little, they thought I knew everything, could do everything, and could afford everything. When they grew up, they realized none of those are true. But your heavenly father can do everything, does know everything, and can afford everything, and you can talk to him about anything. The more you pray in your life, the more spiritual power you're gonna have. And where do you get that? You gotta have the blender plugged in. You gotta have the Holy Spirit living through you. Now, the arrival of God's spirit, when Jesus goes back to heaven and he says, I'm coming back as the Holy Spirit to live inside you.

10:34 The arrival of God's Spirit on the day of Pentecost is accompanied by three miraculous signs. And I want you to look at this. Verse one of chapter two, Acts. When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. This is the 120 people. Suddenly, a noise like a strong blowing wind. Doesn't say it was a strong blowing wind. It says it was a noise that sounded like a hurricane. came from heaven and filled the whole house. So there's this big noise going on in their house. Nobody knows where it's coming from, where they were sitting. And it says then number two, they saw something like flames of fire. It doesn't say it was fire. It says they saw something like flames of fire that were separated and stood over each person. Now there's 120 people in the room. So that means there's 120 of these little flames, like things, hanging over each individual head.

11:28 That's gonna be weird. So what's going on here? Over each person there. And then it says, number three, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they began to speak with different languages by the power that the Holy Spirit was giving them. Now notice, here are the three signs on the first day of the church. Noise, it sounds like a hurricane inside the building. A bright flame that looks like fire over each individual person. And everybody speaks in a foreign language, like Germans, they speak in German or French or whatever. What is happening here? Jesus is saying this. My church that I'm starting today, I will build my church. My church will be powerful, radical, and multicultural. Powerful, radical, and multicultural. Powerful. You hear this enormous sound. Radical, like little flames over each other. I'm going to set you guys on fire. You are going to be on fire for me. It's going to be radical. And then everybody's going to speak in a different language. It's going to be multicultural. What does he say? The church is like no other organization on earth and nothing you've ever seen before. The Bible says in Acts 2 43, everyone was filled with awe. I guess so.

12:43 And many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. You know the problem today? That power is missing in most churches. A lot of churches talk about God, but don't ever see any lives change. Don't see any miracles. Don't see any financial miracles, health miracles, physical miracles, emotional miracles, relationships brought back together, people reconciling. They have talk, but they don't have power. That's why the Bible says in 1 Corinthians here on the screen, 420, the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but of what? Power. It is something that changes you. It gives you the power to be the person you want to be. It is the empowered life. So we're going to spend more emphasis on prayer because I want to see more power in you over your habits, your hurts, your hangups, power to let go of the past, power to move into the future, power to see changes in your relationships and in your dreams. That is what God says he wants to do. He wants to work in our life with power. Number two, the second mark of real Christianity It has supernatural power.

13:52 Number two, it uses everybody's language. It uses everybody's language. And we see that in the next verse, Acts 2, verse 4. It says they all began to speak different languages. So the Spirit gave each of them the power to express themselves. Now you need to understand, this is not talking about speaking in tongues here. speaking in tongues is a spiritual gift talked about in first corinthians 12 to 14 that is a private prayer language that says it's for your own edification it's for you to talk to god when you're just going god i don't even know what to say i can't even think of what to say i don't even know what to say and i'm hurting so much inside and i just i'm i'm just whatever you say god you know you're just that's that's a special gift that god gives to some people that's not what he's talking about here.

14:43 These are real languages. People actually heard, speaking in French, speaking in Farsi, speaking in Swahili, speaking in German, speaking in Korean, whatever it was, notice the next verse. This was not for growth, this was for their mission. Verse five, there were religious Jews staying in Jerusalem at this time, who had come, notice, from every country in the world. Isn't that convenient? God had brought them all back together at the day of Pentecost, on the day he's gonna start the church. And when they heard this noise, a large crowd gathered and they were all excited because all of them heard the believers talking in their own languages. They said, look, I'm from Ethiopia and you're speaking Ethiopian. Why is that? All of them heard the believers speaking in their own languages and in amazement and wonder, they exclaimed, these people who are talking like this are just Galileans.

15:39 In other words, they're Jews, they're Hebrews. They only know Hebrew. How in the world do they know Ethiopian? How do they know that? And they said, how is it then that all of us hear them speaking in our own native languages? Down in verse 11, all of us hear them speaking in our own languages about the great things God has done. What's going on here? This is the miracle of multi-channel and multi-cultural communication. And God is saying, on the first day of the church, I'm gonna do a miracle that shows the good news is for everybody. It's not just for Jews. It's not just for red or yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight. It's for amazing grace for every race. So I'm gonna give these guys a special gift on the first day of the church, and we're gonna expand by saying, everybody hears the good news in their own language. Now what is God doing here?

16:32 He's doing the exact opposite of what He did in Genesis 11. He reverses Genesis 11. If you go back to the Old Testament, thousands of years earlier, there was a time when people said, we don't want God to be God anymore. We wanna be our own God. We're gonna run our own lives. We're gonna do our own things. We're going, we don't need God, so we're gonna build a giant tower to ourselves. And it's gonna go all the way up to the heaven, and we're gonna call it the Tower of Babel. You've heard of this. The word babbling comes from this word. Like a baby babble, blah, blah, blah, blah. That comes from mixing up the language. And the Tower of Babel is built and God said, you know, as long as they can all speak the same language, well, that's not a good thing because nothing they do will be impossible for them. And so let's just go down and confuse their language. So God goes down and he changes Babel.

17:27 We get, by the way, Babylon from this. They change their names and he changes the languages and all of a sudden he confuses all languages. And so some of the people speak certain languages, they head off for Europe. And another group, they can't understand each other anymore. And others moved away to Africa. And others moved away to Asia. And it all spread out. And the languages spread out. Now, what God is doing thousands of years later is the exact opposite when he starts church. He said, and now, instead of confusing languages, I'm going to clarify it. Because I want everybody to know how much I love them. I'm reversing it. Now, we don't need this miracle today. because today the church speaks every language. We're in every country. The church is a global organization, a global family. In fact, it's more global than anything else. The church was global 200 years before anybody started thinking about globalization.

18:22 It's in more nations than the United Nations. It speaks far more languages than the United Nations. I could take you to 10 million villages. The only thing in it around the world is a church, no school, no business, nothing else, but they got a church. You take all the Walmarts and all the Starbucks and every other franchise together, they're a pitiful percentage, less than a percent of what the size of the church is. One out of every three people. We already speak every languages. Shoot, right here in Saddleback, at Saddleback Church, we speak 63 languages in this family. So we have Pentecost every week. Hey, thanks so much for being with us today and listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. I hope that you were just as blessed as I was from today's broadcast. Right now, here's Pastor Rick with a special message.

19:15 You know, when I started Saddleback Church over 40 years ago with just a handful of people in our living room, I also began writing a simple devotional just for the people in our church to help them start each day with hope and with truth and with peace that comes from Jesus Christ. Well, you know, that little devotional grew and grew and grew, and today, Daily Hope is one of the largest email devotions in the whole world. And each day, people all around the globe are reconnecting with God's promises and finding fresh strength in his word to face whatever comes their way. Now, here's the best part. It's absolutely free. Okay? We don't have any charge for this. Every day, you'll get a quick devotional read and a podcast that you can listen to on the go. Now, you know, in a world that's more distracted and uncertain than ever, I want to help you start your day centered on what never changes. And what never changes is a God's love, his unconditional love for you and his promises to you. You know, if you'll just spend just a few minutes a day in the morning with the Lord, it can bring so much more clarity, more purpose, more peace to everything that happens in your day. Particularly, psychologists have said that what you do with the first five minutes of your day pretty much sets the tone. So friend, you were never meant to go through life alone. I want to personally invite you to just sign up for the Daily Hope devotional. Do it today. I think it's going to bring fresh...