Acts 2:1-4 Purpose of Pentecost

by
Pastor Mark Montgomery
Ambassador Baptist Church
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Acts 2. We'll read just the first 21 verses.

The Bible says;

And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven.

Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language.

And they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galilaeans?

And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?

Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judaea and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia,

Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes,

Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.

And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?

Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.

But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words:

For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day,

But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;

And it shall come to pass in the last days,

saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:

And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:

And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke;

The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come:

And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

In Acts chapter number one the commission is given to the church. Then the ascension takes place. .he last couple weeks, then we looked at Judas. We come to chapter number 2 then, this is been promised that this is going to come. We'll look at that a little bit this morning. The disciples or the church is being obedient in that they have gone back to where Christ told them to go and that's where we pick up Acts 2: 1.

We'll just read the first four verses to get us started;

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.

And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.

And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.

And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Of course Pentecost is one of the great days in church history. A lot of people think about Pentecost quite a bit. They look back to it. There are certainly groups out there that have even taken that name for their cause. They call themselves Pentecostals. So, we see this is a great event in the history of the church. I think it's misunderstood sometimes. Sometimes it's ignored. Don't you find it to be true a lot of times that when a group misuses a doctrine, or abuses a doctrine, those of us who are fundamentalists tend to shy away from that doctrine altogether. Have you ever seen that? There are groups out there that put an over emphasis on the Holy Spirit. They uplift the Holy Spirit to the exclusion of Jesus Christ and God the Father. And that's wrong. The Holy Spirit came to glorify God and to show people Jesus Christ. So, the Holy Spirit was the Silent Partner, if you will. He was not to glorify Himself. He was to glorify Christ ant the Father. But there are groups that over emphasized the Holy Spirit. So our tendency as Fundamentalist is to not talk about him at all. That's a mistake. There are groups that over emphasize healing. They have a false concept of what divine healing is and so we as Fundamentalists tend to ignore James chapter 5, that talks about healing. And we have a tendency to do that so a lot of people take the story of Pentecost, the event here and either go overboard with them and read things into them that aren't there or apply things to today that should not be applied. Or a lot of people just tend to ignore it. And they say "We'll we are not Pentecostals therefore Pentecost doesn't have a whole lot of relevancy to us. There's not much teaching there for us. We'll there is a lot of teaching there for us. And so what I want us to do is spend some time looking at it.

We're going to look at the purpose of Pentecost. What was it all for? Then we're going to look at the particulars of Pentecost. There's some things that happened at Pentecost that are not being repeated and are not suppose to be repeated. There are some things that are particular to Pentecost and so we'll look at that. Then we'll look at the preaching of Pentecost and then last we'll look at the product. What did the day of Pentecost produce in the disciple, in the church, and in those that were listening to the gospel of message that day. Those are the things we'll be looking at, again, we certainly won't get through all of it today but we'll give you a little context of where we're trying to head with this.

First of all I want you to see the purpose of Pentecost. Now Pentecost was not something that was just dreamed up in Acts chapter number 2. That all of a sudden we had this great event and people are speaking in tongues. We have cloven tongues of fire. We don't have any thing to call it. So let's call it Pentecost. Pentecost was a Jewish Feast that they'd been celebrating since the Exodus. It was Penta, that's the abbreviation there is for 50. So it's a feast that was held 50 days after Passover. So it was a Jewish feast that took place every year. That's why when you come down to verse number 5, you read, "There was dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven." They were there for the feast. That's what you were suppose to do. And I'm not going to go into detail on the feast of Pentecost, but the Jews were to come in for this feast and that's why they are all there. So God uses this feast day and again many will say that the feast of Pentecost, in the Old Testament, pictured the Holy Spirit and so the Holy Spirit is given in a permanent dwelling way on Pentecost. So the Jews are there anyway. That's why they're there. This is the day God chooses to do this work in his church. So what is the purpose behind it? I think a lot of people are confused. A lot of people will say that this is the beginning of the church. I don't believe it is the beginning of the church. I believe the church is already in existence at this point in time and we'll show you that in a moment. Some people say that this is a pattern for us to follow and that we should be doing the exact same thing as they are doing. We did a extended study last year on I Corinthians 12, 13 and 14. Many of you of course, were not here in the evening service and did not get those materials so we'll touch on some of those things. I don't think Pentecost is an event that's supposed to be repeated. I don't think we should be looking for a Pentecostal experience. I don't think that we should be looking this morning for a rushing mighty wind and cloven tongues of fire and people to be speaking in tongues. I don't think we're suppose to be looking for that today. But there are people that go that way. So what is the purpose of Pentecost. Go back with me if you would please to Matthew chapter number 18. I just want to show you a couple of things here. Maybe a little more academic perhaps than we normally would be on a Sunday morning but I think we need to set the table here and see where we are at. Matthew chapter number 18, I'm just going to bring you here for one specific word that is used. This is the passage on discipline. If you want to find out how to run church discipline you go to Matthew chapter number 18. If a brother is in sin, that you go to him, if you restore him, praise the Lord. If it doesn't work than you take two or three with you and you go to see him. And if that doesn't work then you bring it to the church. If he won't listen to the church, he's a heathen man, a publican. I just want to show you one thing here. Matthew 18:17, the Bible says, "and if he shall neglect to hear them tell it unto the church, but if he neglect to hear the church let him be unto thee as a heathen man, and a publican." Now there's one reason I bring you here and that's because in Matt. 18 which predates Pentecost, Christ talks about a church. Matt. 16:18 Christ said, "I will build my church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it." You might look at that and say that's a future tense thing, that Christ is not building His church until after Pentecost. But when you come here He says to his people, to his disciples, He says if there's a problem you need to deal with it in the church.

Now does the Scripture record for us that the people said, "What's he talking about?" Were they just blown away by this thing. This assembly he talks about, this ekklesia. Certainly not, they knew exactly what he was talking about. Did they think he was saying "We need to take it to city council," which was the secular term for ekklesia, for the town meeting. Is that what they thought he meant? Certainly not. They knew what he was talking about, because the church is already established. We don't have the church beginning in Acts 2. It's already established. We could take you to another, Hebrew 2:12. You don't need to take time to turn there, but you might want to jot it down. There we have an Old Testament quotation in the New Testament. Talking about Jesus Christ singing in the church and that's a paraphrase there but that's the idea. Jesus Christ was singing praises in the church. Now, let me ask you this, where is the only place in Scripture that we have any record of Christ singing? The Last Supper. What happens at the Last Supper? After it's all done the Bible says, "And when they had sung a hymn, they all went out to the Mount of Olives." The only place we have recorded of Christ singing is at the Last Supper. The Bible says that Christ, in Hebrews 12, says that Christ sang where? In the church. In the assembly, the ekklesia. So we see here, and again I'm not trying to beat a dead horse, but I want to make sure you understand that the purpose of Pentecost was not to begin the church. That wasn't it's purpose. Because the church is already in existence. I just may list the things, and there are Scripture references I'm not going to give to you, but some things about the church prior to Pentecost. The church had the gospel, they were converted, they were baptized after conversion, they had Christ as their head, they were instructed in church truths, they were called to obey Christ, they were ordained and commissioned, they had mission programs, teaching programs, church program, church discipline, divine authority, democracy and equality, they had a shepherd, they had the Lord's Supper, they had the Holy Spirit, they had prayer meetings, business meetings, membership, and a corner stone. That sounds like a church to me. And all those things are found in the gospels in Act 1. All of those things are already in place before Pentecost ever comes on the scene. So again, I give you all that to say this. That this is not the beginning of the church, therefore that's not the purpose for Pentecost.

Now look back to Acts 2.

Look at verse number 1. I want you to see what it says there.

"When the day of Pentecost was fully come."

This is it's feast day, it's finally arrived.

"They were all with one accord in one place."

Now who is this all? Is this the eleven disciples? No. Is it the 12 disciples? No. It's at least 120 we have in verse number 15 of chapter number 1. So we have a group that is bigger than the disciples. We have the church together in one accord and in one place. They are all in the same place. They're not scattered around. By the way, just a little thing there. When the church gets together we should all be in the same place. That means that if the place is here then this is where we ought to be. We shouldn't be at home. We shouldn't be somewhere else. When the church gets together, they ought to get together. What we have here is on the day of Pentecost when God is going to do a great work, the church was together. And may I say this, I am going to say that if there were members of the church that were not there on the day of Pentecost they missed the blessing. Am I right? I see no indication that somebody was sitting at home watching television. Did they have TV back then? I have no indication that somebody was sitting home that day because they didn't feel like coming and they got the blessing that was received by the 120. No indication of that at all. You stay home, you miss the blessing. So the Bible says they were all "in the same place." They're all in one place and look at that top phrase it says they were all with "one accord." Now, we looked at that a little bit briefly back in Acts 1:14. They were in one accord and now they are still in one accord.

By the way isn't that interesting. Have you ever seen a group of people stay together for 10 days and still all get along? That's kind of incredible isn't it. They're in one accord at the ascension and they're still in one accord on the day of Pentecost 10 days later. That's pretty amazing. It's amazing when your doing what God wants you to do, how you can have a unity in the body. They were united. They knew something was going to happen. They knew that something was coming. Something called in chapter 1 verse 5 a baptism with the Holy Ghost. It was coming not many days hence and they didn't know how many for sure. They didn't know if it was coming in 10 days or 10 years. What does the Bible say, "a thousand years is like a single day."

Not many days hence. Well, how long is that? Do you suppose maybe there were some of them that were discourage after the first week. Hasn't shown up yet. Did you suppose maybe there were some that left because it hadn't shown up yet. That's certainly a possibility. The Bible doesn't say that but that would be human nature. But the Bible says here that this group had stayed together. They were in the same place. They were where they ought to be. They were where they had been told to be. They were organized together. They were meeting together. They're spending certainly some time in prayer and some other things. That's in chapter 1 verse 14, they continued in prayer and supplication. So they're praying. They are meeting. They've conducted some business. They are doing some things the church does, but they are in one place and they are in one accord. There is a unity there. The word one accord, the literal meaning means to rush along in unison. One accord, to rush along in unison. A lot of times when were rushing along we are not very unified are we? You start rushing along and the next thing you know you're leaving people behind. You ever gone running somewhere with your kids. You're trying to catch an airplane, or catch a bus. You got to get somewhere and so you start kind of running along. And pretty soon one of the kids is, you know, fifty yards behind. Ever have that happen? You know. You loose somebody. You start rushing along and you loose people. The Bible says here, the literal word is that, they were rushing along in unison. One commentator put it this way. He says, "It's a musical term. It's different notes that harmonized together." I was going to do something today but I'm not going to do it. We could do something. I was going to have you all sing. You don't want to do that this morning, do you? So we'll pass on that. What I was going to have you do is see that there's a note here and there's a note here, and there's a note here. Maybe we could just illustrate on the piano. We have a note here. Alright, that's a C. That sounds like that. This is a G. That sounds completely different. Doesn't it? Those are not the same note. Those are different notes. They have different abilities, they have different properties. They have different talents. They have different gifts. They have different personalities as we relate them to people. Here's a third note. There in the middle. Okay. That's different all together. That's another personality. That's another type of gift. It's completely different from this one and this one and it's also different from that one. All different. Is our church made up of different people? Certainly it is. Different types of gifts. Different types of abilities. Different types of personalities. Different types of background. Certainly. We are all made up that way. We've got some like this and some like this, and some like that, and some like that. But when you put them all together, it works. That's what a church is suppose to be. That's what this word means. That you've got C notes over here and E's and G's and C's over there. And high C's and low C's and you've got a variety of different talents. But when you put it all together, it sounds right. That's what a local church is suppose to be. A local church is not necessarily mean that it's people, that all grew up in the same neighborhood. That's not what unity is. Unity does not mean that you all work for the same company and you're all in the same socio-economic class and all have the same education. It doesn't mean that at all. It doesn't mean that you all have the same gift. If you all had the same gift you wouldn't get much accomplished, because there would be a lot of things that didn't get done. It means a variety of different people with a variety of different gifts that are interested in serving God and are united together with their differences in serving the Lord. That's what they had here in this first century church. Before Pentecost ever came. They were united. Different people, different thoughts, different gifts, but they were working together to serve the Lord. And that's how a church ought to be. That's how our church ought to be.

So they are already functioning as a church, but what was the thing that was missing This is what I want you to notice. What was missing? They didn't have any power. They didn't have any power. When Jesus Christ was here on earth with them, they were functioning in his power weren't they. Oh, the Holy Spirit was coming upon them different times to do things but they did not have a permanent indwelling ministry. In fact that's the sign of the comfort that Christ gives them when He says He's going to die and He's going to ascend and He says, " If I don't go back to the Father then the comforter won't come. If I don't go back to the Father then the Holy Spirit won't come. The comforter won't come to indwell you and to lead you into all truth and all those different things." They didn't have power. Were they saved? Yes. Did they love God? Yes. Were they unified? Yes. Did they pray? Yes. Were they functioning as a church? Yes. Did they have power? No. They were powerless to serve. They weren't accomplishing anything and so that then becomes the purpose of Pentecost.

Look back in chapter 1 verse 8. The Bible says;

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.

Now in verse number 5 he says;

you are "going to be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence"

Remember we looked at this. They say, "Hey, is it kingdom time. Are we going to get the kingdom? Is it time to be leaders in the kingdom?" He says that's not what's important. He gets back to this idea of being baptized with the Holy Ghost. He says you are going to receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, because it's the one thing you don't have. Did they know the Scriptures? Yes. They'd walked with the King for 3 1/2 years. They knew the Bible. They were Jews. They'd been taught the Bible from their childhood. Certainly they didn't understand everything, but they had certainly been taught a lot of things. They knew methodologies. They knew all sorts of different things. But what they didn't have was any power and He says, "I will give you power when the Holy Ghost comes upon you," and what were they going to do with it?

Verse number 8.

"And ye shall be witnesses unto me"

And He list them out:Jerusalem, Judaea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. What is the purpose of God empowering of the church? To be a witness. See that's what this whole missions seminar is about. That we would see that the reason that God sent His Holy Spirit; and yes It's to be a comforter, and yes it's to do all that; but He is to empower the church for service in this community, in Marysville, in Goodells, in Sarnia, and in the uttermost parts of the world. That's what it is all about. That's why Pentecost came. If God intended for us to never lead a soul to Christ then He wouldn't need to send the Holy Spirit. Would He? If He intended for us to just sit on our duffs and go to church he would never have needed to send the Holy Spirit. They were already going to church, weren't they. If he were just intending for us to pray He wouldn't have needed to send the Holy Spirit. Now, yes the Holy Spirit does aid in those things, don't get me wrong. But understand, they were already doing that. They were praying without the power of the Holy Spirit. The were meeting without the power of the Holy Spirit. They were conducting business without the power of the Holy Spirit. They were doing all sorts of things without the power of the Holy Spirit. The were making good decisions. They had called Matthias. They did that without the power of the Holy Spirit. But there was one thing they were not doing and that was evangelizing. And Christ said you need power to do that and that power will come with the Holy Spirit.

Let's go back to chapter number 2. Just let me show you. What happens when the power comes on them? We see in Acts 1 what was suppose to happen. Acts 2 what happens?

Verse number 8;

"And how hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born?"

Back up to verse number 6;

"And when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language."

What are they speaking? Verse number 11;

"Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God."

See what happened. We've got people here whom are being obedient but they're not out there. Praying, they're conducting business, they're doing church, but when they get baptized with the Holy Spirit, when the Spirit empowers the church for service they go out and they start proclaiming the wonderful works of God. That's what happens. See that is what a church is suppose to be doing. Again the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we've looked at this several weeks ago. This is not something we should be looking for again. It was a one time event. Never to be repeated. There's no special Spirit baptism going on here today. What we have is the local church being empowered for service and what they did is they went out and started to witness.

Look at Acts chapter number 4, if you would please, verse number 8.

"Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel,"

And he begins to preach verse number 12;

"neither is there salvation in any other; for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."

What did Peter do when he got filled with the Holy Spirit? He went out and he preached .

Look at Acts 4:31.

"And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the work of God with boldness."

What happened to the first century church when they got filled with the Spirit. The went out and told others about Christ.

Chapter 9:17

"And Ananias went his way and entered into the house; and putting his hands on him said, "Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive they sight and be filled with the Holy Ghost,

And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales: and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized.

And when he had received meat, he was strengthened. Then was Saul certain days with the disciples which were at Damascus."

Look at verse 20.

"And straightway he preached Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God."

Look at verse 21.

"But all that heard him were amazed,"

What happened when Paul got a dose of the Holy Spirit? Well, witnessing. To a point that all his cronies say, "This is crazy. Isn't this the guy that just a couple of weeks ago was killing the Christians and hauling them off to jail. Isn't this the same guy? This is amazing!" See this is how the church is suppose to function. This is what God expects His church to be doing, because we do have the Holy Spirit. I have the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit from the point of salvation. This Holy Spirit took up residency in me. The local church has been empowered for service. It took place on the day of Pentecost and the whole reason for it is so that we would go out and turn this community around for Jesus Christ. That's the whole purpose. The whole purpose is so we can send Gordon Wyant or Terry Craven or Ken March or Dick Marsh or whoever you want to mention. Terry Buterbaugh or Pat Delaney or Rick Simonsen or Ivan Peterson or whoever you want to name off to the mission field. That's the whole purpose. That's why the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost. To empower, that church and this church because this church ultimately comes from that church. That's the first church of Jerusalem and the other churches come off of that so by proxy it comes down to me, down through the line. That God empowered Court St. Baptist Church to go out and win the lost to Jesus Christ.

Now, here's my question. How are we doing? That's the whole purpose for it. Yes, we see fulfillment of prophecy and we'll not take time to look there in chapter number 2 verse number 16, Peter says "this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel," and the prophecy there of the day of Pentecost and we'll look at that a little more in depth as we get down the line. But here's the question. How is this local church, Court St. Baptist Church; we're not worried about First Baptist of Jerusalem anymore. We're worried about Court St. Baptist Church. How are we doing with the power of the Holy Spirit that was given to us to evangelize the community? How are we doing with that?

Now as individuals, are we taking advantage of the comfort of the Holy Spirit? I certainly hope so. As individuals are we taking advantage of the teaching of the Holy Spirit? I certainly hope so. As individuals are we taking benefit from the convicting power of the Holy Spirit? Certainly hope so. His leadership? Hope so. His help in prayer? I hope so. I hope we are doing all those things. But collectively, the Holy Sprit didn't come so we could have church. We could have church without Him. They proved that in Acts chapter number 1. He didn't come so we could pray. We could pray without Him. They proved that in Acts chapter number 1. He didn't come so we could have a business meeting. They were doing that in Acts 1. He didn't come so that they could make decisions. They were already doing that in Acts 1. He didn't come so that they could know the Bible. They already knew the Bible in Acts 1. He came to empower the church to get out there and make a difference in the lives of the unsaved, lost. And I submit to you that we're not always doing the job. There are some of us here who have received that power, that are not doing anything. We're not attempting to evangelize. We don't care about missions. We don't care about our neighbors. We don't care about our relatives. We don't care about anybody. That's what the Holy Spirit came for. Yet we don't care. We have a visitation program, that rarely does anybody show up for. We have different things. We have revival meetings that half the church doesn't show up for and certainly doesn't invite anybody to come to. That was the whole purpose for the Holy Spirit, wasn't it? To evangelize the community. We have a missions conference in 3 or 4 months, and half the church won't come Monday night and Tuesday night cause they're off nights and they won't come. That's the whole purpose for the Holy Spirit coming. That's the whole purpose. So that this church, it's membership could go out and make a difference.

Now let me say one more thing and I'll be done. Let me look at the other side of that. The purpose for the Holy Spirit coming was to empower the church for service and so we better be using his power and going out and serving him. But on the other side of the coin, if you're not a member of a local church than that power doesn't belong to you. Okay? Get it. Because the church was empowered for service. Now do you still have the comforter? Absolutely. Do you have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit? Yes, you do. You have all those different things. The Holy Spirit has a personal relationship with you, but the Holy Spirit empowered the church for service and if you're not plugged into the church than you have missed the power source. I'm not saying there's something magical and mystical going on. I'm not saying that at all. And you can certainly serve God apart from the church. But I believe this, if you would do a study; and I will challenge you to do it in your spare time; if you would do a study of the Word of God, the New Testament, you will find that God works exclusively through the local church in the New Testament. Now you can come, visit, do things like that and praise the Lord for it. But you'll never serve God to the capability that you could until you plug into the local church. You can love God. You can be sold out to God. But you'll never serve him like you could because the Holy Spirit didn't come to Pentecost to empower the individual for service. He came on the day of Pentecost to empower the church for service. That's what God uses.

This morning we baptized Fred and Karen. We praise the Lord for it. We hope that they'll develop and they'll grow and they'll raise their children for the Lord and things like that and we want to help them all we can. But you know what? This morning they plugged into the power source. Okay? Did they get saved this morning? Nope. They were saved a long time ago. But this morning they associated themselves and became part of the body. The local church. They became a part of that body so they can function as a body. Let me ask you this? If I were to cut my arm off and lay it over there, (it's still an arm or will be until it decomposes) it's not accomplishing a whole lot, is it? My arm laying over there. I have some fellows in the church here that have lost parts of their fingers. Vern lost part of his finger. Stan lost part of his finger. I assume you didn't save it, but let me say this. When you lost your finger it wasn't doing a whole lot of good laying there was it. It was a good looking finger that wasn't doing a whole lot. Was it? Why? Because it wasn't attached to the body. You can have all sorts of spiritual gifts. You can have all sorts of talent and you're a Christian and you may love God but if you're not attached to the body you're not accomplishing what you could accomplish. And God expects us to be part of the body.

So, two things for us this morning. First of all we are seeing the purpose of Pentecost. It was to empower the body of the local church for service.

Part number one: Are we as a church fulfilling that which God sent his Holy Spirit for? Collectively. And what we are is, we're individuals. So I guess I can't say, "Well the church is but I'm not," nor can I say, " the church isn't and I'm not." You know what we've got to say is, "Is the church doing it and is the church fulfilling it's responsibilities because I, as part of the body, am doing my part? To evangelize. To disciple. To send missionaries. To go. I'm doing my part to evangelize this world."

Part number two: The church was empowered for service. Are you part of the body. Maybe you're visiting, maybe you're part of a body somewhere else. But what I'm saying is, are you part of a local church? So that you can be used to your most effectiveness. To take those gifts and talents that God has given you and serve him?