40 Days of Prayer
Week 5: Reaching In
Acts 2: 42 – 47.
I. Introduction.
For the past four and a half weeks, we have been praying for our church. We are praying for God’s will to be done in our church and that God will make our church into the church he wants us to be. That leads me to an important point about church. What is a church?
Somewhere along the line, we learned some bad theology about the church. For example, do you remember this little saying we had when we were children? (Fold hands together.) “Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Open it up, and see all the people.”
We taught that to our children when they were very young. One time, Collin put his hands together wrong. He had his fingers on the outside instead of the inside. He said, “Here is the church. Here is the steeple. Open it up…Where are all the people?” Without missing a beat, I said, “Looks like it’s Sunday night.”
We taught it to our children, just like you taught it to your children. But, there is something wrong with that little game. The church is not made of buildings and steeples. The church is made of people.
As we pray for our church over these 40 Days of Prayer, we need to keep that in mind. We are not praying for God to help us build better church buildings. We are praying that God will help us become the people God wants us to become.
A good biblical image for this proper view of the church is the image of “The Body of Christ.” This image comes to us from the writings of the Apostle Paul in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12…Jesus is the head…The church is the Body… Individual Christians are the parts of the body—arms and hands, legs and feet.
It is helpful for us to think of the church as the Body of Christ, because it helps us to see the church as a living and breathing organism. The church is more like a person than a building…There is no life in a building, but the church is alive. A building is stationary, but the church is constantly on the move. A building is made up of individual bricks, held together by mortar that can be seen and touched. The church is made up of individual people, held together by something unseen…
What is it that holds us together as a church? I suppose we could build a case for a common belief. We believe in Jesus as Lord of our lives, and that belief holds us together. Perhaps we could argue that we are held together by a common purpose. We want to do the work of Christ in our city and world, that that purpose holds us together. However, I do not believe either belief or purpose is what brings us together. Rather, I believe we are held together by the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit lives in each Christian personally and individually. AND, the Holy Spirit lives in the church.
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)
These verses describe the beginning of the first church. The first church did not have a sanctuary, a chapel, an education building or a
It is safe to say that when the Holy Spirit came to the church, these 120 men and women experienced a spiritual
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 person 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.”
There are two ways to know if a church is “filled with God.” First, you can tell a church is filled with God by looking at the church’s behavior. Second, you can tell a church is filled with God by looking at the church’s results.
II. The Apostles’ Teachings.
Luke tells us the early church was devoted 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 when the Holy Spirit is in us. 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 gets 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 of 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
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 used to describe “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.”
This is to say that there was no single moment when every church member sold everything they owned and placed the money in a collective account. Instead, it seems to say that church members continued to own property, but they were willing to let go of their property in order to meet the needs of the church and the members of the church.
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
VII. Conclusion: The Favor of All the People.
Luke tells us that the world looked at the church as a weird group of people. These people did not act like normal people. Normal people are so consumed by their personal and individual needs and wants that some people feel left out. Normal people join organizations in order that they might gain control and authority over other people. This was not the case with the early church. These men and women were joined together by the mysterious presence of the Holy Spirit. This bond caused them to live together in a strangely wonderful new community. The result was that the rest of the world wanted to be a part of this community.
Did you know that God has created all human beings with an innate desire for authentic community? This is the singular theme running throughout the pages of Scripture.
The Book of Genesis tells us that God created the first man and woman “in the image of God.” Being created in the image of God does not mean that we look like God or that there is a little piece of God inside every one of us. It means that God’s intention for humanity has always been that our lives would reflect God’s life. For example, the Bible teaches us that God is Trinity—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I can’t explain how God can be three and one at the same time. But, I can tell you that the nature of God demonstrates relationship and community. The Bible also teaches us that “God is Love.” Love is only possible through relationship with other people.
In the story of Creation, God created everything in the heavens and the earth. At the end of each day of creation, God said, “It is good. It is good. It is good.” There was only one exception. When God created the first man, God said, “It is not good…for the man to be alone.” So, God created the first woman…the first human relationship…the first community.
Adam and Eve lived together in the Garden of Eden in perfect community with each other, with God and with creation. However, this didn’t last very long. In the very next chapter, Adam and Eve disobeyed God. Sin entered into God’s creation. The result of this sin was broken relationship. Broken relationship between God and humanity…Broken relationship between human and human…Broken relationship between humanity and creation.
The rest of the Bible describes the great lengths God undertakes to demonstrate his love to humanity and to restore true community. Ultimately, God demonstrated his love for humanity by sending his Son to live as a model, to die as a sacrifice for our sins and to rise again as our hope of eternal salvation. Then, God sent his Holy Spirit.
There is only one story in the Bible. It can be told in many different ways. But, it is one story—God created us to be in community with himself and with each other; Humanity fell into sin and out of community with God and each other; God pursues us to restore community with himself and with each other.
The church is not a building or even a campus of buildings. The church is the community God intended and the community God forms through his Holy Spirit.
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