Most of us have at least a few good ideas about how to grow.

What about the body of Christ, the church?

How can we ensure that that body is thriving and making a difference in the world?

That's our focus today on truth for life as we examine the four marks of a healthy church.

Alistair Begg is teaching from the closing verses of Acts chapter 2.

Father, we come now to these precious moments when in the mystery of your purposes we hear your voice,

although it is only the voice of a mere man that speaks, because you have pledged that when your word is truly preached that your voice will be really heard.

This turns our focus away from the vehicle and it turns our attention directly to the Bible.

And so we pray that we may lose sight of all and everyone besides the Lord Jesus Himself as He has made known to us in the printed page.

For we ask it in Christ's name, Amen.

At the conclusion of the book in search of excellence, which of course is an old business book now,

it's kind of like one of the grandfather's of these business books, the rash of which there has been ever since.

The authors in identifying the distinctive that were represented in the various companies that they considered,

concluded by pointing out a number of factors which each of the companies or organizations shared.

There were a number of them and one which has always stood out to me and which I've never forgotten was this.

That although these various companies were different from one another in that some manufactured and others were sales and various products, etc.

Each of them shared this one characteristic, namely that they did the basics well most of the time.

Now I mentioned that because in our consideration of the church, as we're thinking about the nature of the church, what is it, who's in it, how does it function, etc.

When we consider the church as it unfolds in the pages of the acts of the apostles and then as we read the various letters written to these various geographical congregations,

we have to conclude that under God the impact that was being made by these churches was at least in some measure directly tied to this truth.

That these churches were doing the basics well most of the time.

That they weren't like many contemporary churches who think they're doing fine because they don't know what they're doing.

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