The Work of the Church

The Work of the Church
Acts 2: 42 – 47.


I. Introduction.

I spent Monday through Wednesday of this week at Camp Buckner in the Texas Hill Country. Camp Buckner is a retreat facility owned and operated by Buckner International—a ministry our church works with to serve orphans and vulnerable children around the world. We have worked with them in ministries here in Lufkin, and we are working with them in Ethiopia.

The retreat began on Monday night, so I planned to drive from Lufkin to Burnet on Monday afternoon. But, on Sunday night, an interesting thing happened. Dr. Sid Roberts (from our church) called me to ask a huge favor. He needed to borrow my truck for a couple of days to move some furniture. I told him that I don’t mind his borrowing my truck, but I was planning to drive to Burnet for the retreat. He said, “If you will let me drive your truck to Dallas, I will let you drive my convertible to Burnet.”

Do you remember what the weather was like on Monday? It was probably the most perfect day of 2010—Fall-like temperatures and a clear sky. So, I drove a sporty convertible from Lufkin to Burnet with the top down the entire way. That’s a little over four hours on the road.

I told my sons that I was going to drive up at the pastors’ retreat in a convertible, and all the pastors would say, “Andy, if you ever want to leave Lufkin, I hope you will recommend me as their next pastor.” But, that’s not what happened.

It was a beautiful day. I drove on two-lane Texas highways with the sun on my face and the wind in my hair. But, nobody told me you need to wear sunscreen when you drive a convertible for four hours!

I showed up at the pastors’ retreat with a sunburn on my face and “raccoon eyes,” because I was wearing sunglasses. The first person I saw at the camp said, “That’s not your convertible. Everyone who drives a convertible knows you have to wear sunscreen.”

Buckner invited 20 pastors from around Texas to participate in a pastors’ retreat. It was quite an honor to be one of 20 pastors invited to the retreat. However, I do not believe it reflects on me as one of the top twenty pastors in Texas. Rather, I think it reflects on you as a church. I was invited to participate, because Buckner recognizes Lufkin’s First Baptist Church as a valuable ministry partner. Our church’s work with Buckner began before I was your pastor.

Each day, we heard presentations from Buckner ministers describing Buckner ministries in Texas and around the world. We also heard presentations from Jim Denison about what is taking place spiritually around the world.

Did you know that the Christian faith is growing faster today than at any other time in history? The people who study the growth and spread of religions estimate that at least 82,000 people are becoming Christians every day. That is the lowest estimate. Some people estimate that the number is over 200,000 new Christians every day.

Of course, some of us hear those statistics and have our doubts. We are not experiencing that kind of spiritual growth and spiritual awakening in Lufkin, Texas. How can we say that Christianity is growing faster today than at any other time in history when we can’t see it happening in our own community? There are two answers…

First, there is a spiritual awakening taking place in Africa, Asia, Australia and South America. But, there is no spiritual awakening taking place in Europe and North America. For example, there are 82,000 people becoming Christians every day around the world. BUT, only 6,000 people become Christians every day in Europe and North America COMBINED. (That is to say, approximately 7% of all new Christians live in Europe and North America.)

Second, spiritual awakening happens when we adopt a biblical view of God. The Bible teaches us that God wants to be our King. When the church teaches the culture that God is our King, spiritual awakening takes place. But, that is not happening in the United States of America. In our country, we don’t like to talk about God as our King. We prefer to talk about God as our hobby. In the cultures where the church proclaims God as King, Christianity is growing at unprecedented rates. In the cultures where the church proclaims God as our hobby, Islam is growing faster than Christianity.

This reminds me of the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2. We can describe Pentecost in two ways. On one hand, it was the day Jesus sent the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, it was the birthday of the Christian church.

After the resurrection, Jesus spent forty days with his disciples. In these forty days, Jesus reminded the disciples of everything he had taught them during his earthly ministry. Jesus also instructed the disciples in their new roles—they were to continue the work Jesus began. When Jesus ascended into Heaven, Jesus would send them the Holy Spirit to be present in their lives and to be their source of Power to perform the same kinds of work Jesus performed in his earthly life. But…Jesus told his disciples to wait. They were not supposed to go to work until they were filled with the Holy Spirit.

The disciples obeyed Jesus. After Jesus ascended into Heaven, the disciples waited in Jerusalem for another 10 days. After 10 days, the Holy Spirit came, and a miracle took place. The same 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.

Remarkably, Peter stood up and preached to a crowd of thousands of people. This was the same Peter who once denied even knowing who Jesus was, because he was afraid for his life. The Bible tells us that Peter’s sermon led to an enthusiastic response to the Gospel. Over 3,000 people placed their faith in Jesus as Lord…Affirming that God is the King of their lives.

But what happened next? What happened when the disciples stopped preaching? These 3,000 new believers organized into the first Christian church. This was no ordinary church. It was unique because it was the first church. But, it was also unique because it was a church which proclaimed God as their King. If we want to be a church which proclaims God as our King, we ought to follow their example.


Read Acts 2: 42 – 47.
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.
44 All the believers were together and had everything in common.
45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.
46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,
47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.(NIV)



II. The Apostles’ Teachings.

The first way the church demonstrated that “God is their King” 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.


One Demonstration of Fellowship: 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.” If they did this in a continual sense, then it suggests they continued to own property and continued to sell that property to give the money to the church. Also, we later read examples of Barnabas as well as Ananias and Sapphira who sold their property at a later time, suggesting that they did not sell everything at this one time in history.

The best way to describe what the Christians were doing here is to compare it with stewardship—stewardship as an expression of fellowship. 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.


IV. The Breaking of Bread.

There are at least three ways to interpret the words “the breaking of bread.” This might be a reference to the Lord’s Supper—the act of eating bread and drinking wine (or grape juice) in remembrance of Jesus’ death on the cross.

This might be a reference to the simple act of sharing a meal together. 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.

The third way we can interpret the words “the breaking of bread” is to observe one of the earliest practices of the early church. The church ate a meal together as a part of their corporate worship. Eating together demonstrated their unity BEFORE they entered into worship together in music and preaching. As such, we can interpret this in the context of our worship. A church who proclaims God as our King will be devoted to unity in worship…Worship that brings us together…Worship that demonstrates how much we have in common, rather than how much we don’t have in common


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 much of the Book of Acts, we 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. As long as the Gospel was preached primarily in Jerusalem, the early church remained closely connected to the Jewish Temple. When the Gospel began to spread outside of the Jewish race, Christian worship became separate from Judaism.

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.

This is true for individuals. This is true for churches. A church that prays acknowledges God as our King. A church that refuses to pray thinks of God as nothing more than a hobby.


VI. Conclusion.

Are you currently praying for your church? Do you spend time during the week praying for God to move in our church?

Perhaps there are people praying for our church that I am not aware of…But I do know of two groups. On Wednesday mornings, there is a men’s Sunday School class that meets for breakfast and to pray for our church. On Monday nights, there is a small group of folks who meet here at the church to pray.

What do you suppose would happen if we had groups of people praying for our church every day of the week? What if your Sunday School class or your group of friends took time to pray for God’s leadership? Frankly, we can’t be the church we need to be on our own power or abilities. We can’t become the church who proclaims God as our King without God’s help.