February 14, 2016 Addicted To Love by Pastor Henry Wiley Grace Baptist Church

The Church as a Spirit-Filled Community in Acts 2

That we just read. It will be in verses 42 to 47. And here we come to the end of Peter's sermon in verse 41, where we read that 3 ,000 people received the Word of God and were baptized. And literally what happened is the church exploded on that day.

And it happens just in one day. That's the amazing thing about it. You have this amazing miracle. But then Luke, who is the writer of this chapter, he seems to step back and he wants us to focus our attention in verses 42 and 47.

It's almost like he's saying, OK, I know that was really big, but right now I want you to look at this. If you want to know what a church full of the Holy Spirit looks like, this is what it looks like.

And he wants us to know that he's not just giving us events, telling us, but what he's describing is an ongoing model for God's people. He's saying to us here, even this morning, that here in a nutshell is what a church looks like when it's functioning normally and spiritually.

And this is a picture of who we should be, what your church should be. And in case you think it's a romantic notion or idealistic, you only have to wait a few chapters as you go through the book of Acts and you start to see some flaws in the church.

But here is the first and fullest description of the daily life of a Spirit-filled church. And when I say that, I hope you're not thinking, I'm not talking about the charismatic thing, OK? Just in case you are wondering.

But that the repentance and faith that took place there on the day of Pentecost created this community of grace. So what is the church all about? What does a church look like that's pleasing to the Lord Jesus Christ?

I mean, what are you all trying to do being here as a Christian community in Sunnyvale? What are the marks of a church filled with the Spirit? Well, Luke gives us several of them. And I'm not going to cover them all this morning.

Devotion to the Apostles' Teaching

But the first one is in verse 42. It says, and they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. And it was through the teaching and preaching of the apostle Peter that this church was created. And it's natural that the doctrine of the apostles become the center and soul of the church.

And that's why the first evidence of a spiritual reality in a church is a dedication to the Word of God. And that's what the word devoted means. It's a word that involves effort, choices. It means working at something with deliberate intensity, even though it may cause difficulties.

And I wonder whether you think that that is a characteristic mark of Providence Bible Church. Does that describe your decisions over the last year? Is your life giving evidence that you are devoted to the apostles' teaching?

And I think we probably have a reasonable taste for good preaching. I think we enjoy good preaching. But that's a million miles away from being devoted to the apostles' teaching. And forming our lives around the Word of God.

Here it took only one sermon from the apostle Peter, and 3 ,000 people turned from their sins and they gave themselves to the Word of God. And you can hear dozens of sermons, even half-decent sermons, and you can remain unchanged, uninvolved.

But the first mark of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives is a hunger, a desire for spiritual truth and a willingness to go after it. And the teaching of the apostles comes down to us today in the New Testament letters.

And our devotion to the apostles' teaching will demonstrate itself in a devotion to the New Testament and a submission to its authority. What happens if a church disregards or corrupts or denies the apostles' teaching?

It creates a deformed church. And if a church continues to depart from the Bible, the Holy Spirit will leave. And that's why you can't tell a church, a true church, by the labels and the titles it has, but whether it teaches the Word of God, the apostles' doctrines.

The Holy Spirit's work is not to make you and me interested in the Bible. It's to make us devoted to the Bible. Now that's the first mark of a Spirit-filled church, devoted to the Word. The second mark, which is by far the most prominent mark in this passage, is in the next phrase.

Fellowship, Shared Life, and Christian Community

Not only did they devote themselves to the apostles' teaching, but they devoted themselves to the fellowship. And here Luke gives this the greatest space and attention. Because the word fellowship is much more than a spiritual attitude.

It speaks about the wonderful reality that we share, that we participate in the life of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It describes a sharing of things in common, a shared life. It's a spiritual communion that binds us together because of our participation in the Trinity.

And Luke points out it has to do with what we do with our homes, and what we do with our families, and even what we do with our money. And this fellowship spreads its umbrella over everything in our lives.

You see, belonging to a church is much more than just coming once a week and trying to be a Christian the rest of the week. I don't know how many of you are familiar with Sinclair Ferguson. He's a great preacher.

I enjoy listening to him. But I heard his take on this passage. And he speaks of this devotion to one another as an addiction to one another. He refers to these believers as being addicted to the fellowship.

The people have an addiction to one another. It's an interesting way to phrase it. And he goes on to say that it is essential to growing in the Christian life that you and I have that addiction. Because if we don't have it, then all kinds of other addictions or things are going to come in and take its place, and none of them are going to do for us what you think they're going to do for us.

So are you addicted to one another? Are you devoted to your fellow Christians because the New Testament knows nothing about living the Christian life without this devotion? And the thing about addiction is what?

You can't get enough. Somebody who's addicted, when you think of being addicted to drugs, they can't get enough. Isn't that right? Well, this is a good addiction. You can't get enough of each other. And the thing about it is God is devoted to us.

And he pours out this amazing grace to us in Jesus Christ. And if we are believers, it's going to affect every aspect of our life. That's the power of the Gospel. So belonging to a church is much more than listening to preaching.

It's not a spectator event. It's a common shared life with other believers. And this is so foreign to the way in which all of us have put our lives together. We have a tendency to not want to share our lives because we enjoy our privacy.

And it requires a focus not on us. I mean, we're focused on ourselves 24 -7. And it's a real struggle for us as Christians to not do that. But it requires us to focus on others, on Christ. And it requires our best energies, our best efforts to be used and given to the fellowship.

And it will infringe on our rights and our freedoms, our families. In Philippians 2, verse 3, it says, Doing nothing from selfish ambition, but in humility, esteeming one another, surpassing themselves.

That's the Old English translation. And it does undermine our individualism, our selfishness. Yet it gives us a spiritual connection that we desire. And it's really difficult because of the culture we live in.

It's the opposite. The values of our society affect us every day. I mean, some of these values are these, the following. To take and never give back. To accumulate but never share. To own and never let go.

And this is a lifestyle that we were delivered from. And building a community of grace means carrying enough about one another that we build this community not around our value of the culture, but around the person of Jesus Christ.

And so Luke gives us a picture here to show that being devoted to the fellowship affects every part of life, starting with our families. In verse 42, it says,. They devote themselves to the breaking of bread.

And that's not the communion service or the Lord's Supper. Luke is speaking about meals in their homes, ordinary meals in the homes. That's what fellowship looks like. They were inviting one another into their homes, into their family space.

They're sharing their families with one another. And yet we live in a culture where it's bred into us. And we may not say this, but it's in the back of all our minds that the decisions we have to make, we have to make for the good of our own families so that the members of our families will get ahead, so that they'll prosper.

And you see this desperation among parents today to get their children ahead. They have math tutors. They have sports tutors, music tutors, dance tutors, art tutors, martial arts tutors, bullfighting tutors, all kinds of tutors.

And they're afraid that they're going to miss out. Their lives are so overscheduled, and that's why we just don't have the time for simple hospitality. And we wonder why we're lonely and why we don't have the experience of these fellowships.

You see, what the fellowship of the Holy Spirit does is it changes our families. It changes our relationships. It demotes our families from being up here, to idols, to a place where we can serve. I remember years ago, about 30 years ago, I was a deacon in a church over in San Jose.

It's no longer in existence. It's now an Orthodox Presbyterian church. But I remember when I was a deacon, I used to try and visit and call people. And I remember I called one individual, and he had a couple kids.

And I asked him if I could come over and visit. And he says, well, it's our family devotion hour. And I said, well, okay, how about after you're finished? He goes, well, my wife and I are canning peaches.

And I'm thinking, wow, you're with your family 24 -7. I think the appropriate thing would have been, sure, why don't you join us for our family devotion, and we'll teach you how to can peaches, which I probably would have left after the family devotion anyway.

But that's what fellowship does. It's not where our families are so, you know. Trust me, I had nine kids, so I know. The picture that Luke gives us is very radical. It's as if the Holy Spirit, he takes the boundaries of our families, and he moves them outwards to include others.

And I'm not saying it's easy, because you soon discover that fellowship can be costly. It's going to impose on your priorities, on your interests. But I think you'll find that the blessings far outweigh those selfish inclinations.

I was going to ask for a show of hands, but I don't want to embarrass anybody. How many of you in the last six months have invited someone over to your home? Or has anybody invited you over in the last six months?

You see, the higher we value our personal privacy, and our freedom from commitments to one another, the shallower your grasp of fellowship will be. It will be reduced to idle moments of chit-chat. Hey, how about those Niners?

Those Giants are doing great. Superficial conversation. No, there's nothing wrong with that. But it's going to be reduced to that. You can do that with anybody. And I think we fool ourselves to imagine that it was easier for them in the first century.

It wasn't. These brothers and sisters in Jerusalem didn't have fewer distractions than we did, or fewer temptations to be superficial and selfish. It was even harder for them, in a way, to put their lives together.

There were more excuses to avoid being involved with each other. Life was a lot more difficult. They didn't have cars and technology and the conveniences. Selfishness didn't end with television. They made time for each other.

And yet, against tremendous odds, the Holy Spirit creates a community where he gathers them into homes where they could share their lives together in Jesus Christ. And even more striking, Luke gets even more personal and he gets private.

This fellowship turns greedy people into generous people. And this is where it might be uncomfortable for some of us. Look at verse 44 again, 45. Let's see here. And all who believed were together and had all things in common, and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all if any had need.

Well, what do you make of this? As a church, what should you do? Should all of you take your possessions and your houses and hand them over to your deacon? Is that Dale, right? Who's the deacon? Okay.

Should we hand all our investments and give them to him and then next Sunday he's going to redistribute those to each other? Well, let's forget about our homes for a moment. How about your spare cars, your spare properties?

Should we sell those and redistribute those to everybody here? I don't see anybody nodding their head yes. No, I don't think that's what we're meant to read here. Because what's taking place is voluntary.

No one's obligated to do this. But they're happy to do it. That's the amazing thing. In fact, in verse 46, they still have their homes, by the way. If you look in verse 46, they didn't sell their homes because they're still meeting there.

The New Testament never commands communalism. But it does command stewardship. And possessions are recognized as belonging to the Lord. And they're to be used to meet the needs of the people within the church.

You see, being filled with a spirit, it has an effect of loosening our grip on wealth and possessions, or it should. What we do, I read this from this other minister, and he made this very interesting point.

What we do or don't do with our material possessions is an indicator of the spirit's presence or absence. I thought that was a very interesting phrase that he uttered. And for these early Christians, this wasn't spare change lying around the house.

I mean, they actually sell possessions. They sell goods when they see needs in the church. Perhaps some of them cancel their vacations to help out each other. And this is radical love. They're gripped by the conviction that in this fellowship of Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, they have something far more precious than money and comfort.

They have each other. And I wonder if you're thinking, does this describe us? Does this describe our church? And I realize this is the complete opposite of the messages we hear day after day. In our culture, the way you're encouraged to give is if it makes you look good.

If it'll help your image with certain people or if it will make you loved by certain people. And it's the opposite here. The evidence of the Holy Spirit being filled in us is we give because we love. It's an act of love.

And that's what Christ does for us. He gives his life for us because he loves us. He says, I've come not to be served, but to serve. And the reality is that we fall into one of two categories as believers.

We're either a consumer or a contributor, a giver or a taker. And Jesus did not come as a consumer. And the funny thing about it, the more we consume, the emptier we feel. The more we protect ourselves from one another, the lonelier we feel.

And we live in a country where we make decisions to gain more and more wealth. And we wonder why we end up struggling with spiritual poverty. We set our hopes on this world and we wonder why we feel so hopeless.

And we fill our eyes with new possessions and we wonder why our hearts are full of darkness and heaven seems so far away. And so when we read these passages, we see that this is not mandatory communalism.

But something far deeper, something far more wonderful. It's the reality of devotion to the fellowship is what it is. And it's very searching for us in this consumer culture. You know, there is a cycle to this.

If we devote ourselves to the fellowship, it loosens the grip of money on our hearts. And if we give, we grow in our devotion to the fellowship. That's how it works. Not so that we'll feel good about ourselves, but because we really care what happens to the community of Christ.

And if you think I'm overdoing it or if I'm sounding like a socialist, no I'm not. I'm not trying to beat you up on this idea of fellowship. But I want you to see how God views fellowship. He goes to incredible lengths to secure fellowship with you.

By giving you his son. Fellowship is the reason that God made the world. It's the reason that Jesus came into the world. It's the reason for his crucifixion. And it's the reason for the existence of the church.

This is it. It's more than just a happy gathering or meeting for a few minutes on Sunday. Fellowship goes to the heart of who we are and why we're here. Who God is and why he made it. Every Christian has fellowship with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

And we share that fellowship with each other. We're brought into a relationship with other believers. And it's really easy to miss how personal these words are. The eternal life that Jesus comes to bring is fellowship with the Father.

It's all relational language. It's Christianity's relational. And of course fellowship can be disrupted. It can be marred by us with each other. You know in 1 John it talks about where we walk in darkness.

Now I always read that as being where my former life I walked in sin and so on. But even as believers we can still in a sense walk in darkness. You know when we become private and enclosed and we don't want to deal with other Christians, you're walking in a form of darkness.

It's not transparent. Because light, oh and when we walk in the light, light is transparent. And that's one aspect of that verse. But when we walk in darkness we want to hide from each other. We don't really want to engage with each other especially when other believers ask awkward questions.

So we withdraw ourselves from engaging others until we get to the point we say I have no need of you. Avoiding fellowship with Christians is a sign we're walking in darkness. You see fellowship involves a transparency.

An openness. A confession of sin. It's kind of letting your hair down. So what's the cost of fellowship with God? How can God who is light have fellowship with us? He has such a desire to have fellowship with us that he sent his one and only son, the one he enjoyed fellowship with, the one he embraced in eternity.

He always had fellowship with his son. But now he breaks that fellowship for you. And Jesus came and he gave himself a ransom for our sin. And on the cross this eternal fellowship within the Godhead is broken.

And on the cross Jesus is put out of fellowship so that you and I might be brought in. And this is what it costs God to have fellowship with you. He gave up fellowship with his eternal son to bear our shame and guilt.

So that we could walk in his grace so that we might have fellowship with him. I mean doesn't that put things in perspective a little bit? I mean if God gave us his son, what is it for us to give up our lives for one another?

We're not called to die for each other. Not yet anyway. And the reality of life and fellowship in the church has been lost today. The evangelism of today appeals to people on the basis of what they want.

And so they start by seeing Christianity as something that gives me what I need. Which it does. That doesn't turn you loose to sacrifice your life for the needs of others. Because it's total self-indulgence.

It's a world where their own wants dominate. And what do people want? They want privacy. They want low commitment. They want unaccountability. Convenience. They want to be anonymous. I just kind of want to mind my own business and you mind yours too.

That's not fellowship. That's why today we have the online church, right? Encounter Jesus online. I don't know how you do that. But it's turning Christianity into a private experience. And Christianity is not a private experience.

You know, when you think of an e-church, it's not a fellowship if everybody comes with their laptops and their cups of coffee. It's kind of a scary world we live in. Everywhere you go, you go into Starbucks and people are looking at their laptops.

And the church is becoming like that. And it goes against the nature of what fellowship is. A shared love. A shared life. Shared possessions. And if you read through the New Testament, there are all those one another verses.

There's over 70 of them. It says we're to love one another. Forgive one another. Be kind to one another. Encourage, admonish one another. Do good to one another. To love and good deeds. Bear one another's burdens.

That's just a small list. How do you do that if you only see each other once a week? Fellowship is simply the meeting of one another's needs in a body. Most of us came to church hoping to be spiritually refreshed and built up in our faith.

And that's a good thing to desire. But Paul says that's not the main reason to come to church. You come to church to build up others in their faith. It's always other-centered. And if we're learning and living Christ, our aim will be to impart grace to others.

That's what devotion to the fellowship looks like. Now we may not be able to clone ourselves in the same way as the first century church. Nor should we try to. But what we have to do is ask God to give us the same devotion to his word that they had.

Because once you have that devotion to God's word, you're going to have that devotion to one another. They don't exist apart. And the devotion to God's word will show itself horizontally in how we treat one another.

So this was a very interesting passage when I went through this. And I pray that if we want to walk in the Lord Jesus, you need to enjoy each other's fellowship. That's just all part of the package. And I pray that for your church as well as mine that we do this in this dark age we live in.

The Cost of Fellowship and the Call to Generosity

And so we need to pray for one another. All right. Why don't we close in prayer? Our Father in heaven, we thank you, Lord, for your word. I pray that we would treasure your word, but that we would also treasure one another.

Forgive us, Lord, because by nature we're self-centered. That we seek our own things. That we want to do our own desires. Lord, may it not be so with us that you would fill us with your spirit to walk as the Lord walked.

As the apostles walked. And give us this love for one another that surpasses understanding. Thank you for the privilege of teaching your word. I pray that it would not return back void. Forgive me for any incorrect things I may have said.

And we ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.