Sermon Tone Analysis

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!