1

Acts 2: 41 – 47The churchJune 10 2012

I’m on facebook. I was reminded yesterday as I received dozens of birthday greetings that online communities are pretty important. But facebook isn’t enough. It wasn’t enough for Mark Zuckerberg because he just got married. I think we yearn for more, because we were made for more. It is said that the Lord knew Moses face to face, and that we will see the face of God in the heavenly city. We were created for a new community that is part of a new creation in Christ. A community that exists and lives by the power of God.

Genesis 1 tells us that at creation, the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters. At Pentecost, the Spirit of God brings the Christian church to life.

Only God could do this. His church was and is His construction: We could never in a million years reverse engineer the church, although we have tried, the tower of Babel being an example of what happens when humans reach for God in their own power. The church was not formed as a creation of the 12 apostles, or by a clever business plan, but only by the will and act of God, by his immense power. Luke reports in v43 that God did many wonders and signs through the apostles.

Wonders and signs are woven into the fabric of the OT, and of Acts. This phrase signals God's action to save and restore his people. Look at Deuteronomy 4.34-35. This is the language of exodus. Now flip back to 2:22 READ. This is the language of the new exodus: the new and ultimate saving action of God in Jesus Christ. God brings his people out of slavery to bring them into his church.

People had reverent awe, holy fear, around the church, because of the power of God to save. When people repent and turn to Christ, and devote themselves forever to his church, and turn their backs on the values of the world and cease building their own kingdoms, it's a work of God, and we should stand in awe.

How is this community different? How may we distinguish it from other communities we participate in? And how do we remain devoted to these things as we move in three weeks?

The first Christians were devoted to three things:

1)apostles teaching

2)fellowship

3)witness

1)Apostles’ teaching. 2.42 John Stott said, “The very first thing we are told is that the living church was a learning church. The Spirit of truth opened a school in Jerusalem that day; he appointed the apostles teachers in that school, and there were 3000 pupils in the kindergarden.” Luke reports that they were devoted to the apostles’ teaching. Not just ‘interested” in it. Present active tense: they persisted. That means actually receiving it. Inwardly digesting. See v37: then v41: they received it. Can’t be second hand. You can’t let someone else do it for you.

  1. The apostles teaching was authoritative: It was recognized immediately within the church because the apostles were the direct witnesses of the life, teaching, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus. Jesus never wrote anything down! When we read Jesus, we are reading the apostolic witness to Jesus. Jesus nurtures and rules his church through his word recorded by the apostles. The apostles’ teaching is written for us today in the NT.
  2. There are two brand-new women's Bible studies in the preparation stages for this fall, and a new men's breakfast bible study has already started. Why? Devotion to the apostles teaching. This word is life. Your life and mine. I can’t go one day without the word of God because it’s the word of life. It's the life of the church. The church prospers and multiplies as the word of God is esteemed.

2)Second, they were devoted, they stuck to, the fellowship. Gk: koinonia, is more than company or friendship. It is two friends sharing in one thing. No choice of friends, by the way. (Unlike KLM where travelers were allowed to select their seatmate based on their facebook page!). Basic principle of koinonia: unselfishness. Heaven is the place of unselfishness, and the living church is a place marked by unselfish fellowship.

  1. This is expressed in three ways hard to do online:
  2. Hospitality. True koinonia turns us from selfishness to otherness. READ 42 and 46 breaking bread….not only an early form of the Lord's Supper but ordinary meals in homes with guests invited from the Christian community. In the first Century sharing food had huge social significance: it was a sign of real community and kinship. I guess you could say that you’re going to be eating with these people for eternity so start getting in the habit!
  3. Massive joy and gladness: salvation is a cause for celebration, but so is fellowship.
  4. I guess the thing to say here is don’t wait for others to invite you first!
  5. Genuine, authentic life of the church doesn’t take place just on Sunday mornings.
  6. Generosity.True koinonia turns us from consumers to contributors. In our culture we are told to consume. But the more we consume the emptier we feel, the more we protect ourselves, the more lonely we get. But…vv44-45 are amazing READ
  7. not marxism, nor the mandatory signing over of all you own to the church, nor a system where there was no private property--2.46 shows they still had homes. The point is that these people cared so deeply about one another that if one of them was in need, others responded by voluntarily liquidating assets because they valued people over possessions, or to put it another way they were indifferent to their own possessions when others were in need.
  8. Dallas Willard points out that the believers were under no compulsion to give; if you wanted to keep your goods you could, but you would miss the blessing that comes from abandoning yourself to the Kingdom of God by sharing with others. You see, we give not because God needs it but because we need to give. We need to be involved in what God is doing.
  9. To be generous loosens the grip of wealth on our hearts. We are stewards of all that he gives us, and what we give to the fellowship is invested by God into eternal things.
  10. Prayer. True koinonia turns us from recipients to participants. You see v42 prayers and v47 praise…each of these use our mouths to say what is on our hearts, and to express our need. The church doesn’t survive on policies, politics, or polish, but on His ongoing power granted to those who ask. I love the little phrase “man's extremity is God's opportunity”. Sign of the living church is a praying church.

3)Devoted to Witness.

  1. Brackets to the passage: 2.41 and .47 ADDED to their number day by day those who were being saved. Note the Lord, that's Jesus, adds. It’s his church. When he saves someone, he places them in his church, his flock, his pasture.
  2. Context to this summary is Peter's Pentecost sermon (ironically not about the Holy Spirit but about the Lord Jesus Christ).
  3. Why witness? It's the purpose of God: Luke 24.46-47 Christ must suffer, Christ must rise, and repentance and forgiveness of sins must be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Crucial. Just as important as his death and resurrection is our witness to the apostolic witness, recorded in the Bible.
  4. The ultimate issue in our world isn’t poverty or violence or the stability of the Eurozone but that the world should see who Jesus is, and that salvation is in him alone

So the message this morning is to be devoted. To the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, and to witness. They belong together. They are like the three legs of a stool. If you remove or neglect any one of them, the stool will fall over.

But as we conclude, a warning , an encouragement, and an exhortation.

Warning: it is impossible to be devoted to Christ without being devoted to his word, his people, and his witness.

Encouragement: I find this text supremely encouraging. If you are feeling dry in your faith, I want to encourage you that as you take risks, and devote yourself in each of these three angles of authentic Christian life, your joy will increase. The antitdote to a lack of zeal is to immerse yourself in the word of God, to enjoy fellowship, and to share the treasure of Jesus Christ. That's when your faith becomes real and your joy and gladness will increase.

Exhortation: This sermon is useless and academic unless we realize what we’ve done to Jesus on the cross by our sins, and what he's done for us on the cross by grace. None of this will have traction in our lives or in this precious congregation unless we are filled with the spirit of Christ.

If we aim only at these three things, we will fail. We must look to Jesus, the authour and perfector of our faith.