Church: The Embodiment of the Gospel: Sunday, March 16, 2008

Church: The Embodiment of the Gospel

Acts 2: 42 – 47

I. Introduction.

Over the past week, I have read a couple of articles and surveys about church participation in the United States. I don’t think any of you will be surprised to hear me say that the majority of people in our country—and the majority of people in our city for that matter—do not attend church. But perhaps you will be surprised to learn that a 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and the Public Life has found that 44% of adult Americans have changed their religious affiliations. In other words, 44% of all adults who grew up in church have changed denominations or have changed to a different religious faith altogether. According to the survey, the fastest growing religious affiliation in America right now is “Unaffiliated.” In fact, if you consider Unaffiliated as a separate religion, Unaffiliated is the fourth largest religion in America today.

Consider for a moment what the implications of this survey might be for Lufkin’s First Baptist Church. If we do a great job of having babies and rearing our children in the church, the best we can hope for is retaining 56% in our church or another Baptist church. Of course, not all of Baptists on the church roles actually come to church. In my experience, Baptist church membership is usually about three times larger than attendance. If those numbers continue to be true, then we can look forward to approximately 19% of our own children remaining committed to our church or another Baptist church. That is about one out of every five of our children.

Now consider this. A 1999 Gallup poll determined that one-fourth of all unchurched people would be willing to attend church with a friend who invited them. The term “unchurched” is a very broad term. It refers to people who have never belonged to any religious organization as well as people who went to church as children but dropped out of church as adults. For the sake of argument, let’s say it refers to our friends, family members and neighbors. If people in Lufkin, Texas are average people, then one-fourth of all our friends, family members and neighbors are willing to come to church with us if they are invited. If my math is correct, that tells us there are about 8,000 people at home in Lufkin this morning, because no one invited them to come to church.

I have been talking about statistics this morning. One survey from 2007 and one survey from 1999. We may choose to believe these statistics or come up with reasons why they may not apply in our part of East Texas. I simply do not know if this is true in Lufkin. It might be true. It might not be true. I don’t know. But there is something I do know. I know that God has given us a mission as a church to preach the Gospel message. Through the power and presence of God’s Holy Spirit, we are supposed to give others the opportunity to place their faith in Jesus Christ as Lord. If the statistics are true, then we are not doing a very good job.

We are not retaining our own children when they become adults. We are not inviting our friends, family members and neighbors to come to church with us. If they are not coming to church, how will they hear the Gospel? We know the Gospel will be preached in church.

Last week, we read the story of the church’s birthday. It was on the day of Pentecost. Jesus instructed his disciples to remain in Jerusalem until the gift of the Holy Spirit came. The disciples obeyed. When the Holy Spirit was poured out, something miraculous happened. The disciples—who were once so frightened they could not stand up with Jesus—were now empowered with supernatural power to preach the Gospel to their friends, family members and neighbors. But what happened next? What happened when the disciples stopped preaching?

Read Acts 2: 42 – 47.

Have you ever experienced a spiritually high moment? Have you ever had a moment when you felt God working in your life and leading you in fresh, powerful ways? Maybe it happened while you were at youth camp. Maybe you were in an old fashioned revival meeting. Maybe you were in the middle of a giant decision, and God gave you unusual wisdom to make the right choice. This is what happened to the disciples when the Holy Spirit was poured out on them.

But there is a difference between what the disciples experienced and what you and I experienced in our spiritual high moments. You and I go through various periods of highs and lows. One moment we feel closer to God than at any other moment of our lives. The next moment, we come crashing down to earth and the real world. We have grown so accustomed to moments like these that we no longer expect our “enthusiasm” to last forever. We watch others—sometimes a new Christian, sometimes a teenager coming home from youth camp—with a skeptic’s eye. We don’t expect “enthusiasm” to last forever.

Do you know what the word “enthusiasm” means? It comes from two Greek words: “en” and “theos.” The Greek word “en” is similar to our English word “in.” The Greek word “theos” means God. To say that a person is “enthusiastic” is to say that people is literally “filled with God.”

Immediately after the story of Pentecost, Luke goes to great lengths to show us how the early Christians maintained their “enthusiasm.” Yes, they were “enthusiastic” on the day of Pentecost. But they were also “filled with God” from that moment on. Their “enthusiasm” took on new meaning and demonstrated itself in a new kind of community. The new community is the church. And, the church is always “filled with God.”

II. The Apostles’ Teachings.

The first way the church demonstrated that they were “filled with God” is the way they devoted themselves to the Apostles’ teachings.

Before the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, there were 12 Apostles and a total of 120 Christians. All of these people had lived with Jesus. The Apostles had sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to all his teachings. The rest of the Christians had followed Jesus in the crowds, witnessing all the miracles and learning from Jesus’ public sermons. They knew what Jesus had stood for and what he had come to accomplish in his death and resurrection.

After the Holy Spirit came, over 3,000 new believers committed their lives to Jesus as Lord. These people did not have the same kind of knowledge and understanding about what Jesus had done for them. Therefore, it was now necessary for the 12 Apostles to share what they knew about Jesus with others.

The most important thing we can say about the Apostles’ Teaching, is to say that they were teaching others what Jesus had taught them. The Apostles were not making up new teachings to share with the new believers. They were giving others what Jesus had first given them.
In the Twenty-First Century, this is the same thing as teaching the Bible. We teach the Bible, because the Bible is God’s Word. It contains the teachings of Jesus passed down to his Apostles, who in turn wrote it down so that we can know what Jesus has done for us.



III. The Fellowship.

The church was also devoted to a new kind of fellowship. This is the Greek word “Koinonia.” It refers to fellowship in the sense of Christian brothers and sisters relating to each other through the love of Christ. The heart of the word “Koinonia” is the Greek word “koinos,” which means common. In other words, these new Christians had something in common with the original 12 Apostles and the original 120 Christians.

I find it noteworthy that Luke does not say the early church was committed to “fellowship.” He says they were committed to “THE fellowship.” There is something different, something unique about the fellowship these Christians shared with one another. For me, I have always associated fellowship with the church. And, I have always associated church fellowships with pimento and cheese sandwiches with the crust cut off. That might be “a fellowship,” but it is not “THE fellowship” Luke was talking about in this passage.

THE fellowship is the significant bond we share with each other that can only come as a result of our relationship with Jesus. When a man or woman places their faith in Jesus, something supernatural occurs. At the moment we profess our faith, God places his Holy Spirit in us to begin the work of shaping us into the image of Jesus. When a group of people whom God is shaping to become like Jesus get together in the church, God begins to work on that church. God shapes that community of believers into the image of Jesus. Just as God is working on you and me as individuals to make us more like Jesus, so God is working on our church to make us more like Jesus.

THE fellowship of Christian brothers and sisters is different from the community life on non-Christians. God is forming us into a community like no other. He is placing in us the same loves and desires that Jesus demonstrated in his life. THE fellowship we experience is a missional experience. Sure, we like to hang out with each other and laugh together. But, we also feel called—even compelled by God—to meet the needs of the world around us and to share the life-changing message of the cross.

IV. The Breaking of Bread.

There is no better place to see community life in action than to observe people who are eating together. Some have interpreted this as a reference to the Lord’s Supper—the act of eating bread and drinking wine (or grape juice) in remembrance of Jesus’ sacrificial death. Others interpret this as simply sharing food together. I prefer to think of this as simply sharing a meal together.

We believe the book of Acts is the second volume of Luke’s account of Christianity. The first volume is the Gospel According to Luke. One of the many consistent themes in the Gospel According to Luke is the criticism Jesus faced as a result of his eating habits. In Luke, Jesus rarely ate supper with good, religious people. Most of the time, Luke tells us that Jesus ate supper with tax collectors and sinners. The religious folks did not like this, because it was against their customs to eat with people who were different from them. Jesus broke the religious and cultural norms of his day by sharing his meals with “undesirable” people.

Some of you are old enough to remember the civil unrest in our country during the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s. One aspect of the Civil Rights movement related to the restaurants and lunch counters in our country. The burning question of the day was: Should black men and women be allowed to eat with white people? The reason this was such an issue is because sharing a meal with another person is like saying we consider that person our equal. All social barriers are broken down when people sit shoulder to shoulder at the same table.

I find it remarkable that the 120 Jewish men and women who made up the very first Christians were comfortable eating at the same table with foreigners. They abandoned their Jewish, social norms in favor of a new kind of community where all who believe in Jesus are considered equal.

V. The Prayers.

Literally, Luke tells us the new community was devoted to “THE prayers.” This leads many scholars to interpret this as reference to the official Jewish practice of religion. In other words, the church abandoned their traditional social norms but did not abandon the worship of God in the Temple. In fact, we will continue to see the Apostles teaching and preaching in the Temple and showing how Jesus is the fulfillment of everything the Jews had been hoping for in the Old Testament.

That is a great historical fact, but it does not translate very well to our Twenty-First Century American, Christian lives. What does translate is the way the early Christians were committed to the power of God that is only possible through prayer.

What do you think about people who pray? Some people think prayer is a sign of weakness. They think people who pray cannot take care of their own needs under their own power and abilities. These people are exactly right. This is why we pray. We pray, because we need God. We pray, because we cannot make it on our own power and abilities. We pray in order to express our total dependence on God for even our smallest needs. Without God and his power, we can do nothing.

VI. Selling Their Possessions, They Gave…

This is a source of great debate. Among many theologians, there is a belief that the early church practiced a form of socialism. They claim that individual church members did not own property. They think this is God’s ideal for us, even today.

I do not subscribe to this interpretation. In fact, there is evidence here that Luke did not want to communicate this kind of shared property. Luke described the church’s action by using a Greek Imperfect tense. The Imperfect tense is translated as “continuous action in past time.” In other words, we can translate this as “they kept on selling their possessions to give to those in need.”

The best way to describe what the Christians were doing here is to compare it with stewardship. They used their personal possessions and their personal wealth in ways that demonstrated the life of Jesus. They gave to those in need, and they gave to advance the Kingdom of God missionally.

VII. Conclusion: The Favor of All the People.

When a church is “filled with God,” it will demonstrate an integrated understanding of the Gospel. The Gospel is not something that we talk about. The Gospel is something we live out daily. The end result is the church begins to get a reputation in the community. People should see what we do and the ways we live our lives and be attracted to our church.

If people outside our church do not see us living out the Gospel in our daily lives, they will not want to be a part of what we are doing. Outsiders will view us as hypocrites who say one thing and live another.