The Church
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The Church is.......
The Church is.......
Have you ever been in a situation where you weren’t really sure what was expected of you, and you weren’t sure how to act or what the requirements were?
I refer to this as life in general for me....my whole life I feel like I’m never really sure what is actually going on.
Example: Me and college syllabuses | Or me and work at McKesson | Or my kids and cleaning their rooms…it’s like they need a checklist
This is how we view life sometimes though, we wish there was a checklist to navigate life. Like a “Do this, this, and this and all will be good” type checklist
Yet, at the same time, we don’t like being told what to do do we?
Even if it’s helpful and necessary
We then start to resent the list even though part of us was crying out for it!
We are very complicated people us humans are, aren’t we?
Tonight, we are going to be looking at 4 characteristics from the early church, in fact, the first list we have given to us as a guide to how we should model our lives as believers and as members of the church of Christ.
Remember, we’re picking up the story in the early church where they have just received the Holy Spirit, they’ve begun to show evidence of God being at work in their lives and the lives of the people of Jerusalem, and they are carrying the message of Jesus Christ with them as they go.
Holy Spirit acts through them —> they verbally share Jesus = a very basic model for us to follow in accordance with .
But in -27, what we are going to see is that yes, they were “going and showing” Christ to the unbelieving world, but they also found it important to be “together”
So tonight, we are going to look at the early church described here in , which actually pairs up really well with what we looked at the past 2 Wednesday nights in our Multiply series.
We are going to look at these 4 characteristics to see how we should model our lives and our church lives
Read
1. Devoted
The first thing we see in this passage is that they (the believers) were devoted
Devoted = this idea of persistence, keeping on keeping on, associating closely with another, or my favorite way to think of this word, it means being faithful
Adele Song - Sweetest Devotion - “You will only be, eternally, the one that I belong to”
We’ve all been, or we like to think we have been devoted to something or someone before
Sometimes we like to think we are devoted to a boyfriend or girlfriend, just to find out that we broke up in 3 months so we weren’t really as devoted or faithful to that person as we thought we were!
Or some of us, not me, but some of us are devoted to our pets. Little fufu or Mister Choo Choo Boo Boo. In fact, we’re probably guilty of being more devoted to a pet than we are a person.
Often because the pet is likely to fit this idea of devotion better than a person ever will. “Man’s best friend” for a reason.
But to be devoted to something is to be faithful, to be continually persistent in being together.
The idea that this was of extreme importance and nothing was going to, or should, get in the way.
That’s the idea we want to take away here
And we see that the believers were devoted not to 1 thing, but to 2 different (yet connected) things.....what are they?
The apostle’s teaching and the fellowship
Verse 42
To each other
Verse 44
So let’s look at the first one, the apostle’s teaching and the fellowship
What do you think this is referring to? What do you think it means that they were devoted to the teaching and the fellowship? What does this remind you of?
CHURCH
The early believers were devoted to church, to coming together
They were devoted to hearing from the apostle’s as they taught about Jesus and also from God’s Word (the OT)
They were devoted to the fellowship with other believers at church
And by the way, they weren’t content with a “once a week” service....we see in verse 46 that this was a day-by-day thing
So the question has to be asked ( and should always be asked when looking at God’s Word), why....
Why were they faithful, continually persistent in meeting together and being taught? Why did they long to be together continually
Christ modeled it with the apostles
We are made for relationships = strength in numbers
We are made for community, which brings us to our second devotion....each other
EACH OTHER
In verse 44, we see that “all who believed were together and had all things in common.”
They were together, again, this idea of extreme faithfulness is showing up.
They met together, they learned together, they worshipped together, they prayed together (as we’ve already looked at in this series).....they spent time together.
We are made for community, and in all honesty you guys, the place we should find the most longing and the most togetherness should be together as a church.
Not only that, but verse 44 goes on to tell us that they had all things in common.
This is an idea of unity. There were no divisions, no gossip, no hatred....they had all things in common.
Example: Liverpool 2005 champions league squad
Rarely will all church members be a match made in Heaven, but we lay aside our differences, and embrace what we have in common, and that is Jesus Christ.
2. Giving
The second thing we see exemplified by the church is the fact that they were extremely giving
So much so, that the text tells us they were selling their possessions and belongings and then giving that money to any that had a need within the church
Possessions here actually refers to land. They weren’t selling stuff that they just didn’t want anymore, they were selling things of immense value because people in the church had needs.
Need example
Verse 44 talks about how they had everything in common, they were unified…and that thought evidences itself in the fact that the early believers acted like everything they owned was everybody’s anyways
And when we can carry that viewpoint, it’s much much easier to be a giving person
Ways that we can give today in the church is certainly:
Monetarily, giving money to those in need
But we can also give of our time to each other, maybe to support someone in time of need, or to give an ear to someone who needs to talk,
We also can give of what we have been given, and use it for God’s glory
For instance, opening up our home to each other and using what God gave us to build community and pour into each other’s lives......which leads to our third point
3. The early church was very hospitable
Look at verse 46 with me, “....breaking bread in their homes”
They went to the temple together, they were devoted to church, and they were extremely giving towards each other, but they also opened up their homes to each other
This is a dying art in our day and age
Example: My parents / Krafts at Calvary
One of the greatest ways we can demonstrate love to not only each other, but the world is by being people of hospitality, people willing to invite people into their homes
To do this, it takes bravery, because you are letting people see:
Who you are outside of church
How crazy and messy life is
How you don’t have everything together
And that is okay!
But what it does is helps to build those relationships we’ve been talking about in here
Where we become real with people
Where we become accountable with people
Where we can pour into people’s lives
The early church understood the need for this, and they did it.
Sure Pastor Derek, but I’m a teenager, I don’t have a house, I can’t be hospitable
I beg to differ
Hospitality can happen anywhere
Invite people here into your life, welcome them
Invite people into your circle of friends, practice building a hospitable mentality
4. Worship is a lifestyle
Now, we’ve seen three things so far today:
Devoted, Giving, Hospitable
Verse 47 tells us in closing, that the believers were praising God, having favor with all people, and that God was adding to their number daily!!!
Meaning, people were coming to Christ daily!
What I want you to hopefully see tonight is this....verbally sharing the Gospel is not the only way to lead people to Christ.
Do they need to hear the Gospel, yes, absolutely
But I see something pretty awesome happening here
The early believers were devoted to church, they went daily - and people, unbelievers, watched them do so. They watched them leave their houses, they watched them arrive at church, they watched them every single day
The believers were devoted and faithful to each other. They cared for each other as if they were caring for themselves. They saw a type of love that isn’t evident anywhere else in the world
Imagine being the guy who bought a field off of one of the believers and asking them why they were selling it. And the response is, “There are people in my church who are in need, and I’m going to give this money to them.”
Do you see the testimony that’s happening there?
A giving mentality in a self-centered world can lead to radical change
Or imagine their neighbors watching them invite into their homes and lives people just over and over and over
Do you see the impact a life that is changed by Christ can have on an unbelieving world?
If we, as believers, would model our lives after the early church in this sense, where we become people who are fully devoted to church, where nothing gets in the way of showing up to worship God, where we become people who are devoted to and love each other inside of the church, people who are giving even to the point where it hurts and are people with open hearts who open their homes, if we would do this, we will see God move, I guarantee it!