Our mission and vision at The Well is to be a gospel centered church family of gospel communities that grow missionally engaged disciples who glorify God. Three words. Gospel… Family… Mission. Those three words are the summarizing focus or values of our mission statement here as we plant The Well. And that mission and vision is rooted and inspired by what we see God doing in and through the life, the death and the resurrection of Jesus in the gospels on the one hand and then what we see the Holy Spirit doing in and through the early church in the book of Acts.
So our plan over the summer is to devote six weeks of preaching through a sermon series called The People of The Well. What we want to do with this series is anchor ourselves to two texts that have heavily influenced the ethos of who we are as a church family. So we’ll spend the first three weeks in Acts 2:42 – 47 as we examine the work of the Holy Spirit in and through the early church. And then we’ll take a break over the month of July for some guest preachers. And then we’ll resume our series in August with the final 3 weeks focusing on Jesus’ interaction with the woman at the well in John chapter four.
We began planting The Well in August of 2012 and during that time, Christy and I and our kids began gathering on a weekly basis in our home, local parks, coffee shops and pubs with four other adults and 3 other kids to study the Scriptures together, share life with one another and spend time in prayer. By God’s grace, those early meetings in our living room became the launching point for this church and our mission and our vision for planting The Well grew out of those early meetings over the next few years.
One of the most difficult pieces of our mission and vision for the people of The Well has been fleshing out what it means to grow missionally engaged disciples who glorify God. So this week we’re going to study Acts 2:42 – 47 focusing on verse 47 & we’re going to ask what it looks like when people grow into missionally engaged disciples who glorify God…
Take a look at Acts 2:42 – 47…
42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
What’s happening in this passage?
Over the last few weeks we’ve learned that the people of the early church, by God’s grace and through the power of the Holy Spirit, were a devoted, awestruck, united and generous family of gospel communities who gathered consistently, in large groups and small groups while praising God gladly.
They were devoted to the Word of God, to fellowship, to celebrating the Lord’s Supper, to sharing meals together and to prayer. Their hearts and minds were fixated on the awesomeness of God, and they fought for unity and practiced being generous. They gathered consistently with one another for the purpose of praising God gladly as they gave themselves away to the Lord and to each other in gospel centered fellowship. All of these characteristics were visible in the lives of the people of the early church family as they met daily and weekly in large and small group public gatherings. This is the kind of people the Holy Spirit develops within the church family.
This passage is part of Luke’s second book called Acts and all throughout the book of Acts Luke describes the acts of the Holy Spirit through the apostles and the early church. In this passage, Luke specifically describes the activity of the early church immediately following the day of Pentecost where Peter preached his first sermon and the Spirit of God was poured out miraculously and 3,000 new believers were added to the church. Can you imagine what that must have been like?
Can you imagine what it would have been like to experience a church of 120 people with 12 core leaders multiplying after one sermon into 3,000 brand new baby believers? How would you baptize these new believers? How would you disciple them? How would you provide leadership for them? How would you teach and train and equip and empower and discipline them? How would you organize this family of believers so that they could continue to grow into mature disciples of Jesus who make more missionally engaged disciple-making disciples?
The simple answer that floats up out of the overall theme of the book of Acts is that you and I would do this in the power of the Holy Spirit. But the question is, what does it look like when the Holy Spirit empowers a church family to grow missionally engaged disciples who glorify God? How will we know when we are living in the sweet spot of the Spirit’s power to make disciples? What does it look like to be missionally engaged disciples who glorify God?
Look again at verse 47. Luke says that the people of the early church were “praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” The early church was a Spirit empowered church family that grew missionally engaged disciples who glorified God. Their constant public praise of God and the peace that they experienced with people in the public sector was like fertilizer and water to the soil of their growing gospel community.
And God’s power for salvation was obvious throughout their community because he was actively saving people daily and adding them to the church family. The people of the early church praised God publicly, they lived at peace and in favor with other people and they experienced the radical power of the gospel for salvation. Let’s break this down a little…
#1. The people of the early church praised God publicly…
This was a defining characteristic of the people of the early church. They weren’t defined by the rules of a social club. They were defined by their public praise of God. Their badge of honor wasn’t the size of their buildings, or the number of their ministry programs, or the quality of their music teams, or the likeableness of their preachers or the subculture of people they came from. Their badge of honor was the way they praised God publicly. These people in the early church weren’t known for their political alignment or their fight against all-things unholy in the public square. They were known for their public praise of God. This is why we believe that the people of The Well will become a family of missionally engaged disciples who grow other disciples as we praise God publicly together.
#2. The people of the early church lived peacefully with other people…
This was another defining characteristic of the people of the early church. They weren’t defined by their combative stance against everything they disagreed with. They weren’t out picking theological fights with everyone on every social media street corner. They weren’t huddled up in their own personal little bunkers of tradition or seclusion. They weren’t rioting or demonstrating their disdain for their government in the city streets. These people of the early church actually lived in favorable and peaceful relationships with everyone in their community.
Now, these people did have enemies but they didn’t have enemies because they were an antagonistic group of religious right wing fanatics. They had enemies because they proclaimed their faith in Christ, they praised God publicly and they called people to repentance & faith personally. The people of the early church lived in peace with all people because of their radical commitment to living the gospel out in the context of personal holiness, public praise and community welfare. They weren’t afraid to call people to repentance but their public preaching was backed up by an obvious love for God and for other people. This is why we believe that the people of The Well will become a family of missionally engaged disciples who grow other disciples as we live peacefully with other people in our community.
#3. The people of the early church experienced God’s saving power…
This in my opinion is the crowning characteristic of God’s grace at work among the people of God who give themselves wholeheartedly to God and to others as missionally engaged disciples. God’s mission all throughout the scriptures is to bring glory and attention to himself by ransoming and redeeming and saving a people for his own possession. Every one of us who follows Christ is both a recipient of the benefits of God’s mission as well as a steward or co-laborer in God’s mission. This is the reason that passages like Matthew 28:18 – 20, Mark 16:15 – 18, Luke 19:9 – 10, 24:46 – 49 and Acts 1:8 (passages that explicitly command our continued engagement in God’s mission) are so vital to the health of a missionally engaged church.
The people of the early church experienced numerical growth on a scale that would be staggering for us today but it didn’t happen because these people were so good at strategic evangelism. These people were simply surrendered completely to the Spirit of God who was at work in their midst and the proof of that posture of surrender is evident in their devotion to the Word of God, their love for God, their commitment to prayer, their constant attitude of gladness and their lifestyles of worship and generosity and praise and their commitment to missional engagement in their community.
It is God who does the saving of lost people and when he saves lost people he saves them to become maturing members of the family of the local church where they can live their lives as authentic expressions of worship towards God in front of an unbelieving world so that other lost people can be called to repentance and salvation as the recipients of God’s mission through the power of the Spirit actively at work among his people. This is why we believe that the people of The Well will become a family of missionally engaged disciples who grow other disciples as we experience God’s saving power together.
How does this passage help us?
God is calling us to plant a gospel centered church family of gospel communities that grow missionally engaged disciples who glorify God. This is a massive undertaking. We need mature leaders who are growing in their faith. We need sustainable income to fund the cost of ministry. We want to see missionally engaged disciples making other disciples.
The only way all of this will happen is through the Spirit of the living God empowering us to be the people of God. So how can we position ourselves in a way that invites and allows the Holy Spirit to do his thing in and through us as the people of The Well? What barriers do we need to break through as we grow into missionally engaged disciples who grow other disciples? Here are a couple of things that I think would be helpful to us…
#1. Praise God publicly…
The things we do publicly are heavily influenced by what’s happening in our private lives. If we live private lives that are filled with conflict, selfishness, self-loathing, isolation or individualism then the reality is that our public lives will be saturated with self-praise. But on the other hand if our private lives are filled to the brim with awe towards God, love of God, focused attention on God, a commitment to the family of God, a consistent devotion to the Word of God and a deep love for our neighbors and our enemies then the reality is that our public lives will be saturated with praise towards God. We believe that the people of The Well will become a family of missionally engaged disciples who grow other disciples as we praise God publicly together.
#2. Live at peace with other people…
Once again… our internal health affects our external health. A person with a heart that lives at peace with God will seek to live at peace with other people. On the other hand… a person who lives in constant conflict with God will live in constant conflict with other people. A church that is full of people who are living in their newfound peace with God will live at peace with other people in as much as it depends upon them. (Romans 12:18)
The people of the early church were caught up in their newfound peace with God and therefore they were enabled to live at peace with others. They had experienced the power of the gospel, which had set them free from their years of conflict and war against God, and so they were now enabled by the power of the Holy Spirit to live at peace and in favor with other people. We believe that the people of The Well will become a family of missionally engaged disciples who grow other disciples as we live in peace with other people in our community.
#3. Experience the power of salvation…
We have a bad habit of boiling experiences down to one-time events. We say that the movie we saw last year was life-changing or that the concert we went to a few weeks ago was amazing. And then we take that event driven mentality of experience and we project it upon God when we say that that book was life changing or that sermon was amazing.
It’s not that the experience of reading a book or hearing a sermon is bad but when we forget that the power of the gospel for salvation is meant to be experienced daily in the context of a Spirit filled community of the gospel then we begin to believe that the next event is what we need rather than the abiding day-by-day transforming presence of the Spirit of the living God in our lives. We believe that the people of The Well will become a family of missionally engaged disciples who grow other disciples as we experience God’s saving power day-by-day.
Conclusion…
So, how will we continue to grow maturing missionally engaged disciples of Jesus Christ? The simple answer that floats up out of the overall theme of the book of Acts is that you and I can only do this in the power of the Holy Spirit. But what does that look like? What does it look like to grow missionally engaged disciples who glorify God? We believe that the people of The Well will become a Spirit empowered family that grows missionally engaged disciples who glorify God by praising God publicly, living at peace and in favor with other people as we experience the power of the gospel for salvation.
And that’s my prayer for the people of The Well. My prayer is that we would become a gospel centered church family of gospel communities that grow missionally engaged disciples who glorify God. I pray that we would catch this vision of what it looks like to lean into this mission and vision by becoming a devoted and awestruck and united and generous family of gospel communities who gather consistently in large groups and small groups while praising God gladly and publicly and living at peace with others and experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit for salvation.
So, what steps do you need to take to become part of this mission and vision? What barriers do you need to ask the Spirit of God to break through? Is it an issue of private and public praise for you? Is it an issue of living at peace with God and others for you? Or is it an issue of experiencing the power of salvation daily for you? My prayer is that you would hear this as a call or an invitation to join us in our mission and vision of becoming the people of The Well who are a gospel centered church family of gospel communities that grow missionally engaged disciples who glorify God.