Okay, so there's two readings this afternoon. The first is from Acts chapter 2, verses 42 to 47, found on page 824 in the Bibles in the pews. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.
All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and aged together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.
And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. And now second reading is from one Corinthians chapter 12, verses 12 to 27, and it's on page 931 in the pews. Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body. So it is with Christ.
For we were all baptized by one spirit, so as to form one body, whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free, and we were all given the one spirit to drink, even so the body is not made up of one part, but of many. Now, if the foot should say, because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body, it would not, for that reason, stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body, it would not for that reason, stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be?
If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact, God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as He wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts but one body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, I don't need you, and the head cannot say to the feet, I don't need you. On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable, we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.
If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. This is the word of the Lord.
Thank you, Beck. My throat's still tickling from the building sites and stuff. So I'm going to pre-empt now and say, Herman, could you please bring me a cup of water? Thank you.
Would you please know that the glass has gone in to the new welcome matriom over to the side. And so the building is coming to an end. I assume there won't be building dust around anymore. And if you like me and suffer from hay fever, then you will be grateful, thankful for that.
Thanks, Herman. This is Herman, everyone. All right, watch me for a good time. And kick it over in a minute.
Today, we're continuing our series on being God's Church by thinking about building authentic community. One of the greatest gifts of being part of God's Church is the sense of belonging that it offers. A place where we're not just faces in a crowd, but people who are known, people who are loved, and people who are supported as a family. Yet, in our fast paced digital world true connection in our lives often feels elusive to us, leaving many of us longing for the depth our hearts were made for.
And so today, we'll be exploring how authentic community is the heartbeat of the Church. We're going to start by drawing from the example of the early believers. We're then going to see the call to encourage one another. And finally, we're going to look at the beauty of unity in diversity as Christ's body.
How are we start by praying? Please write your head to me. Father, I thank you for your word. And we pray now as we consider what community and new means that you'd bring joy to our hearts, that you'd inspire us and help us to grow, by your spirit, to help us to understand your word and form us into the likeness of your son.
And it's in his name, my pray. Amen. So, in the community and the concept of community at church, it's actually a really big part of my personal story. I grew up in a family that did not go to church.
In fact, in many ways, I was probably quite aggressive towards the concept of Christianity throughout pretty much my entire childhood. And it was actually when a friend invited me along to youth group that it wasn't anything that was said that really started to soften my heart. But it was the way that I saw people interact with one another. I saw the way that people treated each other.
I saw the way that people led and cared for one another, the way that the older cared for the younger. And the way that, like to be frank, as someone at high school, the way that people who I never thought or talked to each other from school were really close friends who cared and prayed for one another. There's something strange about this to the outsider often when they enter. It's something that can often feel a bit off in comparison to what we experience in our lives.
And this was true when people saw the way the early church behaved. The early believers devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, to breaking of bread, and prayer filled with awe at the many signs and wonders performed. They held everything in common, selling property to meet needs. They met daily in the temple courts with homes and homes with glad hearts, praising God, and enjoying favor with all people as the Lord added to their neighbor daily, those being saved.
The early church is a really good place to start for us when thinking about community. What did the very first Christians do after they no longer had Jesus with them? Well, in Acts 2, we see a timeless blueprint for community where new believers didn't just attend gatherings, but devoted themselves to shared practices that wove their lives together in profound ways. They immersed in truth for teaching, fellowship for relationship, breaking of bread for intimacy, and prayer for dependence on God, resulting in community that was filled with awe, that was filled with generosity and daily growth that even outsiders admired.
Now, don't get me wrong, this wasn't a perfect group. They were ordinary people, being transformed by the Spirit, choosing to share everything from resources to each other's burdens, which not only met needs, but also drew others to faith. We see right from the start of Acts how important gathering as community was and how important it is, that they would carry out intentional acts intended to create a sense of focus around the worship of God and the support of one another. Now, they didn't always do this amazingly.
That's one of the reasons why we have so many letters from Paul, but they did do it. It was a priority for them. It had a distinct intent. It wasn't just about having friends, as much as having friends is great.
It was about being God's people together, recognizing that this isn't an easy thing to do alone in a world of sin. So many of the things that we do together now, we do them because we can see how important they were then, practices that have kept the people of God on track, relying on each other when they face a world that would put pressure on them to abandon their faith. That's why we sing together, it's why we read the Bible together, it's why we're encouraged to have meals together because we've seen throughout history how valuable and important these things are and we're called to do them by books such as Acts. And so with this example in mind, we're then called to commit ourselves to this and we see this in the book of Hebrews, chapter 10.
In Hebrews 10, 24 to 25, it says, let us consider how we may spur one another on to love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another and all the more, as you see the day approaching. Hebrews 10 calls us to a proactive community where we consider ways to spur each other on towards love and good deeds, emphasizing encouragement through consistent gatherings, especially as the return of Christ draws nearer each day. It's not passive attendance, but rather we see an active commitment to motivate and uplift countering the tendency that we have to drift into isolation amid life's pressures and distractions. The writer of Hebrews knew the risks, some were already giving up on meeting, perhaps due to persecution or apathy, but he urges perseverance, knowing community is essential for enduring faith.
Before when I was in high school, I was told, I've actually had quite a big break from personal anecdotes, so sorry, you're getting too into sermon this time. I had two major fears when I was a teenager, I was terrified of public speaking, and I was terrified of heights. And I don't know if, well, I imagine everyone at some point has experience with a high- rep's course, so schools seem determined to make you do this at least once. I don't know what it is.
But in a high- rep's course, I would get up, and similarly, so when I was, when I public speak, my hands would shake really bad, when I'm at heights, my legs would shake really bad. The army kind of helped me with these two things, but I remember being up the top and I was really scared of heights, and trying to step forward. And there was a moment when one of my friends below me stepped forward and said, don't worry, Tom, I knew you were going to fall. I'm not super helpful.
But other people tended to jump on the wagon of encouraging me at that point. And it's also a really weird time I find in high school where people that don't really kind of get on or hang out normally, suddenly you've got to camp, and there's kind of these weird connections get drawn out, but people encouraged me, and I was able to do it. Something that I was really, really scared of. Encouragement in our lives, I'm sure lots of us have had moments when there was something we didn't want to do, whether something that scared us or we were apathetic towards or just seemed like too big a task, and someone encouraged us or people encouraged us, and it helped us to take a step forward.
Church community is essential for all of us. We need one another to spur each other on, to keep fighting the fight, to keep taking steps forward in our faith. I'm sure many of you have experienced what it's like when you've been unable, often for really good reasons, to attend and gather with God's people, to be reminded by brothers and sisters in faith that we are in this together, and that we walk side by side through the struggles of life, through the challenges of our faith. There are challenges for all of us in the Christian life.
We will all face difficult moments, moments that will make us ask if it is worth it, moments when we will want to give into the desires of our hearts, we will want to believe the lies of the deceiver, how we want to use our bodies best, or that I'm suffering because God doesn't love me, that I don't need to give because that affects my budget, that I'm not good enough for God. These are all normal thoughts that we each experience, and we need the encouragement of one another to remember the truth and to keep going. And when we are away from that support for extended periods of time, the deceiver's super clever, and he tries to convince you that the problem is church itself, to stop you from going back, to stop you from being spurred on. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of things that we can do a lot better, and trust me, we're working on it.
But that is because we are a messy community, of made up of messy people who all need spurring on. Do not give up meeting together. It is essential for us as God's people. We bring different battles, and we bring different victories to the table, and this diversity doesn't weaken our unity, but it is a key marker of it.
Ministers have a habit of using sports illustrations, and I do like to say that Christianity is a team sport, but I'm not going to do one this time, because I've used that by one for the series a couple of weeks ago. So instead, I want you to think of an orchestra, right? Made up of multiple variety different types of instruments, all of which are required to produce a single harmonic sound, a single sound that is beautiful. Now, you can take away different parts of that orchestra, and you can kind of still hear the general theme of what's going on, but you start to lose things.
It isn't as strong as it could be when it's missing the whole wind section. It's not as strong as it could be if it's missing the whole brass section. Well, in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul uses the metaphor of the body to describe the church as one unified entity, but with many diverse parts, all baptized by one spirit into a quality regardless of background, dual gentile, slave, or free, where no part can dismiss another, and God arranges them to function interdependently. Excuse me.
Honoring the weaker to prevent division and ensure mutual care, so that suffering and rejoicing are shared, affirming that we are collectively the body of Christ with each member essential. Now, you may have noticed, I have actually already talked about this point in this series, but I think it's important, and it's relevant to bring it up again, because unity in Christ celebrates difference. I see hands, work, feet move all interdependent with suffering or rejoicing shared across the whole of the family. It is a call to reject clicks, it is a call to reject hierarchies, instead fostering equal concern that reflects Christ's love.
We are an incredibly diverse group of people, age, background, life experiences here at the Garrison. It's easily, by a country mile, the most diverse group of people, particularly with our kind of backgrounds, the way we think about things that I have ever had experienced with plastering. And that is a really beautiful thing. We each bring different things to the table, and I love that about our gathering.
I've currently been meeting with a group of people from this congregation to think about the reopening of the new building next year, and it is a really diverse group. People have really different thoughts, and that is a really helpful thing to ensuring that we get plans together that honor God and honor our church family. But that is the key thing. In our differences, we are unified by our shared desire to see God worshiped, our shared desire to see Christ known, and for Him to dwell richly in our hearts.
And so that brings me to the section of our sermon that I've been doing this series to try and make things a little bit more tangible for us. I've got three points for bringing it home. The first one is to immerse yourself. Drawing from the early churches, the motion in Acts two, immersing yourself in church, it means community.
It means committing to the rhythms that we by our lives together, diving into teaching together for truth, fellowship, for support, shared meals for intimacy, prayer for spiritual death. Just as those first believers didn't settle for sporadic meetings, they made connection a priority. We too can counter our fragmented lives by prioritizing these practices, allowing God's spirit to fill us with awe and generosity to one another that spills over to others. Emersion in community isn't about perfection, it's about persistence, recognizing that in a world that naturally pulls us apart from one another, I mean, how many of us are working from home now, right?
Instead of being connected with people in the workplace. Our world is naturally pulling us apart, but these acts create glad hearts and sincere bonds, and believe it or not, that is attractive to the outsider. So this week, maybe take a step, maybe it's just a mental transformation for you to immerse yourself in the shared life that echoes the early churches transformative unity, so that we can spur one another on. As Hebrews 10 urges us to consider ways of motivating each other towards love and good deeds, spurring one another on is about actively encouraging perseverance in faith with one another, especially through our gatherings together.
In the face of a life of challenges, like doubts or temptations, we are reminded by Hebrews that community is our lifeline. We're a word of affirmation or a shared story, and just reignite a moment for us and push us forwards, all the more as Christ's return gets closer and closer. Think of it, like Lymer's on a high ropes course, where one person's encouragement helps another to take that step. Without it, we risk falling or stalling and walking back.
So this week, I want us to live this out, right? I want something super tangible. I want you to try and identify somebody at church who you know, I might not know, but you know, is facing a tough season and spur them on with a specific act, a call, a note, a coffee invite, like remind one another that we are not alone in the fight. And finally, invest.
Embracing one Corinthians 12's vision of the church as one body with diverse parts, investing means pouring time, energy, and care into honoring every member of the family. To foster unity without division and mutual concern where joys and sufferings are shared among us. God arranges us intentionally, celebrating our differences like an orchestra where each instrument's unique sound creates a single sound, so that no one feels dispensable and the whole body thrives. We reject clicks, instead we build a family where backgrounds age and gifts enrich everybody, reflecting Christ's love that values the overlooked.
So this week, make it practical, right? Invest in somebody who is different from you. Perhaps a newcomer, perhaps someone of a different age. Listen to their story, pray together, and watch how this strengthens the body's fullness and also strengthens your own faith.
We are immensely lucky to have the community that we have, that it is growing in faith and in numbers. We must not give up meeting together. We must spur one another on, and we must take advantage of the gifts God has given each of us to work together as his people to keep going, to keep charging on the path of faith and to keep our wonderful Savior central to all that we do at church and in our lives. That's how we keep building this wonderful and authentic community of God's people.
That's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We pray this week that you would dwell in our hearts, that you would help us to love one another, you would help us to drive towards building a community that honors you and honors each member of the body. And we thank you for the examples that we have of the early church and in your word.
And just say we pray. Amen.