“And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. ” (Acts 2:42-47 ESV)
It was not the best of times. It was the worst of times in the life of the disciples of Christ. I have in mind the months leading up to our morning’s text. Their Messiah had been crucified before their very eyes. Well, some of them actually were in hiding. So they didn’t see their Messiah crucified. And that great pillar, Simon Peter, had denied the very Son of God. And after the Lord’s death, it was only the faithful women who were tending the body of the Lord at the tomb. The followers of Jesus had become His greatest skeptics. But then came the third day. On the third day, lo and behold, Christ has risen from the dead as He foretold. Appearing to them, He said, “You are witnesses of these things. And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven.” (Luke 24:48-53 ESV)
And picking the story up in Acts, we read, “And when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”” (1:9-11 ESV) As if to say, “Be about the work and you shall not miss His return”. So they set about to the practical work to be done. “We have 120 or so people. Okay we need to pray. So they gathered together to pray. Okay, now they need to replace Judas. So they cast lots, Matthias is in. Okay, now what?” It seems almost apart from their plan, what happens next catches them off guard and they spend the rest of the book trying to catch up to what happens. So what happens? FIRE!! Fire from heaven!! “When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.” (Acts 2:1-3 ESV) The passerby’s take notice of this unusual occurrence. For the Bible says, “And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” (v.12).
And Peter stands up to tell them that it means God is faithful to His promises. He had promised to pour out His Spirit in the book of Joel and He had done it. God had promised to raise His Holy One, Jesus Christ, from the dead as David had said in Psalm 16, and God had done it. And God promised to have Jesus sit at His right hand while He makes His enemies become His footstool. And He shall do it! And Peter closes with these powerful words, “Let all the house…know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (2.36). This message rightly strikes the hearers in the heart and they ask a new question, “Brothers, what shall we do?” “And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”” (Acts 2:38-39 ESV) So the verse (v.41) right before the passage that we are to look at this morning says, “So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”
The Foundation of the Church
The Arena of the Church
The Religion of the Church
The Experience of the Church
The Foundation of the Church
42″And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
It would be useful, to save us from error, if we acknowledge from the outset that we are not the church in Acts. We are not that church, nor should we seek to become that church. “But wait a minute, if this is the word of God , then aren’t we bound to submit ourselves to it?” Well, yes, but we have books of history in order to keep us from making the same mistakes—not in order to repeat them. And the book of Acts is one of history, not a manual on church structure, organization, and administration. So I want us to consider this truth briefly and receive a couple of encouragements from what it reveals.
First, the church in Jerusalem was a chaotic mess. Consider this fact: three to ten thousand people (including children to care for). They are devoted to the apostles’ teaching, which hasn’t been written down. Think of the pastoral ramifications of taking care of all these people, and these are new believers, making sure they get involved in the church body, making sure they are fed spiritually, and making sure they are having their physical needs met. We know there were large group meetings at the temple (Hey, meet along this wall!), and that there were small group gatherings in the houses. And remember, no clocks, no e-mail, no telephones, no bulletins. Can you imagine the administrative nightmare of that church? We do not want to repeat that, but we should be encouraged by it. They made it. We can make it.
Second, not one place in the New Testament do we find “detailed instructions on how to organize the church for pastoral care and worship and teaching and mobilization for ministry” (John Piper, “The Goodness and Groaning of Growth,” June 8, 2003). So we aren’t to come to Acts to figure out how to do church. We are to come to Acts to find out how to BE the church, and the administrative pastoral care, worship, and missions mobilization will come with groaning as we seek the Lord as a people. This is the way that is He has ordained it. But God has revealed what the life of the believer in the body of the church looks like.
devoted themselves—It says that the believers devoted themselves. When was the last time someone said of you, that man—that woman—is devoted to their church? I’m sure you’re devoted to your family, your profession, your friends, your football and basketball teams. Is that as far as your devotion extends? For some of you, the church has been where you flirted with devotion. You come and you never devote yourself to the welfare of this church body. But the devotion doesn’t just mean to the church and pastor.
Apostles’ teaching—The believer had devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teaching. The importance of this is seen on two sides. On that side of the pulpit, you are to devote yourself to the sacred Scriptures. Do you realize that every message on Sunday is a salvation message for you? No matter the content, every message you hear is God’s way of keeping you believing. Don’t you realize that one day you can wake up and not believe the gospel? This doesn’t mean that you lost your salvation. This means that you didn’t have salvation. If I ever stop believing the gospel, I’m lost. Our belief in the gospel is our lifeline to Christ and the weekly teaching is not just to make you feel good about being a Christian, or to humor you, or to keep you informed in politics and humanitarian relief—you are to dedicate yourself to the Apostles’ teaching to keep you saved!
On this side of the pulpit, we who preach, have a grave responsibility to make sure that we give you the unpolluted, pure teaching handed down from the Apostles. If we do not, we shall be condemned, for that is why preachers and teachers “will be judged with greater strictness” (James 3:1 ESV). So what will we give you? Will we give you the Word that offends but nourishes your soul to the pleasure of our God and Lord? Or shall we throw out the Apostles’ teaching because it offends in order to have a large crowd and the approval of man? Oh let us be careful to note upon what we build the foundation of our churches upon. We’ll do whatever it takes to get them in and then complain because they look just like the world. Oh let us be careful to teach what the Apostles taught—the full counsel of God.
fellowship—It says that they devoted themselves to fellowship. Lest we mistake what fellowship is, Paul reminds us in Philippians 1.5 that the grounds of fellowship is the gospel. This is important because unless the fellowship is in the gospel, economic superiority is the ground of fellowship friendship, or personality types, or hobby interest, or career conversation, or racial unification, or any other factor besides Christ becomes the focus of our fellowship. When this happens, we find our conversations not centered on the Lord—but centered on those objects (materials, jobs, politics) and not on the gospel. And I’m not talking about our church event fellowship.
I’m talking about, who are you surrounding yourself with when you’re at home? If the fellowship of the gospel doesn’t extend out of these walls, then there is no fellowship. So are you surrounding yourself with people who spur you to think, pray, and groan of God’s kingdom and your fellowship with all Christians, or do you surround yourself with jokers who make you laugh. Do you surround yourself with career-oriented people that give you a cutting edge with industrial savvy? Do you surround yourself with people who are administrative like you, or who have head knowledge, or heart feeling, or who are depressed, or who are cynical, or who are sensual (they just get your blood pumping)? Or are you just surrounded by family? I’m trying to get you to see that, yes minister to all people, but your fellowship should primarily be with those people who challenge you to be God-centered, and kingdom-focused. You ARE who you surround yourself with.
So, fellowship is that gathering of Christ’s followers who come together for the benefit of one another (mutual encouragement) and to focus on Christ and His kingdom. Now my goal is not to beget false conversations that are half-hearted attempts at religious platitudes about how nice God is. God warns us about those who honor Him with their lips and their hearts are far from Him. Our goal, from the beginning, is to cultivate honesty—through which will flow a need of Christ, a commendation of Christ, and seeking of Christ. But honesty is the key. Why is that we find spending more time with people from the church a chore?
Why is it that a little church is fine, but too much cramps my style, makes me uncomfortable, or takes up too much of my time? I’m calling for Christ-centered friendships of fellowship with you all and among you all. But the problem that is at the root of the human condition is hypocrisy. You don’t like coming to church because you feel like you have to put on a show as to how well things are going in your life. I’m very suspicious of people when I ask them how things are going and they tell me, “Great.” Or if we start listing off struggles and prayer requests and they don’t have any of either. When this happens they neither know themselves nor the world around them. If they do, then they are just lying and putting up a front to make me think that they are something that they are not. I would much rather someone say, “O God I need help. I need help with my finances, I need help with my marriage, I need help with my singleness, I need help fighting my sin.” That is honesty, and that’s exactly where God wants you. That’s the ground of fellowship right there—because it’s the grounds for the gospel.
Now I realize the problem with opening up to people. They’re going to see your problems. They might think bad about you. They might talk poorly of you. It may backfire and instead of praying for you, they may begin to gossip about you. So, I understand the potential problems with honesty in our fellowship. But let me help you learn how to open up to people. Think about how Jesus opened up to people. He had the great multitude that came to Him. Then He had the 72 that He spent more time with. Then within those He had His 12 that He surrounded Himself with. But within His 12, there were three that He withdrew with. Find three who are godly, broken, Christians of prayer and bear your soul to them. Don’t go bearing all your soul to the great multitude. That will wear you out and you WILL become the source of gossip. Find the three and learn to be honest with them. Second, there are those who are too immature for you to bear your soul to. It would be unwise to entrust them with all the secret longings of your heart. But they do need to see honesty from you. They need to see you lament over your failures, repent from your sin, and seek Christ as the forgiveness of those sins, so that these little baby believers will see that Christianity isn’t the end of our problems—it’s the solution of our problems. Are you beginning to see what the fellowship of the gospel looks like? Now there are much greater implications—such as missions, local ministry, pastoral encouragement, etc. that I don’t have time to touch upon. I leave it to you to explore the depths of our fellowship in Christ.
breaking of bread—the believers had devoted themselves to the Lord’s Supper. Here this shows that they had devoted themselves to the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Dedicated themselves to remember his sacrifice.
prayers—they had also devoted themselves also to prayer. The word for devoted is used 10 times in the New Testament and almost half of those are related to prayer. The need to pray can not be understated. We must remember that prayer has no power to change things. It is the God to whom we pray who has the power to change all things. Did you know that we meet on Tuesday night here, to devote ourselves to prayer? I urge you to devote yourself not only to individual prayer, but corporate prayer with this church as well. The foundation of the church is the devotion a believer has to the Scriptures, church fellowship, Lord’s Supper, and prayer.
The Fallout of the church
43And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.
awe—Notice that the awe didn’t necessarily come from the wonders and signs being done by the apostles. The awe was rooted in something much more amazing: it was the transformed lives of the saints and the manifest glory and grace of God. Awe is brought about by God working in the lives of sinners to the praise of His name. We need to cultivate a sense of awe in our worship. Instead of cultivating God-centered worship, churches are increasingly flippant and trivial in their approach to the throne of grace. In worship, “We cross the threshold of the secular to the sacred, from the common to the uncommon, from the profane to the holy” (R.C. Sproul). If we lack awe in our worship, it is because we lack the weight of Whom we worship. There was no triviality in Isaiah 6, when the angels cried out “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.”
wonders and signs—Now we acknowledge that the wonders and signs done by the apostles were for the verification of the Word of God. God sent forth His apostles with signs just like when Moses was sent by God to Egypt. God said, “So that they know I AM has sent you, do these signs in Pharaoh’s midst”. The signs were the verification to know that the Words were from God. We no longer have apostles on earth. The apostolic testimony is preserved in our Bibles; therefore, we have no need of either apostles or signs and wonders. There are no signs and wonders that center on men. Now there are miracles being done by God. But they are done according to the counsel of His good pleasure, not accompanied by certain men or women. The fallout of the church is the breeding ground for which people come and are in awe of the glory of God and are confronted with the reality of the supernatural and the miraculous.
The Religion of the Church
44And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.
The reason I use the phrase, “The Religion of the Church” is because of James 1.27 which says, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world” (ESV). The religion of the church is remembering the poor and meeting needs.
common—If you will remember at the beginning of the message I mentioned that this passage isn’t necessarily our pattern for church administration. It is first of all history, then it is secondly guidance in regards to the principles of church administration. Here, in this word “common”, is a sample of which I think we would be mistaken to think that the Christian life is one of communal living where we have all things in common. As I mentioned before, this verse is about meeting needs, not communal living. Let me give you some reasons why I think this. First, as I pointed out, this church was a mess. Everything seemed to start off well. People were giving and selling. But what was the outcome? Everything broke down so far, and the need was so great, that gifts were taken up at the churches in other cities throughout the world and brought to Jerusalem. Paul wrote, “And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem” (1 Corinthians 16:3 ESV).
selling—Second, the idea of selling was abused by people such as Ananias and Sapphira who said they were selling to help people, but actually were selling to make a profit.
distributing—Third, in regards to distributing, there was a form of racism and neglect to be found in the church in Jerusalem. “Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution. And the twelve summoned the full number of the disciples and said, “It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore, brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word”” (Acts 6:1-4 ESV).
as any had need— So we may not follow this church in the way they responded to their needs, but we MUST follow them in their response. There are those in this city and in our midst who have need and we must seek them out. We must not buy in to the lie that all of God’s people are healthy, wealthy, and prosperous. Nor can we believe that those who are not healthy, wealthy, and prosperous are out of God’s will or living in sin. This has never been the case, and never will be the case until Christ comes. The health, wealth, and prosperity gospel looks great until we read the Bible. God may not always heal us (look at Job), He may not always make us wealthy (look at Paul), and He may not always prosper us (look at those in Hebrews 11 who lived in caves). All of these examples were right where God wanted them to be, and they glorified Him in their lack of health, lack of wealth, and lack of prosperity. The Church is full of the sick, poor and non-prosperous; and God-ordained it. So, if that’s you this morning, you may not be out of God’s will. You may be exactly where He wants you. So for heaven’s sake, don’t be too proud to ask for help. Cry out for help! Let us help you this morning.
You know it’s possible to like church and despise the people in it, don’t you? (1 Co come to enjoy, but left out the poor). We must not despise those who are in need. We must not despise them for asking. We must do whatever it takes (selling our land, living a sacrificial lifestyle, setting up programs to get out of debt in order to give more) to meet the needs of those around it. If we do that, think of the implications for education (in helping a young woman or man go to college), for social justice (seeing a single mom getting out of debt), and for missions (seeing a missionary sent from your midst to Pakistan with your support backing him). “But I worked hard to get what I have, and you want me to share it?” Be careful that you don’t become like Nebuchadnezzar who sat back and looked at his kingdom and said, “Look what I have done. I have built this kingdom.” And God took His mind because he didn’t praise God for what God had done, not himself. If the religion of the church is not meeting the needs of the poor and widows around us, then we are defiled before God.
The Experience of the Church
46And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generoushearts, 47praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. “
As I scan these verses in closing, I find a lot to do with emotions. We are to have devotion, awe, love, gladness, generosity, and praise. So I don’t want to make this sermon to be a call to more church activities. “Look, Elijah, I’m coming to church every day now—seven days a week. Yeah me! I must be super-spiritual!” If that’s what you think, “I’ll just do more activities,” then you’ve missed the point of this text. The point of this text is that are emotions are too weak. We need God to stir up our hearts. We need to become more diligent in regards to our meeting with each other. We need to become more glad and more generous with what we have. We need to seek to praise God with all that we have. We need to live lives that are so blameless that people respect you. We need to hear, “That J.P. is truthful, and full of integrity. What, Gary? He would never do that. That Gwen, she would do whatever it takes to meet our needs. That Church, there’s a church that cares about the community. More than that, there’s something different about that church. When I go in there, I meet with Almighty and leave changed.” How does this affect our church? In fact, where is the church in this passage? Did you find it? Not one word about it. Where are they? They ARE the church. We too must start being the church and that has nothing to do with these walls.
Remember Christ’s words, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By THIS all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” ” (John 13:34-35 ESV).
“Just put on a necklace or pin a cross on your lapel, and you will be declaring your faith to the world. no heart-rending changes, no need to touch the AIDS patient (even with gloves). You can let the ugly, the irregular, the unlovable sit alone—no need for any sacrificial and self-denying love. Wearing a symbol is a lot easier than being a symbol. But I do wonder why Jesus said that we would be known for how we love either other” (John Sartelle, “Inexplicable Love,” Tabletalk: 2005.09, 29).
