the book of Acts Week 5 | March 16, 2024

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey morning everyone. If we've never met before, my name
is Jared, one of the pastors here. Thanks for being
here as we're continuing our deep dive into the Book
of Acts together, a quick recap of what we've talked
about so far. In Acts chapter one, we've seen that
Jesus has risen from the dead. He has appeared to
his disciples. He has given them many convincing proofs that

(00:20):
he indeed has risen. We saw him ascending into heaven,
his disciples witnessing this. But before he did, he told
him that you're going to build my church, but not
by your own strength. I need you to stay here
in Jerusalem until the promised Holy Spirit arrives. And so
we see the disciples sort of kind of saying, put,
fifty days after the Passover, fifty days after Jesus was crucified,

(00:44):
there's a feast of Pentecost, the feast of Weeks, and
at this time all kinds of people from all over
the place had come to Jerusalem to celebrate that, so
people from all walks of life, different cultures, different languages.
At this time, the Holy Spirit comes and the disciples
start talking about the good use of Jesus Christ in
all types of different languages, so everyone there heard the
good news of Jesus in their own native tongue. Last

(01:08):
week we saw Peter's sermon. This curious thing really got
people's interests, and so all these people are gathered around
Peter gives the very first sermon of the early Church.
As we looked at last week and today in our text,
we see that the early Church is now starting to
take shape and form because people are responding to what

(01:31):
they heard Peter talking about. The early Church is taking shape.
In our text day, what we find is a brief
description of the foundational practices that the church did very well.
We see what types of spiritual disciplines the early Church prioritized,
and on top of that, we find a description of

(01:51):
the results of what happened because of these spiritual disciplines,
what came to pass because of the foundational practices of
the early churches church. So that's going to kind of
serve as our outline today, the habits of the early
Church and the results of those habits. We're gonna do
things a little bit backwards, though, We're going to reverse

(02:12):
that order. As we're examining our text, we're going to
look at the results first, and then we're going to
back up and we're going to see, Okay, so what
habits came from or the results made those results. So
our big idea for our time together today, what we're
considering for our own lives determining how we can apply
this is as followings, who we become as a church

(02:33):
is directly linked to the spiritual disciplines that we prioritize.
Who we become as a church is directly linked to
the spiritual disciplines we prioritize. Said more simply, who we
become is the result of what we regularly do. That's
pretty much true in any arena of our life. It's
certainly true of who we are as a faith community

(02:55):
as well. So that's what we're struggling with, wrestling with
applying to our lives today. As we're for prear to
do that, let's first pause and pray, Heavenly Father, thank
you for another day on this earth. Thank you for
the people that you allow us to do life with.
Thank You for making the hope of Jesus Christ known
to us, for letting it come to us in a

(03:18):
way that we can understand. As we see in our
text today, help me to continue to transform us. Lord,
help us to put our hope not just that you
can provide a salvation into eternity, but that you can
provide purpose and meaning, and that eternal life has started
right now. So help us to live out our salvation
even in this moment. I'll pray for anyone who is

(03:41):
struggling in this moment, anyone who's distracted. Help us just
to tune all that out, and just to be fully
present with you as in your precious no only name.
We pray these things, amen. So first, let's look at
the results. What happened because of the habits of the
early church. Verse forty four says this, All the believers

(04:02):
were together. They had everything in common. They sold property
and possessions to give it anyone who had need. Every
day they continue to meet together in the temple courts.
They broke bread in their homes. They ate together with
glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor
of all people. And the Lord added to their number
daily those who were being saved. There's three results that

(04:22):
I want to sort of zoom in on that's included
in our text today. One of the results is that
there's a strong sense of unity that has been cultivated
there in the early Church. There's a radical selflessness, a
radical generosity that was existing between people. And lastly, people
outside of the church were noticing this and responding. So

(04:48):
let's quickly zoom in on each of these. Let's first
look at the unity of the early Church. In these
four verses, Verses forty four through forty seven, the word
together appears three times. All the believers were together, they
continue to meet together, they broke red in their homes,
they ate together. Luke is going out of his way
to emphasize this fact about the early Church, and the

(05:10):
question is why why is he emphasizing this. Let's remember
what we just mentioned. These are vastly different people. These
are people that have come to Jerusalem for the feast
of Pentecost. All of a sudden, this weird thing happens.
They hear the sermon, they're cut to the heart, and
they put their faith in Jesus. And now all these
people from all types of different backgrounds are now trying

(05:31):
to figure out, Hey, we're unified under the banner of
Jesus Christ. Verse forty one. Those who accepted his message
were baptized. About three thousand were added to their number
that day. Peter's sermon was directed at a very diverse group,
and that diverse group is who has become the early Church.
In our text today, all the believers were together. They

(05:57):
continue to meet together, better than their homes that ate together.
These are people from all over the place, from different cultures,
different backgrounds, every different walk of life. These are extremely
diverse people to the original audience of the Book of Acts.
To the original reader of the book, this would have
been an extremely surprising and shocking sort of sort of
truth that's being communicated. To have people who were so

(06:21):
blatantly different living with each other in unity in equality.
This was not a normal occurrence in the ancient world.
In fact, according to historian Ken Scott Latorette, the unity
within diversity that existed here in the early Church. This
may have been one of the reasons, even the one
of the primary reasons that Christianity spread so quickly. Lazarette says,

(06:44):
more than any of its competitors, Christianity welcomed all races
and classes. Judaism never quite broke free from its racial bonds. Christianity, however,
gloried in its appeal to jew and Gentile, Greek and Barbarian.
The Roman philosophi has never really won the allegiance of
the masses. They appealed primarily to the educated, the moral,
and socially cultured. Christianity drew the lonely the unlettered. He

(07:04):
had also developed a philosophy of its own which commanded
the respect of the educated. Christianity was for both sexes,
where its main rivals were primarily for men. Christianity welcomed
the rich and the poor. No other religion took in
so many groups and strata of society. In other words,
this unity within diversity was one of the most noticeable
and attractive qualities of the early Church. Unlike the world

(07:30):
around them, Followers of Jesus, they weren't closed off. They
weren't condescending, they weren't dehumanizing towards those who are different
than them. They were welcoming. They were accommodating friends. Two
thousand years later, we have the exact same opportunity to

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be an attractive alternative to the way of the world.
Two thousand years later, not a whole lot has changed
in our modern society. There are still strongholds of bigotry
and prejudice and division. A lot of people who hold

(08:12):
these sort of mindsets towards those who are different. They're
blind to it. They don't even know that there's these
strongholds in their heart. And a lot of times these
are motivated by greed. They want more power, they want
more money, they want more control. They just want more comfort.
I just want to be comfortable. Be a lot easier
if I just didn't interact with this segment of society.
On the other side of the aisle, you have people

(08:36):
that will bang the drump for the importance of diversity
and understanding, for compassionate love, for tolerance, and then few
so the most hateful and divisive words towards anyone who
thinks differently than they do. This blatant hypocrisy they're completely

(08:57):
blind to. They don't know that they're song the brands
that they're sitting on. In the marketplace, you have companies
that will pander for business by claiming the value diversity,
but it's just a marketing strategy. They have ads with
diverse looking people, they have certain catchphrases, but they're just

(09:18):
trying to sell you soda. They're trying to sell you
razor blades. They've done their market research, they know their
target demographic. You have pockets a division still today. Even
though this idea of diversity is much more normalized in
our world today than it was in the ancient world.
Even though that's true, we are still just as segmented,

(09:39):
just as divided, and in our segmentation, in our division,
we all have justifications for it. We all moralize it.
We all talk about why those people over there are
not worth our time. No matter what side of the
aisle you're on, it's us versus them. The world is

(09:59):
fractured and divided, and that is a universal truth of
our society today. This is the water that we are
swimming in. So do you see the opportunity that we
have to be a noticeable and attractive difference to that?
What an opportunity that we have to say, this is
what God's kingdom is about. Can you imagine what could

(10:22):
happen if you and I, if the church, if we
weren't like this, if we didn't just simply talk the talk,
if we rooted out the pockets of hate in our
own hearts, regardless of what ideology politically we have, if
we just took a hard, look in the mirror and said, Lord,
show me where I am filled with hate? What would

(10:49):
happen if we didn't simply just tolerate each other in
this room, but we actually learned how to understand and
even appreciate the differences that we have when it comes
to the incendiary and off limits topics of our world today.
What would happen if we didn't just keep each other

(11:10):
at arm's length, or if we sort of we don't
keep each other's arms leathst What we typically do is
we just kind of surround ourselves with people who think
that we do so we can have those conversations. What
would happen if we didn't do that? What would be
happened if we were brave enough to have hard conversations
and listen? And the reason we did that is because

(11:32):
we are surrendering our right to be in control to
Jesus Christ. What if we'd imagined what the coming kingdom
was like and then we laid down all of the
things that we think are not of the kingdom? What
might happen? What flight noticeable and attractive alternative? What might
we become to having these things out of bounds? What

(12:00):
might happen if we took more and more steps to
understand and listen, these are the things I wonder. The
first result that came from the habits of the early
Church was unity within, diversity and friends. I've never been
more optimistic than I am right now that God's kingdom

(12:21):
could be made known if people would surrender themselves to
the way of Jesus. The second result of the early
Church's habits was radical selflessness and generosity towards each other.
Verse forty four says all the believers were together. They
had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to
give that anyone who had need. In our dining room,
on the wall above our windows, there's a Bible verse

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that I inspire to try to inhabit with those who
are sitting around my table, whether they're a family member
or a guest. It's first Thessalonians two eight says, we
loved you so much that we shared with you not
only the gospel, but our lives too. And this is
a great reminder to me that I can't claim to
be kingdom minded if I don't share the good news

(13:03):
of Jesus with others with my words and with my actions.
The good news of Christ, who Jesus is, must be
evident in the way that I treat people with my resources,
how much of my time, my money that I freely share.
In fact, Jesus himself indicates that this is how his

(13:24):
kingdom is announced. John thirteen thirty five the words of Christ.
Your love for one another will prove to the world
that you're my disciples. Friends. Hear me on this. To
the extent that you're willing to share what you have,
that's the extent that your love is limited. Like the
extent that I'm willing to love someone is shown by

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the extent that I'm willing to freely share with them
whatever that is. If it's my time, if it's a
listening ear, if it's my resources, I can claim to
love someone, but I display that love by my willingness
to share. I don't think there's a clearer and more
compelling picture of a transformed life, a life characterized by love,

(14:12):
a life given over to knowing and following Jesus, than
radical generosity. You already know this, but left to our
own devices, you and I, we will quickly devolve. We
will spiral down into people who are self focused, self involved,
self centered of all the things that you have to
teach a kid. Teaching them to hold on to their

(14:33):
own stuff is not one of them. They get that
one just fine on their own. You and I we
were saved by the radical generosity of Jesus Christ. The
only reason that we have hope in God's coming kingdom
is because of the radical generosity of Jesus Christ. And
to surrender our lives who is kingdom means that we

(14:55):
are welcoming that same radical generosity to show up and
well up in us. I cannot claim that Jesus is
my king if I'm unwilling to live the way that
he lived. Here's why I think we have to keep
in mind. Jesus was not a simpleton. He was not naive.

(15:20):
Jesus has It's some like beloved character in literature, like
Forrest Gump, who people find in endearing because he's just
so blissfully unaware of how the world works. Jesus's radical
generosity to you is not a product of his eyes
being closed to his best life. Jesus's radical generosity to

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you is not a product of him being blinded to
his best life. It's his eyes being wide open to
this is the best way for a person to live.
Jesus is a perfect representation of God's plan for humanity.
When God dreamt humans in to existence, this is what

(16:01):
he had in mind, the person of Jesus. Jesus is
what a healthy and functional human looks like. So what
we're doing as a church when we link arms together
as we're allowing the Holy Spirit to work in our

(16:23):
hearts so that we can escape the tyranny and the
slavery of our own self centeredness. We are allowing the
Holy Spirit to root out those pockets in our heart
so that we can live the way that God's intended
a human to live. See what the early Church realizes,
how they treat each other, that's a direct reflection of

(16:44):
their love for Jesus. Being radically generous to them is
an act of worship that was worship at the end
of his earthly ministry. In Matthew twenty five, we find Jesus
saying this, come, you are blessed by my Father inherit
the kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world.
I was hungry. You fed me. I was thirsty. You
gave me a drink. I was a stranger. You invited
me into your home. I was naked, you gave me clothing.

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I was sick, You cared for me. I was in prison,
you visited me. I tell you the truth. When you
did these things to one of the least of these
my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me.
Radical generosity is worship. When you were doing these things,
you were doing it to me. In a way, we

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can think about like this, the unity of the early Church,
like surrendering who they were and their right to be
in control over to the rule and realm of Jesus Christ.
The unity of the early Church. This resulted in love,
and this love spiraled into generosity towards radical selflessness. These

(17:52):
two things were like a blatant example of God's kingdom
is like this, and that was a strange occurrence to
people of deserving it, and that laid the foundation for
the third result. In our text today, verse forty seven,
the Lord added to their number daily those who were
being saved. People weren't coming to Jesus because, man, did
you hear Peter sermon? It was really really good? Did

(18:17):
you hear the quality of that worship music? My God?
It was They had like lights and fog. It was awesome.
It wasn't man, they gave me such really good ontological
arguments about the existence of God. It was do you
see these people over here? They say they love and

(18:40):
they prove it by the way they live. This is weird.
I need to know more about what is fueling that activity.
People outside the church noticed they were responding to the
good News because it was such an attractive alternative to
the way of the world. They were they were radically generous.

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Those were the results. So with that being said, let's
turn our attention to the spiritual disciplines that laid these results.
Before we say anything, I want to make this clear.
The Holy Spirit is the power source. It's not like
because the early Church did these things, then by definition
they willed this stuff into existence. The Holy Spirit is
the power source for all transformations. But that doesn't mean

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that we don't have a role to play in tapping
into that power source. As he studied last year, there
are four habits that the early Church employed which tuned
themselves into the presence of God. Acts two forty two
is our central verse for twenty twenty four. As a
church excelling in these four spiritual disciplines, was was our
spiritual goal for our faith community. Last year and today

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we're revisiting these, We're reevaluating where where are we at,
where do we need to be? Where do we aspire
to be as a church? Acts two forty two, they
devoted themselves to the Apostles, teaching, to fellowship, to the
breaking of bread into prayer. Again, please don't mishear me.
I'm not trying to say these are the four ingredients

(20:05):
that we thrown to the potastu poof like everything happens.
I'm saying, these are the four ways that the early
Church said, we're going to prioritize living like this because
we want to be aware of the presence of God
among us. First, the early Church to devote themselves to
the Apostles teaching. At this time, the Bible as we
know it didn't exist right In particular, there was no
New Testament. This book is a part of the New Testament,

(20:27):
so they couldn't be reading a book that they were
living instead the Apostles. What they were mostly doing is
showing how Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of the prophesied
Messiah from the Old Testament. They told people this is
what he said, this is what he did, this is
what was written in scripture. They're just making those connections.
This is Jesus Christ, the Messiah. Eventually, these teachings of

(20:51):
the Apostles, these oral traditions, they were written down into
what we now call the Gospels. On top of that,
as this Christian kind of spread to different regions of
the world, the apostles would write letters to these churches
addressing certain things. Those things were kept, and slowly but
surely the apostles teaching became preserved in written form and
something that we now call the New Testament. So when

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it says the early Church devoted themselves the apostles teaching,
what it's basically saying is the early Church devoted themselves
to understanding the Old Testament, scriptures, the life of Jesus,
and how these things were perfectly in line with one another.
They devoted themselves to knowing this is the Messiah. They
devote themselves to studying the Old Testament, to understanding who

(21:36):
Jesus says is to what he's done, And they wrote
down their findings, their eyewitness accounts for us today so
that we can do the same thing, to know and
follow Jesus, each of us as individuals must develop and
maintain a similar rhythm of engaging with the story of
the Bible. We must be people who prioritize scripture. But

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for some of us, that looks like a Bible reading plan, like, hey,
and I needed to get this much of the Bible read.
Maybe to you that's a helpful thing. Maybe to you
that's like, that's like gonna take me off the deep
end inspirally into self sinneredness because I have to be
in control. You might be a person I just need
to spend twenty minutes a day in the Bible, and
how far I get is how far I get. I'm
just gonna I'm gonna meditate on this. Maybe a daily

(22:18):
devotion is a helpful tool to you. Maybe a podcast.
There's lots of podcasts that are helpful for us understanding
the story of scripture. Maybe for you that's like a
lame excuse to not read the Bible. I don't know.
The point is, it doesn't matter what the actual tool is.
It matters that we are engaging with the story of
the Bible. Author and Bible teacher Jim Wilkin puts it

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like this, we cannot make a study of our God
or we must make a study of our God, what
he loves, what he hates, how he speaks, how he acts.
We cannot imitate the God, whose features and habits we've
never learned. We must make a study of him if
we want to become like him. If I want to
know and follow Jesus, I must know who Jesus is,

(22:59):
what he is like, and then do the same things.
I can't have an idea of Jesus and then follow that.
I have to submit myself over to the study of
scripture so that I know what the story is, so
I know who the Messiah is, so I know the
types of things that he has done. Within scripture itself,

(23:19):
we read this. Everything that was written in the past
was written to teach us, so that through the endurance
taught in the scripture, the encouragement they provide, we can
have hope. It's Romans fifteen to four two Timothy three.
All scripture as God breathe. It's useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training,
and righteousness, so that the servant of God may be
a thoroughly equipped for every good work. It sounds pretty simple,
what I think of these? We said, as followers of Christ.

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We must invest ourselves into knowing scripture so that we
know God. Secondly, the Early Church devoted themselves to fellowship.
The word for fellowship here is koynania. This word is
used throughout the New Testament to describe like a local church,
a faith community similar to coin to another church. In

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other words, the early Church was devoted to meeting together
regularly as a large group so that they could worship
God together. This is like their version of a Sunday
morning gathering and our day and age. It's really easy
to access online content so that we just talked about,
it's really easy to learn. You can go online right
now and listen to a sermon that's better than anything
I could ever preach, some person that's more gifted. Whatever

(24:27):
you go online, you can go into Spotify listen to
worship music that's way better than anything that Matt could
ever play. That's just as helpful as it is harmful
for us. It's helpful because it's good to have access
to quality stuff. It's harmful because we can mistake that
for the church. I can just sit in my house
with my doors locked, my blinds down. I can just

(24:49):
me and Jesus and we don't see anywhere in the
Bible that that is the story of God's kingdom coming
to bear on the earth. It's true that we need
to learn about God, but we can't stop at learning
about God. We don't just know Jesus. We know and
follow him. Learning is not the primary reason that you

(25:10):
and I gather together on a Sunday. It's to worship
God together. It's to take Jesus at his word. In
Matthew eighteen twenty, this weird versus like, I don't even
know how that works out. But where two or three
are gathered in my name, there I am with him.
What does that mean? Exactly precisely. There's some sort of
spiritually significant thing that is occurring because we have chosen
to be together this morning. There's some manifestation of God's

(25:33):
presence that is here because we've chosen to be here.
I cannot nail that down. I don't know, but I
take God of this word. I take Jesus at his word.
That is true. Being present with each other matters. It
matters to Jesus. If we're going to be an attractive

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alternat through the way of the world, it matters. There.
We can't really be unified. If we're not together, we
must prioritize the Sunday morning gathering. For some of us,
it just means making an intentional effort to get up earlier,
to just get here on time, Get here early so
that you can pray and hang out with people and
talk to them, to not treat the Sunday morning gathering

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as like an event, but as a time of spiritual
manifestation of God. For others, it's I have to modify
my travel schedule so I can be here more often.
For others, it's I need to serve in metro kids
so that I feel like I'm participating more. I'm not
just showing up, but I have an active hand in
the discipleship of the next generation. Again, the house is
different for all of us. It does not matter. But

(26:40):
what does matter is the attitude that we have towards
us and participating together. Like, what is my attitude towards that?
Is it? If I really pull on that thread enough,
it's like, this is just a good religious thing to
do because that's how I grew up. Or is it
I believe that Jesus really is the king of the universe,
and I'm going to submit myself to his rule, even

(27:01):
in the ways that I can't fully like flush out
and like understand, and then like I don't know exactly
the significance of some things, I'm going to do it
because Jesus is the king. The early Church was the
voted the breaking of bread. Now, certainly that phrase carries
with it this image of communion, but just as importantly

(27:21):
he also carries the image of just a meal of
table fellowship. I think about like this, If Cornandia is
like this large group gathering, then the breaking of bread
is a smaller gathering of people. Within that large group,
there's three thousand people. The breaking of bread is like
smaller subsets of that group cultivating relationships with each other. Again,
the tendency sometimes is when we make those smaller groups

(27:43):
that we like become very sort of like uniform in
that instead of like, no, we're making smaller groups so
that we can continue to manifest the kingdom. Look again
at verse forty six says, every day they continue to
meet together in the temple courts, there's a large group
gathering that it's Corninitia. They broke in their homes, so
they met together in the temple courts. They broke bed

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in their homes. These are smaller and more intimate settings
where people could know and be known by each other.
The picture of accountability, of encouragement, the setting for confession,
for celebration. I'm sure this is just people doing life together.

(28:24):
This is the arena where radical generosity probably showed up
the most. I know you, I know what your needs are,
and I'll share with you. This is probably the arena
where these hard conversations are happening the most. Why in
the world do you think like that help me to
understand what am I not seeing? These are the arenas

(28:46):
where the division walls come down. As a church, I
think we do a pretty good job of living in community,
of value in community. But I think there's always room
for us to grow. For some of these, maybe joining
a missional community would be helpful for you. Others, maybe
it's just going out of your way to connect with
a few people on a weekly basis, going out for coffee,

(29:08):
studying the Bible together, having people over to your house
for a meal on a regular basis, working out with
someone from the church. The point is we have to
share who we are with others. That's the arena or
radical generosity and hard conversations occur. Lastly, the early Church

(29:29):
was devoted to prayer. To know and follow Jesus, we
must be people who faithfully spend time each day with
God speaking to Him, making ourselves available for you. Maybe
you just need to do a better job of showing up,
just making that time, setting aside that time for God
speaking to him. Others, maybe it's just you need to
do a better job of was listening, just sitting silently

(29:49):
in his presence, knowing that he is God. Some people
you need to sit in a sort of a quiet room.
Others you need to just get out and go for
a walk in nature. Again, the details completely up to you.
What are we people that are tuning ourselves into the
dwell and get through the Holy Spirit with us listening
to the Lord speaking? Are our heart or we just

(30:11):
sort of like saying, well, that's a truth about me.
I'm glad I have the Holy Spirit, so like when
Jesus comes again or whatever, when I die, I get
to go to heaven. Or is it more like, if
I believe this stuff, I have access to the eternal
life that I've than promise through the Holy Spirit right now,
whatever the details are, we must commit ourselves to a

(30:32):
regular rhythm of prayer, submitting ourselves to the rule and
reign of Christ. I don't think that we can be
a noticeable alternative to the way of the world if
we don't habitually practice being in the presence of God,
submitting ourselves to the rule of God. We do that
through scripture, reading, through prayer, through being together, through submitting

(30:55):
our our lives to His kingdom, and then figuring out
how to live in unity with each other. Again, we
don't do any of that because that is the magic
formula that proof our wildest dreams come true if you
study the Bible enough. It's not that we do it

(31:16):
because we want it to be tuned into the presence
of the Holy Spirit. It's only through the finished work
of Jesus Christ that we are rescue for the dominion
of sin and death. And it's only through the indwelling
and gift of the Holy Spirit that we are transformed
into the likeness of Christ. That's true, as individuals and
as a church. Who we become is directly linked to
what we regularly do. If I regularly spend time with God,

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then I should expect to be transformed more and more
into the image of Jesus. So the moment we're gonna
take communion together, we're gonna be remind of the truth
of who Jesus is and what he's done. As we
take the elements together, we're gonna be mindful that the
Holy Spirit is at work among us. He is manifested
among us in a unique spiritual way right now. But

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as we're preparing to do that, we're first gonna have
some time for some individual reflection. So last year Acts
two forty two is our main verse. Let's just say, Okay,
as I'm thinking about where I'm at now, which one
of these four spiritual disciplines where am I excelling like?
Which one I think, Hey, I'm actually doing pretty good.
What sort of fruit have I seen in my life
as a result that could be linked to that? Which

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spiritual discipline am I still just sort of like punting
my just kicking down the road for later. What's keeping
me from that? Just spend time meditating on that, and
then we'll come back together and take community