There's a blessing to be with you all this evening to continue our study through the book of Acts. This evening we find ourselves in the latter part, the end of Acts chapter 2. I would remind you that as we left off last year in the book of Acts, Peter, or really the Holy Spirit had been poured out, that great moment of Pentecost had come, that which had been promised in the Old Testament had come to pass. And in response to that great event, we find Peter's preaching, what we call the Pentecost sermon.
He traces for us that which had been promised and even lays out the guilt of Israel. And we see the effect of it, that many come to saving faith in Christ. And in the 2000s, 3000 were believed upon the Lord that day. And so we, excuse me, they were added that day about 3000 souls.
And so we come here to what life looks like in this new covenant world. What does the early church look like, the apostolic church, we might call it. But before we look to God's Word and we see how the people responded to this grace that they received, let us pray together, would you pray with me, please? Our God, how do we thank you that you would bless us richly with the testimony of your grace?
Lord, that we might delight in salvation that is ours this evening, even at this very moment. And Lord, we pray that you would impress upon us such a desire to love you and to serve you and to honor you that we might respond not just with praise but with love for one another. And so God, would you gird us? Would you strengthen us?
Would you shore us up? And Lord, might we seek you even together tonight? I pray in those things in Christ's holy and precious name. Amen.
As chapter 2 beginning in verse 42, this is God's Word, let us give you here. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And all 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. For the grass withers and the flower falls, the word of our God stands forever and ever.
Thanks be to God. Peter's sermon ends with this bit of hope. As the hearers, the audiences, as they are cut to the heart, asking, pleading, what must we do? Peter says, 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. In church, I wonder if there are fewer more beautiful words and scriptures than these. Last time I had opportunity to preach, we considered the words of the Prophet Jeremiah as quoted by Peter, also the words of David from Psalm 16 and 110.
And if we aren't careful, we may miss that these words are also taken from the Old Testament. And while it's not a direct quote, it is a direct concept that those in attendance would have definitely made the connection between the two. You see, when God made a covenant promise with Abraham, he said, he said this, and I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you, throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant to be God to you and to your offspring after you. And this is important because what Peter is saying under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit is that the promise in the Old Testament is now yours in the new.
And where this promise would have been signified in the Old Testament by circumcision, it's signified by baptism in the new. And what Peter is getting at here in terms of the promise being for you and for your children, while he's establishing the boundaries of the covenant, he's expressing who belongs to the covenant and who does not. And so he says the promises of the new covenant are still for you and for your children, for all who are far off. The Lord would call to himself and those who would receive this promise are signified by receiving the Holy Sacrament of baptism.
Now we know that there are Gentiles throughout the history of the Old Testament that would have been brought in and grafted into the people of God. We might think of someone like Rahab. We might think of the mixed multitude that is leaving Egypt with the Hebrews. And yet there had always been a promise that the gospel would go forth to the Gentiles.
And here that covenant boundary is going beyond Jerusalem and ethnic Israel to Judea, to Sumeria, to the ends of the earth. So Abraham becomes not just the father of Gentiles who come to saving faith in Christ. We love he becomes our father as well. And so what we come to see this evening is that people have been purchased, that God's people have been called and brought into covenant community.
And we should not be surprised when they live as if they are in the covenant community. When they live the very faith that they have been called to, new kingdom citizenship requires new kingdom living. But really what we find is really old kingdom living. What we find here in the Scriptures is nothing new to live in the definition of how people would have lived together, knowing the grace of God.
And so what I want to do this evening is I want you to see that this promise of God's free grace to his people, being included into the covenant people of God, means that they live as the covenant people of God, that you live in the covenant community of the Lord. And so Luke describes what life is like in this covenant community for you and for me. And we'll see that their lives are marked by devotion, that quality that would undergird everything they did. And we understand this would mean something like to persevere or to strive or to give oneself over to a particular task.
And that's what they did. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. They devoted themselves to fellowship. They devoted themselves to breaking bread.
And they devoted themselves to praying. This is what life looks like in the covenant community. First I want you to see that they devoted themselves to teachings of Christ. We might ask this question.
What is the church about? What's interesting is that this hasn't changed since the church's inception. There was a time when you can imagine a long time ago when food was cooled not by refrigerator, but maybe by ice in an ice box. Remember going to tour at Windruff University where Meg and I went to school and being taken through one of their old auditoriums and being told to look at the ground and see events.
And notice that the stage where the chairs are on an incline and being told this little bit of trivia that this building used to be cooled by ice blocks. They would slide them in little slots underneath and they would stack up and bring the temperature down on this all-girls school pretty significantly. I wonder when you have come across something recently where something was cooled by ice blocks or where you have seen an ice house. Well, we know that this is very antiquated with the advent of air conditioning, very antiquated with the idea of the inception of refrigeration.
And we might wonder, isn't that outdated? Isn't that something antiquated? We come even here this evening when the last time you've used a phone book, Landlines are going out of fashion. And yet what we see here, we wonder with the world around us, is that what is happening to the church?
Is the church out of date? Is the church antiquated? Is the church out of touch with reality? Does it seem useless or pointless?
What we find here in Acts 2 is that what marks the early church and what marks us today is a devotion to something that is very ancient and very old. We understand this to be the apostolic teaching. But what is an apostle but a man who had witnessed the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ and have received his teaching? We understand as well from Acts 1 of the office of apostle was specific and it was temporary.
For all who had been witnesses would eventually go by way of the grave as we all will. But there are some who God had granted great blessings to sit under his teaching, to witness his resurrection, and so were called apostles. And so the pattern we see here is submitting our hearts and our minds and our efforts to Christ as he has commanded his disciples. All authority and heaven on earth has been given to me.
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And so we read the New Testament, the witness of the apostles by their being carried along by the Holy Spirit, that this is there. They're teaching all that Christ had commanded them. And as Christ would expound upon the Old Testament, as he would preach and teach and charge and act so, we have the apostolic witness preserved for us in the New Testament.
The apostles' writings of Christ and all that means for you and for me in for his church. So with one commentator James Montgomery Boyce, I want you to know that these believers, they had no disdain for head knowledge. In this early church, there was nothing new or novel about submitting themselves to the teaching of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It was popular in the church today for folks to balk at opening the Bible or digging down deep.
It's not uncommon to meet people who say, I don't need to know more about Jesus. I just need to love him more. Or it's not about what I know, it's about what I love. What if you can imagine saying that to your spouse?
Not that I know you, it's that I love you. Can you imagine saying that to your kids? I don't need to know Ruthanne or Mary Margaret. I just need to love them.
But you know that that sounds pretty absurd. Because the fact of the matter is what we love is what we know. And what we know is what we work at knowing is usually signifying what we love. It's our love for money and the economy that leads us to try to wrap our heads around markets and stocks.
It's our love for our favorite college sports teams to know mundane facts and stats about what ever teen won the last national championship. We love what we love, what we worship, and we know what we worship. And a mark that a Christian is growing in faith and growing in Christ is that they are growing in the knowledge of the Lord, however small, and however simply that may be. See, this was a mark of the coming community.
As they were filled with the spirit, they sought to know Jesus more. In fact, this had always been a hallmark of the coming community. What would be a hallmark of revival and renewal and obedience to God, but gathering around the law being read and expounded? It would be the law to be an expression of who God is.
Yet when we come to the scriptures, we behold Christ and who is Christ, but the radiance of the glory of God and the exact end-print of his nature, very God, a very God word made flesh. And friends, to submit to the episode of teaching of the church today is how we grow in our knowledgeable Lord and how we know Christ and we know Him crucified. It is not a, we do not gather to do something that is out of date and antiquated and pointless. We come and behold our risen Savior, Jesus Christ.
Secondly, what I want you to see here this morning is they devote themselves to the fellowship of the saints. They devote themselves to the fellowship of the saints. Now, one of their words or concepts more misunderstood in the scriptures, they end the word fellowship. In our church world, we tend to use that as an insider term or buzzword, and we use it to describe any activity to which two or more Christians may commit themselves.
Right, it's a youth group, laser tag. It's the church softball team. It's a morning in the deer stand or ladies night out. And I want you to understand that these things can be very good, and I'm not saying that they're bad at all.
If you invite me to play laser tag, I assure you that will show up and I will play. But that's not what the scriptures mean by fellowship here. In fact, the word that is, when we use the word as a sanctifying adjective, fellowship to tack on to any activity that justified, I think we're actually thinking too small about what fellowship really is. Right, for this word is what describes our very participation together in Christ.
Paul uses this term to describe our relation to our trying God in 2 Corinthians. He prays, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. This word is rooted in the very intimate relationship between the persons of the Trinity, the eternal intimate relationship of which we are given glimpses of into the Testament. And it's not a wild game men's night, and we must understand that fellowship in its proper context is our sharing in the grace of God.
Having a collective mutual identity in Christ at its very core, fellowship or kuenenia is a spiritual reality more so than it is in earthly activity. And so what we do when we gather together, even here on Sunday evenings or together on Sunday mornings or when we are together proclaiming the grace of God that is found in Jesus Christ, we come to fellowship together. And what we find here in Acts 2 in this portion of the early church is that this spiritual reality has practical implications. If we were to define fellowship as to share in common with, we recognize as we share in the grace of God in our identity as children of God and sinners saved by grace, so we share in our many blessings.
Whereas one commentator puts it, he says, the early church felt a sense of responsibility toward one another. The early church felt a sense of responsibility towards one another. And what we have here is not the kindergarten virtue of everyone gets a turn, nor is it some picture of ancient communism or socialism as some would like to argue. In fact, not only do we find that the scriptures protect and support the owning of private property, but it's this very ownership that in holding that underscores the glory of the fellowship of this church, we find here is a mark of the church of God's people, and that mark is generosity, and helping to meet each other's needs.
We are responsible for one another, and we should have with the early church a sense of responsibility towards one another. And as God gave us his only son, as Christ paid the cost, as the Lord showers us with blessings, we know that God is generous, don't we? We can't use words of God like hightfisted, or cheap, or stingy. These aren't words that we can use to describe God, and surely these aren't words we should use to describe God's people.
We want you to see how the church fellowships and the truest sense here from this passage, first it seems that they've sold stuff, and they shared what they had, and considered those who were in need. I don't think what we find here to be prescriptive, meaning that God commands all professing Christians to go and sell all that they have and give it away. It's not as if there was some central authority in the Apostolic Church demanding converts to sell all that they have and to give it to the leaders, typically how we went to the hallmarks of the cult, how cults work. But also from this passage we can see that the tents of the verbs used, that the selling and giving wasn't likely all at one time, but a continual mark of their fellowship.
They sold and they gave as there was need. And while it's not prescriptive, it is the descriptive. Meaning God's people are marked by such a heart of generosity that they will do what it takes to ensure the brothers, their sisters, their fathers, and their mothers in Christ are prepared for. They're probably what in mind here are orphans and widows and the destitute and the foreigner.
Those that have been brought into the community of God can already need. It's a church that's a matter of conscience, that imagine we all might need sharpened in some way, but what it would be that we were eager and continue to be eager, to meet the needs of those who are in need, to provide for those in the Church, to provide for her ministry, to the sake of Christ, and to the sake of the community around us. Not just money, but also time and our talents or gifts that the Lord has provided us. There's no point here that I don't want to miss.
Another mark of fellowship and it's eating together. I'm glad that the Lord would delight in our eating together. I don't think what's described here is really like the Super Bowl party or the Lunch with Guys or the Lunch with Girls, but there seems to be two aspects, your first eating in relationship to worship. The Church's fellowship meals are aptly named, I think, we find a hallmark of the early Church here.
It may be something like a first century potluck or cupboard dish or whatever you want to call it, but whether it's Sunday after church or Wednesday before youth group or Friday mornings for a men's study or Wednesday afternoon for ladies' Bible study, whenever we even have donuts before worship begins. I think eating together is a good thing. I think we find as a hallmark of fellowshiping together, delighting in God's good gifts and his benefits to us, but spurring each other all the more as we prepare to worship God together. Secondly, what seems to be described here is not only just a regular eating together, but a regular sense of hospitality.
I think you can look to this portion of the Scriptures and see how God delights in our use of welcoming in others to meet their needs and to encourage them. I think we find in this as a means by which we can share what we have in common, perhaps with those who have less, and maybe who need more. And so we find here that the covenant community is marked by fellowship. It might we pursue as well.
Thirdly, I want you to see here that they devote themselves to the Lord's Supper. And we find that this fellowship, this mutual sharing with one another is an aspect of our worship as well, that we share with one another, not just around a table in a fellowship hall, but we share around a table even here in the sanctuary. And we see that very clearly in the institution of the Lord's Supper. There are some scholars disagree over exactly what the breaking of bread means here in this series of the Scriptures of the early church.
And I understand that there is in fact a difference between these two phrases. There's the breaking of bread in verse 42, and then there's breaking bread in verse 46. And I would agree that it was in the addition of the article, the, what referenced this like a phrase in Luke's day of the Lord's Supper, the breaking of bread together, might be synonymous with it, for taking of the Lord's Supper. It's shorthand, so to speak.
But even more fits in the series as a distinguishing mark of the church, the fullest expression of fellowship, not in our homes or in our fellowship halls, but in the place where we worship the church. But in the place where we worship Christ together, where there's no greater witness or being joined together, than when we partake of the Lord's Supper together. And judging from the institution and instruction in the upper room and Paul's comments to the Corinthians, we see that this happened with some frequency, that this sacrament was observed. And think about what the Lord's Supper communicates and what we communicate at the Lord's Supper.
When you drink of that cup and you eat of that bread, you are confessing with your heart by that strange and inexplicable and mystical work of the Spirit that I am a sinner, that I need. That I need the grace of God, and that my life is only found in Jesus Christ. We're proclaiming this, and not just ourselves but to one another. You've heard the phrase that misery loves company.
You know that phrase to me that when we're suffering, we find some solace in knowing that others are suffering too, whether selfishly or not. For the Lord's table, we come and we proclaim that sinners love company. Not many that we enjoy in our mutual sitting together, but rather we are edified when we confess among one another and two one another into Christ that we are sinners, and our only hope is in Christ. Love and when we partake of the Supper together, we are not merely making professions ourselves, but to one another, confessing that we have the same need for Jesus.
That realization, as I'm sure you've heard it said, that the church is on a museum where perfect people are put on display, but a hospital where those who are weak and weary come together are aware of their sin, and they know the doctor of the soul and the care for the soul. You know, I've asked you to small rule church before coming here in Sardinia, South Carolina. I wonder if you've been there. And if you even know where it is, there are times where I have a hard time even finding on a map.
But what's funny about living in Clerian and County and being from Sumter County is there were oftentimes I would say Sardinia, and they would know what I was talking about. Maybe they grew up there, their grandparents grew up there, but I'd met people who knew where Sardinia was. And there was a rich blessing to be able to sit down and talk about, well, you know, so and so. Or to be able to locate or to be able to match mutual friends or people who were dear to some folks in my congregation.
There was an immediate sense of fellowship whenever we were able to identify that mutual commonality. Sometimes I'd get embarrassing stories. That was always fun to go back and ask my folks about. But something similar happens at the table.
We profess that mutual friend to sinners in Christ. In many ways, it's the crowning jewel of our fellowship together. That we would delight in God's mercy together. That we would proclaim to ourselves and to one another the glories of the grace of God.
I'm a sinner and need of Christ to you too. Fourthly, lastly, I want you to see they devoted themselves to prayer. We should see here that this early church devoted themselves to public prayer, of praying together. There's a recognition of these Christians and really us when we gather to pray together.
That the Lord does not normally bless His church who does not pray. Where there is prayer, there is often blessing. Where there is prayer, there is often revival. Where there is prayer, there is life in the Spirit.
And so we're called to pray. We're commanded to pray. Prayers oftentimes the tip of the spear when it comes to life in ministry of the church. In fact, as we have already considered the Book of Acts, it's likely that such an outpouring of God's blessing such a glories display of God's saving power in not only pouring out His Spirit on believers, but seeing thousands come to saving faith is likely time to their devotees themselves to prayer.
As Christ has ascended to glory, and they got to work doing what God had commanded them to do. As if the apostles or you were I, twist God's arm. We don't have to convince God or show Him something He hasn't considered. But rather we see that as God commands that we pray, and we respond in prayer as Christians, because God has determined that He would even use our prayers to bring about good and glorious things.
And here we see that prayer is likely among God's covenant people, for God's covenant people, and that they are longing to see His will be done. I want you to imagine with me the overwhelming sense of being called to Christ and being a part of this first church. Would they not have been prone to worries and anxieties? Would they not wonder at what the Lord was doing?
Think about my own heart, my own propensity towards sin and worry and anxiety, and here I am two thousand years later. I want you to consider what Dale Ralph Davis says. He says, sometimes the Father may box us in. He may place us in a situation in which one by one all our secondary helps and supports are taken from us and order that defenseless.
We may lean on His mercy alone, prayer. Once we see this, we will no longer regard prayer as a pious cock out, but as our only rational activity. Surely this describes the early church, boxed in, outnumbered, venturing into the unknown, and yet all the more that they knew that they knew their God, and as He revealed with Himself, and made Himself manifest in the personal work of Jesus Christ, they divided themselves prayer. And so friends, let us not neglect our prayer either.
Yet even as we're considering this text tonight, I want to ask this question, how do we handle, or how do we go about fellowship and being a part of the covenant community, even when we're providentially hindered from gathering together? But if this is so vital to the life of the church and so vital to our ministry, you might ask the question, is it ever wise or is it ever right to postpone ministries, or suspend in person worship? This is not the question everyone was asking in 2020 and 2021. I want to encourage you tonight is not answer that question so much and to say, when we should and that we should give ourselves over to wisdom and trust that God will provide, but I want to ask the question of our hearts.
What are our hearts when we are providentially hindered from worship? Do we miss it? Do we long to be reunited and returned to it? Do we ask our most seasoned saints to be long for that day when they are united to God's people in glory?
They long for a fellowship that is pure and perfect and not ending. What happens when we are providentially hindered? Do we long for it? Do we miss it?
You know, about five years ago, maybe a little bit more now, the Barnard Research Group gathered data among churches and Christians. They quietly dropped a bomb that sent some shockwaves through church leaderships and churches around the United States. And what they had observed and what data suggested was that those who identified as faithfully attending church on average attended church two Sundays a month down from three Sundays just a few years before. And this meant that generally speaking, faithful church attendance had dropped in a matter of years by, you know, in a month, 25%.
We may wonder what the Lord is doing here in Acts chapter two and what might be the remedy for what we could call a spiritual epidemic. The fact that people are not so upset, not so missing, gathering together with the covenant community. Oh, Derek Thomas in his commentary on Acts, he asked this question, what can account for the remarkable success of the early church prayer? But he also asked, what makes all this hang together?
What drives God's people to delight in being with one another? What's the driving force that makes those believers free from their possessions and eager to meet needs and to be full of gladness and generosity and praise and prayer when they ate together day after day? He says the key is found in verse 43. Fear or awe as it might be translated in your ESV, came upon every soul.
A joyful trembling sense of awe. And he goes on to say the absence of this fear has a direct effect on the way we go about our fellowship. It's likely a symptom of a heart that has lost the sense of awe concerning God's glory's work of salvation and son Jesus. It's a symptom, but we have lost awe of Christ.
We likely find little joy in fellowshiping with one another. We learn from this portion of the early church that God blesses people with and by means. There are ways that God grants grace to his people by the preaching and study of his word, by the private and public prayer, by the sacraments and fellowshipping together with God's people. And that you catch the effect of these names.
As you hear what was happening because the Lord's church was longing to know Christ and to seek him in prayer and to fellowship in the Lord's Supper, 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, they were being saved. The church we talk a lot about, evangelism strategies. A few evangelism strategies tend to go as well and work as efficiently and effectively, as delighting and fellowshiping with one another and inviting people to partake and taste and see that the Lord is good.
And so when we love and seek Christ through the means, he's appointed. We come to find out that faithfulness is the best evangelism strategy and church growth model that we can ever fathom. You are blessed and strengthened and persevered by the power of the spirit through ordinary, regular and frequent pursuit of Christ with his people, while maybe preaching to the choir and evening worship service. Commit yourselves to the coming community for which you have been saved, to which you belong and that for which Christ died.