Acts 2:42-47 Growing in Community

Welcome to Recast Church in Madelon, Michigan, where we are growing in faith, community, and service.

You are listening to a message by Pastor Don Filsack from a series entitled WAR. If you would like more information about Recast Church, check us out at RecastChurch .com

or you can find us on Facebook. Here's Pastor Don. Filsack, the lead pastor here.

We're gonna go ahead and get started. Be sure to fill out the connection card you received when you walked in.

You can turn those in in the black box. And then any offerings you would choose to give, go back there as well. And if it's your first time turning in a connection card, then please take a free coffee mug that's back there on that desk.

I'm just our way of saying thanks. I'm glad that you're here. In this sermon series at the start of 2014,

I'm working to help us define church and particularly to think through what our individual roles are within the church.

At Recast we have the conviction that every believer ought to be growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service.

That is, growing in our relationship to God, the unseen God, and growing in the way that we understand

Him. And we do that through taking in His Word, believing it, trusting it, and then going out and living according to it.

Then we grow in community by relationships with one another. And that's a vital thing. That's what we're going to be talking about this morning.

And then we also grow in service. And that is the idea that God has created each one of us with a gift, a unique ability that we have to bring to the body of Christ that He wants to use us and particularly use us in the service of others.

These are the three primary directions that every life ought to be growing toward. And so if you can think of the illustration of...

Some of you probably have houseplants. Any of you have houseplants? And houseplants will grow towards the sun, towards the light.

Absolutely. And so we know that that happens for them. And so I think that's a pretty appropriate picture for the Christian life and that what

I'm suggesting to you is there's three things that the Christian naturally will be growing towards. If they're really taking seriously their faith, they'll be growing toward faith, towards community, and towards service.

And that's the growth map that we have here, is that each one of us are expanding out in those three directions at any given time.

And last week we looked at growing in faith from the book of Thessalonians. And this week we are looking at growing in community from the book of Acts.

Now if we take Scripture seriously, then it would be hard to argue against the reality that God made humanity to flourish in the context of relationships.

So we need each other. We need others in order to grow. And so some of you have probably identified already that we live in a pretty individualistic culture.

Would you agree with me on that? You've been kicking it around on planet Earth long enough to know that particularly in America, we really don't need anybody, thank you very much.

I can go it alone. And would you guys agree with me on that? Is that a fair assessment of our culture?

Say we're individuals, we don't really need others, and that's kind of the MO of the average American. And yet that is not the way that God created us to live our lives.

He created us to need others, to need connection with other people.

Even the very fabric of the story of God. So God wanted to tell his story through the pages of Scripture, and in the process of God telling his story, we find that it is told through the avenue of human history with real relationships and real people.

And so you study through, as many of you know, we're halfway through the book of Genesis. Is the book of Genesis full of relationship?

Full of human interaction? Full of human connection and all of the ins and outs of family and relationship that's involved in there?

And so we take the New Testament full of stories and Jesus's interaction with people and the book of Acts and all the interactions that people are having there.

And it's very, very clear that Scripture at its heart is a book of relationship.

That's a central component of it. And this morning, we're going to look at how that concept of relationship plays out in a healthy church.

And not just any healthy church, but we're going to be looking at the very first church. At the beginning of church, what was it like?

And so I want you to open your Bibles to page 780. So you can take that Bible out in the seat back in front of you.

Or for those of you that are using your own Bibles, Acts chapter 2 verses 42 through 47, the very end of the second chapter of Acts.

Again, page 780 at the very top of that page. I'm going to start reading Acts chapter 2 verses 42 through 47.

That's our text for this morning. Let's pray as the band comes to lead us.

Father, I thank you for community. I thank you for for creating us relationally.

And Father, there's a lot of messes that result from that. And equally, there's a lot of glory that results from that.

And so Father, I pray that you would open our eyes to the way that you have made us to be attentive to the things that you've placed around us for accountability and relationship and service to others.

And Father, that we would be a people who are genuinely growing in community. That we would genuinely recognize our need to connect with others.

And Father, it's quite possible to gather together with a group this size and still be alone, still be disconnected.

Because what it really boils down to is our hearts and a desire to actually share with others what's going on with us and an authenticity and an openness and an honesty.

And so Father, I pray that you would make that more and more ours. That you would grow us genuinely in community here, even through your word this morning.

And Father, as we have an opportunity to do something amazing all week long, I hope that we've been praising you and worshiping you.

But now we have an opportunity to gather together and lift our voices as one and worship you.

So Father, I pray that you would open our eyes to the reality of who you are. That you are glorious and majestic and loving and compassionate and just.

And Father, all of these things that are true of you would flow into our praise and that we would offer that back to you.

Father, that a recognition of who you are would be in the forefront of our minds. That you would allow us to shed all of the frustrations and the difficulties of this past week, even just the treacherous roads on the way here and the stresses of getting family around and all of that.

And Father, that you would allow all that to fade away and for us to lift your name high in praise and worship this morning.

I ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. Again, I want to thank the band for leading us in worship and hopefully you were able to step before the throne of God with your praise to him this morning.

Be sure that your Bible is open in front of you to Acts chapter 2. And again, you can find that on page 780 if you lost your place.

You can get back there and I think it's helpful. That's adorable. That's what that is.

But yeah, you can have your your Bibles open to Acts chapter 2 verses 42 through 47.

And it is my prayer every morning as we gather together every Sunday that the Lord meets us here and that we hear from God what he desires to say to us through his word.

And so, you know, I get up and I speak but ultimately I recognize that it's I'm completely dependent on the power of the

Spirit of God alive in you to drive this message home where you live. I don't live where you live.

And so that's that's my prayer. And that's my hope is that as you're attentive to the word, you're listening to the

Spirit of God alive and you kind of showing you where where he wants you to move on this. I come to this church,

I come to this text this morning. The church is brand new. Okay, it's a brand new thing. I mean the idea of church is just starting.

In Acts chapter 1, Jesus gave his final instructions to his disciples. They had gathered on a hill just outside of Jerusalem.

He gave him his final instructions and then he ascended. He left. He physically actually departed this earth in their presence.

They saw this happen and recorded it for us. But he told them before he left to go back into Jerusalem and wait for the

Holy Spirit there. He didn't give him instructions to go and build a church. He didn't give him instructions to go in and win a bunch of people to the cause or go and force people into the cause.

But he said go in Jerusalem and wait. And so that's where we find the disciples in chapter 2 of the book of Acts.

They're there and they're gathered together and they're praying for the Holy Spirit. And this is 50 days after the the

Passover. It's a celebration of the Jews called Pentecost. 50 days after and they're there.

120 people who were disciples of Jesus following him while he lived on this planet.

And at some point, I mean it's estimated there are maybe 500 to 700 people following him and stuff.

120 of them though are gathered in this place in this large upper room of a home when the Holy Spirit descends upon them with physical signs, visible signs.

And so there's a rushing wind that blows through the place. They see like flames of fire descend on everybody and they begin to speak languages that they've never studied in school.

So all of a sudden they're able to speak in a variety of different languages and they immediately take to the streets proclaiming the gospel that Jesus Christ is indeed the

Messiah, the Chosen One. Now, what's their context? They're in Jerusalem. There's Jews out on the streets and their main message is

Jesus is the Messiah. He's the one. Peter gets up and proclaims a sermon. Yeah, Peter is standing up.

That was really weird. Peter gets up and goes get some coffee. No, no. And he gives this sermon that is just electric, okay, by the power of the

Spirit alive in him and the church grows that very message from 120 people to over 3 ,000 people in one event.

Is that, don't you think that's some significant growth? Okay, you have 3 ,000. They go from 120 people in a little upper room.

That's the power of the Spirit, right? To over 3 ,000 people. I think I'm justified in kind of making this connection that the very first church on planet

Earth, the very first gathering of believers with the power of the

Spirit sealing them and finally the church is inaugurated. The very first church was a megachurch.

You get that? I mean, how many of you, how many of you have read blogs or kind of been out? People are a little bit down on megachurches.

Have you have you kind of connected with that a little bit in Christian culture a little bit? The very first church in Jerusalem here in this instance, instantly a megachurch.

I mean they had issues. Can you imagine what it would be like to baptize 3 ,000 people? I'd imagine it took them a couple weeks to baptize everybody.

Okay, this is a pretty big deal. I mean they had to get some structure in place pretty early to care for the needs of 3 ,000 new converts and then we're gonna see later in the text that the

Lord was adding to their number daily. This isn't just stagnant. Okay, 3 ,000 now it's static. It's continuing to grow as they roll on.

And that brings us to the text that we're looking at today. So when we start our text with, and they devoted themselves, well, the last phrase in verse 41, our text prior to this, is so those who received the word were baptized and they were added that day about 3 ,000 souls and they devoted themselves and we jump into our text.

I need to mention though at this outset that this text is descriptive of the early church.

Nothing in the text says thou shalt do church like this. Okay, you don't see that in this text.

It's describing what the early church was like for us. But even in descriptive text, even when the text is describing things, it's valuable for us to take a hold of the principles that are underlying that and figure out, is this something that God desires of us?

I believe that there are principles found throughout this text and the way that the early church did things that would be good for us to take on 2 ,000 years later as a church.

That there are principles found in this text of the way that they loved each other, the way they cared for each other, the way they were growing in community that we can take on for ourselves here in Matawan, Michigan.

We find that right out of the gate there was a sense of devotion among the early Christians. Do you see that word? And they devoted themselves.

The word devotion, I think it would be valuable for us to define that because how many of you, I mean, you use the word devotion.

Some of us that were raised in the church, we use devotions for that morning quiet time, like you just get together and I had my devotions this morning, or you caught me in the middle of my devotions.

But there's something that I think we miss in the way that we use that word, that we're missing something about the strength of the

Greek word that's behind this. The idea is persistent, strong commitment. If you're taking notes, write that down as a definition for devotion.

Persistent, strong commitment to something. Now, just the presence of the word devotion early in this text shows that passion and enthusiasm in the church are needed.

Would you agree with me on that? Do we need passion and enthusiasm in churches? No, come on.

Yeah, whatever, meh. Meh, yeah, take it or leave it. Well, I really do think, let me just, let me just suggest to you that we need passion and enthusiasm.

As I'm preaching, I could, I could do with a little passion and enthusiasm here. But, um, the fact of the matter is there are four things that we're gonna see here in the text that they were passionate about, four things that they devoted themselves to.

Now, have any of you ran into that person that's passionate, enthusiastic, and you don't really know what they stand for, but they're just like, ah, let's just go do it.

Let's take it. Let's just go. But, you know, that kind of person needs a little guidance, needs a little direction, needs something to focus their attention, because they're just, ah, and they're just like excited about everything.

But it's like, well, what are we excited about? Well, what were they devoted to? Four things that the early church devoted themselves to.

We see, first, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. Now, think about the, think about the lineup of speakers in the church in Jerusalem.

3 ,000 of them. They get a chance to hear the likes of John, okay? You know, the, the, the disciple

John. They get to hear Peter, the one who walked on water. You know, the, the, two of these guys, I mean, three of these guys got to see

Jesus at the Mount of Transfiguration, got to see him in all of his glory. There was Matthew, or Matt, or Bart, or Thad, or, you know, all these really great speakers that were in the original 12, okay?

One, one obvious thing that makes our context a little bit different here is that John isn't here present physically to deliver the sermon, right?

You get, I mean, can you imagine, if, if John was here, I would step down and we'd all learn from him.

Would you guys agree with me on that? Okay, if Paul was able to show up here right now and talk to us, would

I sit down? You better believe it. And I would want you all to pay better attention to him than you do to me. I mean, it would just be like,

I mean, you guys are attentive. That's great. But, um, but I mean, just, if they were able to be here, right?

And yet, I think we missed something in this. Because they're here. They are here.

And I'm not talking about some spiritual, like, oh, there's the ghost of John next to me. I'm talking about here. What John recorded for us to know is here.

Can you learn from the apostles teaching? Yes. They are eager to educate us and to teach us about God.

And they are there waiting on your nightstand. They're there waiting on your coffee table or wherever you keep your

Bible. They're there eager to give us a lesson about who Jesus is and what he did.

Do we think about the deposit of the apostles teaching that way? The New Testament is the location for the apostles teaching in our era, and we have access to it.

I cannot overstate how privileged we are to have, in writing, what

John wanted us to know. In writing, what God wanted us to know through Luke. What God wanted us to know through Paul.

And it's all found right here. We don't need them to show up physically to tell us.

They've written it down physically for us to read and study time and time and time again. Do you get the glory of having this book available to us?

Can we see that? Can you feel that? The early church was devoted to the apostles teaching.

And that book, this book, is the place we turn to hear the apostles teaching in our time now.

Are we devoted to the apostles teaching? I truly believe that we as a church are to some degree, and I'm grateful for that.

And I want to commend you. Now, when I give you a commendation, I want to make sure it doesn't go straight to your head. Do we have room to grow in the area of devotion to the apostles teaching?

Absolutely. And when I give a commendation, I'm giving a blanket statement for the overall feel of Recast Church.

But you guys put up with my exposition every week. Okay, and some of you actually come to me and say you enjoy it.

Okay, so once in a while, I get some feedback and it's like, oh, that's encouraging. That's great.

And I'm thankful for that. But I'm convinced that the reason you endure and you keep coming is in part because you have some devotion to the apostles teaching.

Now, you can find more entertaining. Can you find more entertaining preaching? Don't raise your hand. That makes you uncomfortable and makes me uncomfortable.

I know you can. I know you can find. I've been more entertained. Okay, and so, and I can sometimes probably look fairly entertaining up here.

But we're fairly entertained. I mean, but the fact of the matter is, we are digging into the word of God.

And I commend you because you come on a regular basis. And those of you that have made this your church, you know that we're going to dig into this, right?

Do we dig into the word of God when we when we gather together? Yes, and you keep coming. And so I commend you for that.

And I'm grateful for that. The second thing they devoted themselves to is the fellowship. The Greek word of fellowship, koinonia, means the sharing of life together.

The early church did life together. But we see that they persisted in this.

They devoted themselves. They had a strong commitment to doing life together.

Now, there are components of community that are fun, right? Yeah, is there a time when you're hanging out with your friends and you're just kind of like, this is good.

This is fun. I enjoy this. Anybody raise your hand. You have some friends. You have some friends and it's kind of fun to hang out and do fun stuff with them.

And that's the, there's kind of like an easy component of fellowship, right? I mean, there's, it's easy to hang out with people that you like, you know, get together, hang out, watch the game, getting help with a project around the house.

Is that kind of nice when a friend or a brother and sister in Christ comes over and gives you a hand with something or you get a chance to use your gifts or your abilities to help somebody else out?

And anybody that's resonating with you, it's like, that's cool. That's good. That's, there's a good side to fellowship.

And so we're kind of like, why would the early church need to be devoted to fellowship?

Isn't that just easy? Is it? Or is it? Was everything always fine and dandy with those in the church that, you know, you were just always like best buds?

Or is there a sense in which we need to be devoted to the fellowship because Luke knows that things are going to get rough at times.

There's going to be times where we've got to stick it out with one another and we've got to, we've got to push through together and we've got to confront one another and we've got to encourage one another and we need to hold each other accountable.

And there's some messiness to doing life together with sinful humanity. Have you, can you relate to that?

So you see why devotion to fellowship is kind of a, at face value, it kind of looks silly.

And then when you start thinking, oh yeah, real life, that's right. We need to be devoted to one another, working through the frustrations with one another, committed to one another.

Lynn and I attended a church a decade ago, longer than that.

We attended a church for a period of time. We found it difficult to connect to others in that church. And so we, we were trying and we were involved in a

Sunday school class and we're just trying our best to connect to people. And it just, it just felt like we just were kind of locked out at times and just couldn't quite get there.

And so we ended up going through the membership class, just kind of figuring out, is this the right church for us? And the end of that membership class was a meeting with the elders.

So we kind of just laid on the table, the way we were feeling. We're like, maybe it's us. I don't know, but we just don't feel like we can quite connect with the people around us.

And we're struggling with this. And when we laid that out to the elders, their response was, well, that we believe, we believe here.

And we asked them, does anything change when you become a member? When you become a member, is there anything that opens up that maybe we're just not connected with right now?

Do you have small groups, like members only groups or something? Is there something we're missing? And when, the response was that our conviction as leadership is that fellowship is just a byproduct of Christians getting together.

So when you get together with other Christians, you're having fellowship and that's fine. And that was the response. And so we kind of thought through that.

We didn't end up becoming a member of that church. We went around and even with, it was a really great meeting. And even at the end, we just decided we were going to go check some other things out and figure things out.

And we ended up leaving that church and ended up finding another place to fellowship. And they ended up hiring me as a pastor. Kind of funny the way that worked.

Clear that God's hand was in it. But the reality is, is it really just that fellowship is just Christians getting together?

Is that the extent of it? Christians getting together and having fun, that's fellowship. This text indicates that there's something about growing in community that requires dedication to one another, that's worthy of our devotion.

It's more than just what happens when Christians get together to hang. Fellowship goes deeper to devotion to community.

It is intentionally engaging in each other's lives. If we're honest, if you're being honest with me as an

American, it takes you a lot of effort to really share what's going on in your heart with people. Especially if you're an

American male. If you're an American man sitting here, you know that you're up against it with this text. You're already kind of going, whoa, hold on.

Are you talking about like sharing feelings? You're talking about stuff that's going on in here, buddy?

No way, you're not getting near that, right? Can you feel that kind of well up within you as you're sitting here?

And I'm not, not to just gender stereotype, I know some of you women are kind of feeling that too. I've been burned in the past.

I don't want to share how I'm feeling right now. I just just assume, kind of let that go, and I'll deal with that on my own, thank you very much.

It takes devotion to actually open our hearts to one another. It takes risk. Would you agree with me?

It's risky to share what's going on in here. So what if I'm judged for it? What if you see who

I am and you don't like me? And I guarantee if you see who I am, there's going to be parts you do not like. That's the truth.

That's the reality for all of us. So devotion to one another, commitment to one another, devotion to the fellowship.

And the third thing, they devoted themselves to the breaking of the bread. Now, the second definite article isn't translated in the

English Standard version, but it's important that it's there because if you only have the phrase, the breaking of bread, that is most often just a routine meal.

In the New Testament, when they talk about the breaking of bread, it's people getting together to have a meal together. Often in Jewish culture, the initiation of the meal was the main host breaking open a loaf of bread, and it was like, it's party time.

Okay, now the food is, you know, it's broken and it's time for the meal to ensue. But this occurrence uses the definite article twice, the breaking of the bread.

And most scholars conclude that this is specifically communion that is in mind here.

The breaking of the bread, specific bread. When we consider that the other three things they devoted themselves to were primarily spiritual in nature, it makes sense that they were devoted to more than just a buffet here.

I mean, you can get behind that, like I'm devoted to food. Yeah, I could go there, especially if it's good food.

But that's not what this is talking about. In the early church, communion was most often taken in the context of a meal.

In the early church, took communion seriously. They recognized that when we come together for communion, we are not, they weren't devoted to a ceremony.

Would you agree with me that being devoted to a ceremony is a little bit strange? They're devoted to the remembrance of what

Jesus Christ has done for them. To say they were devoted to the breaking of the bread is to say that unified together, they were committed to coming together centered on the cross of Jesus Christ.

Now, living a life that's centered on the cross, living a life that's devoted to the breaking of the bread is one of both humility and also recognizing

God's great love for us. In other words, the cross is the place, as we remember communion, as we come to communion, we remember the place where we are humbled.

We are humbled beyond compare because why did

Jesus die like that? When you see the crucified Christ and you imagine in your mind what he went through, why did he do that?

Because I'm that depraved, because I'm that full of sin that that was the only cure possible for my wretched state was him crucified, the son of God lifted high on the cross bleeding and dying for me.

Does that demonstrate to you guys what a mess I am? Does that demonstrate to you guys what a mess you are?

Yes. So you get into the whole self -esteem movement and how good do you feel about yourself? Well, that's a really great feel -good message about yourself.

You were so bad that the son of God had to die for you. But now you talk about glory, you talk about the other side that the cross brings, and that is the immense, glorious, divine love that God has shown you through the death of his son.

He loves you so much that he did that for you. Are you worthy of it? No. Did he do it because he loves you?

Yes. Do you see how the center point of the cross drives the Christian life forward with both a stance of humility and great worth?

And so they were devoted in the early church to the breaking of the bread as a way of life, as a way of thinking, and they would come together and they would take communion regularly to remind themselves of this.

We take communion each week to be sure to bring our thoughts back to the center point of our faith.

Our only hope is found in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Now, I recognize that we run a risk of making communion routine.

Is that reality? Could we make it just kind of like something we do every service? I pray that it isn't.

I recognize that we run the risk of making it that because we do it every week, but my prayer and my hope is that every week we are reminded fresh at the start of our week, both our standing in reality before a holy and righteous

God, unworthy but deeply loved, and that that taking the bread and taking the juice together in unity with brothers and sisters in Christ, all together identifying we're broken, jacked up people who needed a savior and found one in Jesus Christ.

And that gives us power to go out through the remainder of this week. Not like all your sins are washed away because you took communion this week.

Not just something you do because you're hungry at the end of the service or something. When it's all said and done, something that we do because we recognize our neediness before God, and we're identifying with that together.

They devoted themselves to the breaking of the bread, and the last thing they devoted themselves to in this text is prayer. Now the

Jews had a schedule of three prayers a day, and it's likely that the Christians continued that practice even after their conversion.

And so the majority of the converts, those 3 ,000 people, probably the majority of them were coming from a Jewish religious background, maybe not necessarily ethnically

Jewish, but they were there for the Passover most likely, or there for Pentecost rather.

And so most of them were Jews celebrating there in Jerusalem that day, those 3 ,000 that gave their lives to Christ. And so it's pretty apparent that by the continuing to meet in the temple, as the text is going to say here in just a moment, that they were kind of adopting some of the

Jewish traditions into the Christian faith and kind of giving them a little bit of a twist. And so it's quite likely that they continued that routine of three prayers a day, plus just praying and lifting themselves up before God each day.

But devotion to prayer is something that will help us to grow in faith, and it is something that God has given to us, and I would dare say maybe the hardest of these four things to devote ourselves to.

But it is an example, it is an expression of our faith to pray to the unseen God about the things that we see.

So what does that look like in your life throughout the day when you're going to a tough meeting, or you're on your way to a sales call, you're on your way to whatever it might be that you do, and you know that things aren't going very well.

And my tendency is often to be rehearsing my speech in my mind, or going over those last minute notes, when probably what

I ought to be doing is praying and talking to God and leaving this in His hands. Now that doesn't mean that you don't prepare.

That doesn't mean that you go, you know what, God I'm praying that I get an A on this. I haven't studied a bit, but just please hook my brain up with the knowledge that I need right now.

But it's a matter of dependency still, right? And that's what we're doing when we're praying. We're talking to God, we're showing

Him that we are needy of Him. So ultimately what prayer is, is to say, God your way.

I need your way, not my way. So could you make this happen in a way that brings you the glory and the honor and teaches me best?

That might be God giving you a D because you didn't study very well, right? Could that be the lesson that He wants you to learn?

But saying God, I need you to show me what you want to show me through this. So we find these four things that, and they serve as a challenge to us personally, don't they?

Four things that the church devoted themselves to. Thinking about the word devotion again. I want to remind you of that before we launch into thinking about it personally.

And that is an intense word. It's strong, persistent commitment. Remember that that's what we're talking about.

Strong, persistent commitment. So are you devoted to the teaching of the word? Are you devoted to community and fellowship?

Are you devoted to communion? That is a lifestyle that remembers the cross and keeps the cross central.

Are you devoted to prayer? Constantly lifting up, and I'm not just talking about a time in between the start of the day or, you know, that 30 second prayer, maybe, before you eat a meal.

How many of you would recognize that often those are just really quick thanks, and I would encourage you to pray before you eat, but a lot of times there's just not a lot of dependency on that.

It's just a pretty quick thing. And so, I mean, I'm talking about talking with God throughout your day. Are you devoted to prayer?

If not, please don't get all sad and down. I mean, it'd be very easy for you, your response, you kind of look through these things and talk about devotion.

Am I devoted to this? Am I devoted to that? And you're like, oh man, I stink again, right?

I'm just always failing. Every time scripture comes up, I'm dropping the ball again.

And you can get down on yourself without really taking action or steps to really kind of get down to the heart of it and let

God's conviction do what it's supposed to do in your life. And so, we can often mask the pain of failure or frustration with just self -loathing and get over it and just be like, yeah, yep,

I stink. I do. Don't get all sad and down. Instead, talk to God and figure out why these things are not devotions in your life.

These things are not persistent commitments. I'm pretty sure that you can be a believer and still struggle with these things.

But if you have no hunger for the word, if you have no desire to gather with his people, if communion is a take it or leave it thing for you, and prayer is just something you do before you eat, then it would be worth pursuing an honest assessment, talking with God about your spiritual connection to him.

Would that make sense that you do that? If you sense no devotion in your heart or mind.

Let me put this a different way. Let me put some flesh on this for you. If you tell me you have a friend, but upon further questioning,

I ask, do you hang out with him? No. Do you spend time with his friends, kind of get to know his friends and get to know them and they're kind of telling you how he's doing his stuff?

No. Do you remember why you're friends? What was it that brought you into friendship together?

How did that relationship start in the beginning? No, I don't quite remember, and I don't think about that often. Well, do you ever talk with him?

Well, no. Do you see why it might be reasonable to ask, are you really friends?

Do you see why that might be a reasonable question? If there's no fire in that relation, there's no connection in that relationship, there's no desire to connect in that relation.

I might begin to say, are you really friends? You don't have any of these connecting points together.

You see what I'm saying? Asking and just asking yourself and talking to God and saying, where am

I in my friendship with God? Where am I at in my relationship? And it would be healthy for us to think through that.

Maybe some of you here are kind of going, whoa, that's heavy. And some of you are, probably all of you are saying that's heavy, but some of you are going, you know, that sounds a lot like where I'm at right now.

I think it's worth questioning whether or not I am friends with God, whether or not I'm connected with him.

And if that's you, come and talk with me after this service, and I'd love to interact with you about that subject, about if you are indeed a friend of God.

But there was an intensity of devotion in this early church. And now from verses 43 to 47, we'll see a focus on the nature of the community.

What was it like in that early church? How did they really roll with each other? We see this devotion individually, but now what about the relationships?

The early church was a place of awe and wonder, according to the text. It's interesting in the

Greek that the miracles in 43 are not the cause of the awe. So it doesn't say the apostles were working miracles and there was awe.

Now I would guarantee that when the apostles worked miracles that caused awe, but the awe is not necessarily connected to the miracles.

In other words, they were just like awestruck at the events that were going on around them. I would suggest to you that the 120 were in awe that 3 ,000 believed that day.

Would you say that that's in itself, like would that produce awe? You don't have to heal somebody who's never walked for there to be awe in the presence.

You don't have to heal somebody of cancer for there to be awe or somebody who's blind that can now see for there to be awe.

Would you agree with me on that? As a matter of fact, I would suggest to you that some of the most glorious and amazing miracles are the ones that happen spiritually to watch somebody on a trajectory this way get changed.

God grabs their life and puts them in the other direction, like the apostle Paul. Now the apostle Paul was not was not healed of some physical ailment or something, but instead he was taken spiritually from one direction to another and that is amazing.

Now granted, I mean, I think in our minds we glorify the external miracle more than we do the internal miracle, right?

And so the raising of Lazarus, pretty amazing miracle, except that Lazarus died again.

When you really think about it, better that somebody has a spiritual transformation and lives for eternity.

Do you agree with me on that? So I would suggest to you that awe and wonder, there are real miracles that are going on here,

I don't want to minimize that. But it's unfortunate that many do not consider the church in our current era a place of awe and wonder, but often in honesty consider the church to be a place of drudgery and boredom.

And I imagine that our awe and wonder about the acts of God will be in some sense proportional to our level of devotion.

In other words, the more the more devotion we have to the fellowship, the more devotion we have to the breaking of the bread, the more devotion we have to prayer, the more devotion we have to the apostles teaching, the more we will see the miracles in every day.

I honestly see miracles all around us. Now maybe part of it is my vantage point is as the lead pastor of this church,

I know a lot of you personally and I've seen God work in your lives in a variety of ways. I see people repenting of their sins, choosing

God's way over their own habits and problems that they've been struggling with and I see glory in that.

I see miracles, I see relationships being restored and that's glorious and amazing. I see the spirit convicting of sin and that's glorious and amazing and miraculous.

I see those in the midst of suffering encouraging the rest of us by their steadfast faith and that is miraculous.

The truth is, when we talk about awe and wonder, what I do every week is not very stunning, okay?

So the gathering together of God's people for awe and wonder and then you get to hear me talk and you could do better at a comedy club.

You could log on to TED Talks. Any of you ever watch TED Talks? You can log into TED Talks and get some really great speakers or you could head down to Miller Auditorium with their speaker series and you could get all kinds of cool stuff if you're looking for performance quality.

But when we are devoted to the teaching, when we are devoted to fellowship, when we are devoted to communion and to diligent and consistent prayer, we might just find more wonder and awe than we ever imagined possible in the church.

I'm not saying we can earn miracles by our devotion. Be more devoted, God will do, God will give you your miracle.

But I am saying our eyes will be more attentive to the work of God that is going on all around us and it is happening.

He is working. And if we connect more deeply to him by faith,

I think our eyes will be opened to the glory of what he's doing here around us. Verse 44 highlights the depth of the unity experienced by this early church.

They were together and they had all things in common. They were like bricks put together in mortar, unified into a wall, strong in their unity, and they had all things in common.

This was a big church that grew fast. And I wonder if some of those original 120 complained to the apostles that they liked it better when they were smaller.

I wonder if some of them were suspicious of the growth. 3 ,000 really in one day. Come on, some of them are faking it. Some of them are just here because their girlfriend is here, right?

You know what I'm saying? And so can you imagine the kind of, I mean, yeah, we would never talk that way, but can you imagine somebody else talking that way and thinking, man,

I used to like it that way, or I wish it was still like this? But actually, we know the answer to those questions.

Did they respond that way? No, they didn't. The answer's in the text. They were together and had all things in common.

The new people loved the originals, and the originals loved the new people, and they were sharing together, and they were ministering together, and they were working together.

And the intensity of their sharing is found in verse 45, their sharing and their generosity, and it shows itself in material sharing of possessions and meeting needs.

Many in the church sold personal property, including even land, in order to generously give to those in the church that were in need.

I want to point out that this is not endorsing communism at all. Some have pointed to this text and been like, oh, there's communism right there.

What nobody in the church was mandated to share, what we see in the text is a sharing out of what?

Love and generosity. It was their desire and their will enacted to help those in need in their midst.

Nobody in the church had to share. They voluntarily sold property and gave it to the poor, gave the proceeds to the poor.

They met in personal homes in verse 46, and there's other indicators throughout the book of Acts that they still held on to personal property and were allowed to hold on to personal property in the other church.

Again, this isn't describing what you must do, but it is saying what they did to the extent that they went to meet needs around them.

The generosity that is exhibited in this text is humbling and challenging to us, and as a leadership, we have set aside a benevolent fund that is funded by your generous donations, and so we actually have a fund that is set aside for the assistance and help of those who are down and out in our fellowship.

Now, those outside of our fellowship, are we helping to meet needs out there? We do the Thanksgiving meals and a variety of different things, and we made hats and mittens and scarves for people throughout

Van Buren County and distributed those, and we've done all different kinds of things to help out there, but there's a specific fund for the meeting of needs within our church body, and we've done everything from help people to gap a water bill that they couldn't meet to put on the roof of a house.

We've done a lot of different things here to help people in our immediate fellowship who have needs, and the reality is this economic downturn has affected everybody.

Has it affected everybody? But the reality is it's affected some so much that it's brought them down below a line of being able to connect the ends, all right?

And then, so it's not a question of whether or not you've been hit by the economy. It's a question of, are you still sustainable, and can you help someone else who can't?

And that's really what it boils down to. If you're not currently giving, consider how God might be calling you to be generous through this text this morning.

The text is dealing with the generosity of the early church, and I'm not talking about a building program.

I'm talking about supporting the church in a way that helps us to be able to meet needs here in this community, and some of you may be called to actually help those that you know have needs directly, and we'd encourage that as well.

What is it that maybe God would be calling you to do in regard to being generous to those in need within this fellowship and that connection of community?

According to verse 46, the first church began doing life together day by day, not week by week, not

Sunday by Sunday, but day by day. This implies a connection that goes beyond just meeting on Sundays, doesn't it?

It's beyond that. Again, I feel like I need to mention that this community, that this letter is descriptive and not prescriptive.

The book of Acts isn't saying, thou shalt meet daily with thine church. As a matter of fact, in our spread out culture, this could be a negative thing, but nobody can deny reading this that a devotion to one another is meant to be conveyed seriously and significantly in this text.

The reality is we need each other. We need each other regularly. We need connection. We need relationship.

We need accountability, and if you're anything like me, you need a short leash. It's kind of what the text is saying.

Anybody agree with me? You need a short leash? By the way, for those of you that are pet lovers, that's your one pet illustration for 2014.

So, short leash, there you go, you got it. But on verse 46, we find that there was both the large gathering of people in the temple districts.

By the way, I just think, anybody kind of question, 3 ,000 people, could they fit in the temple precincts?

Anybody question that when you read that? It could easily, as a matter of fact, one portion of the temple mount, where we find later in the book of Acts that it says that they met, could easily fit five to seven thousand people in that corner of the temple precinct area, and it says that they met in Solomon's portico in that area, and it's ginormous.

So, they were meeting together there regularly, kind of like, come one, come all. We're going to meet there, and we're going to hear the apostles teaching.

As a matter of fact, they even get in trouble for preaching in that area, starting to disturb the Jews who had come there to worship.

So, we know that they were meeting in a large place, and it's likely that the apostles were standing up and proclaiming the word of God to the church at large in those large group gatherings, but they also had these smaller groups that were meeting in the homes throughout the week.

We have that same model here. It's not easy for 3 ,000 people to connect on a heart level in a gathering in the temple.

It's not easy for 300 to connect at a heart level here at Recast Church, and yet there's something beneficial to those 3 ,000 people, or these 300 people, hanging together to help meet each other's needs, and so the early church doesn't scrap that larger meeting, but instead, there's the meeting in the homes for meals that's going on, a more close connection that fuels intimacy, and that's one of the reasons we recommend small groups here at Recast Church, and we run that program.

We've just recently started two new groups, and we have availability now, depending on your schedule. The reality is, the majority of the groups meet on weekends, and so because of that, we recognize that some of you, your schedule is primarily during the week, and it can be a little bit of a struggle to get you connected if your only availability is, say,

Tuesday night or Wednesday night, and so please bear with us. If you told us you wanted to be a part of a small group, and we're working to get you connected, we do have availability and openness.

If maybe one of the things that God is pricking your heart is that, I do, I need community, I need connection, I need a place to have authentic relationship with others, then by all means, please check that box on the back of the connection card, and turn it in, and let us know that you want to be connected, and we'll do the best that we can to connect you into a small group in a timely manner.

At the end of verse 46, I find an interesting observation. Food, it's there, and it's good.

Food obviously holds a valuable place in fellowship. We see that it's mentioned often in Scripture, that concept of meeting around a table for a meal.

Now, if Linda wants to share some bad news with me, she knows it's not a great idea to do so just before we sit down to a meal, but she would prefer to let me know about that during a meal or after a meal, because I'm much more merry and sprightly and joyous after a meal.

Anybody relate to what I'm talking about there? Just before, you know, when you've gone like six hours without eating, it's kind of like, this is not a great time to talk in depth about serious things.

It's time to get to some food. But Jesus often met with people over meals. We see that theme.

The New Testament church often ate meals together. These home groups in our text ate meals together that often concluded with communion.

It is authentic and truly God's design that we enjoy the food that he has created. Anybody with me on that?

Let me track it with this conversation. Anybody? Yep. Anybody getting ready?

The fact of the matter is that food is a delight and softens the heart and makes us glad and merry.

But these home groups receive their food, and I love these two words. How did they receive their food?

They received their food with gladness, and what's the other word? Generosity.

They received their food with gladness and generosity. And so different translations are going to have it differently.

I really like the ESV's translation in Greek. It's more towards the idea of generosity.

And so when you receive your food, do you receive it with generosity?

Think about that for just a second. You give me a three -pound bag of M &Ms, and I'm thinking about how can

I get them all in my mouth? Okay, how am I going to get them all, you know? And they are receiving the three -pound bag of M &Ms with the first thought being gladness.

Thank you, God. Who can I share it with? You're getting what I'm saying? They were receiving it with generous hearts.

Now, if you grew up in a family like mine, you can relate to this illustration. In my family growing up, it was a fight for the last dinner roll.

Okay, we were, I mean, it was like, I mean, silverware was dangerous in my family, okay? We went to plastic sporks after all.

Just, we didn't really. I just threw that out there. But it was, everybody learned to eat fast so that you could get seconds, because if you didn't eat fast, you weren't going to get seconds.

I had three younger stepbrothers, and leftovers were completely unheard of. Anybody tracking with this illustration?

Any of you? Some of you are raising boys? Any of you raising boys right now? You know exactly what I'm talking about.

A large pizza doesn't even scratch the surface anymore, right? It's like, those days are gone.

You need like four or five large pizzas, and you're still there like, what else is there to eat? The early church even took their meals in a way that considered the needs of others.

Glad and generous described the gathering of early churches in their homes. But to further describe the community aspect of the early church,

Luke describes them as praising God and having favor with others. And the favor with others is clearly by context outside of the church.

So they were benefiting from favor outside. But on the vertical plane, they worshiped and praised

Him, God. And on the horizontal plane, they had that favor with others. Worship together was a component of the early church, and something we ought to incorporate beyond our

Sunday morning gatherings. Even, I think, our small groups ought to be in the process and in the business of praising and rejoicing in God.

And I don't mean that to say that somebody needs to be the music leader for your small group. The last thing you would want would be for me to be leading singing at a small group.

That would get ugly in a hurry. But what I am saying is that oftentimes I think small groups go this way.

You get together, you kind of talk, you know, through the week what's going on, and then you maybe study something, maybe.

And then the question is posed, can we pray for anybody? Is there anything going on in your week? And oftentimes that ends up becoming heavy stuff.

And it ends up that we depart and we part ways from a small group kind of on a down note.

Now we get a chance to pray and lift these things up to God, but in the end it's kind of like everything just kind of just tails off into like, man, we're all in a mess.

Okay, let's go. Right, time to go. Yep, time's up. Are you getting what I'm saying? And what about like making the last activity of your small group like sharing what you're glad for this week?

Why not sharing how God is blessing you this week? Wouldn't that be an awesome thing to conclude the week with?

God has blessed us. Let's go out and continue to praise Him. And yes, there's difficulties. And I'm not saying that we act inauthentic and only offer praises because there are things that we need to be praying for and we need to share the good and the bad together, right?

But I think oftentimes we only share the bad and we don't share any of the good together. So it's a matter of encouraging that, praising

God together. So Luke has described the intensity of this community together.

They were devoted together. They had all things in common. They were extreme in their generosity. They were frequently together daily, it says in the text.

They ate meals together. They praised God together. And in all of these things, we can see how the mission of a huge church could easily get lost.

What did Jesus say the mission of His followers was to be? To take the word, to go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that He commanded them. Can you see how that could get lost in all of this busyness of caring for one another?

Can you see how a church could become so inwardly focused with those within that we leave no room for those without?

Can you imagine that? Am I the only one kind of tracking with that? But this early church did not do that.

The first church left room for others. As they gathered in community, they had favor with all the people.

At the beginning, this early church was blessed with a reputation in the community at large. We know that persecution in history is going to eventually overtake the church in Jerusalem.

There's going to eventually be a time where they're going to be scattered. And so I wonder in my mind, did

God cement their fellowship close together in these early days, intentionally granting them favor, intentionally granting them growth and this intensity of connection?

Because He knew that eventually every one of them was going to end up getting dispersed as a missionary out into the greater culture because persecution was on its way for them.

So He cemented them together and brought them to a place of health and healing and connection and relationship because He knew that they were going to need to be strengthened for that persecution that was coming.

Now I want to point this out. They had favor, but I want to kind of talk about the flip side of that. The flip side of favor is persecution.

And some would even say that they would look kind of at this and go, favor. Anytime they see the church have favor with the culture, they would kind of go, something's wrong.

That church must not be true. It must not be right. If the culture loves you, then you must be doing things wrong.

Or the flip side of that is ultimately saying what the church really needs is persecution. If we were just persecuted, then that's good.

Some seem to think that persecution is a sign that you're doing the right things. Would you agree with me on that? Have you ever heard that kind of teaching?

If you're receiving persecution, then you must be doing things right. And I would suggest to you that if you're receiving persecution, ask yourself if you're not just being mean.

Is that reality sometimes? Is it sometimes that we're receiving persecution because we're just mean -spirited to the world?

And it's the method of our message and not the content of our message that is offending. And we ought to take a long, hard look at the way we interact with the world and say, now if they disagree with the content, if the content of the message that we are all in a sinking ship and Jesus has thrown us a lifeboat,

Jesus is the lifeboat, and if you cling to the life ring, come on board because we need to cling to this life ring in order to be saved.

And if they're offended by that message, then there's not much more I can do. They can punch me in the face and that's the message.

I can't change that, right? It's not like, okay, well let me backtrack off of this. Don't punch me. I can water this down a little bit for you to make you more comfortable.

You're getting what I'm saying? The content is the content. And if that offends them, that's on them.

Are you getting what I'm saying? But if I come in with guns a -blazing, you guys are all condemned and you're hell -bound sinners, you evil, wicked people.

Well, no wonder they want to punch us in the face, right? Does that make sense? So the question of persecution, is it okay for a church to have favor in the eyes of the culture out there?

Some preachers would say, no, that it's not okay for the church to have favor, but I'm suggesting to you that God granted favor to this early church in the eyes of the greater culture.

It's not a sinful thing that people like you. As long as you're not watering down the message so that people like you.

Do you hear the difference? I think there's, and you've got to be careful about that temptation because I think that temptation is real out there.

That is, certainly there are topics and subjects that I want you to know my heart before I answer the question, what do

I think about that subject? Do you understand what I'm saying? I want you to know who I am. I want you to know more about me.

I want you to know about my heart and my love for people before I ever say yes or no to that subject. And a lot of times the culture wants you to drive straight in.

Be wise in your answers. Be wise in your answers. Not watering it down, but saying, listen, you know, let's talk about this after we get to know each other a little bit better and can kind of figure out where our hearts are at.

Is that making sense? I want you to see a little word in here that I think also gets under, is a little bit of a bee under people's bonnets.

Verse 47, and we're kind of coming to a landing here. It says, they were praising God, having favor with all the people, and the

Lord added to their, what's the next word in the ESV? Added to their number day by day, those who were being saved.

Number. Is Luke counting people? How dare he? Everybody knows it's not about numbers, right?

Do we live in a culture that says that it's not about numbers? Do we? Yeah. Is that the evangelical church culture?

You don't count people. Don't matter.

Forgot what we were counting. They forgot what we're counting. What is the text counting?

Those who were being saved. Brothers and sisters, that is a significant number.

That is a number we should be counting. That is a number that matters. Oh, if we're counting rear ends filling seats, that's sketchy.

Right? You get what I'm saying? Is that the number that we need to be concerned with? No, but there's a number,

Recast Church, that we ought to be concerned with, and that is the number of people being saved.

When we're talking about the numbers of people who are no longer destined for an eternity separated from God, then numbers matter.

When we're talking about counting the number of people worshiping God, praising him for eternity, then numbers matter.

When we're talking about the number of people turned from hopelessness and despair to joy and delight in Christ, then numbers matter.

Numbers matter. The early church, they were tight. They were connected.

They loved each other. They spent time together. They were growing in the depth of relationship and community together, but they always had room for more.

Daily, God was adding to their number. They were growing deeper in community, and in growing deeper in that community, they found the joy and strength to reach the broader community out there.

With something glorious to invite them to. There's a lot in this passage that God could be speaking to you about, and in a very individualistic culture, it's possible that some of you are just not buying this.

You're like, connection with people, you know, feelings, all that stuff, authenticity, I can scrap that and just come.

And church is something that you were raised to attend. If you're anything like me, you can remember times in your life where you felt like you were just forced to come to church as a kid.

Any of you relate to that? Any of you have that conversation with your parents, say, about 13, 14, where it was kind of like, really?

You gotta just keep doing this? Is this what we do every day, every week? We just keep doing this?

And so to some of you, the church is a service you go to, and that's about it, and it's become a cultural form for you.

And maybe God would be calling you by this text to be devoted to the fellowship today, to recognize your need for people.

Maybe you need to join a small group and make a priority of truly doing life with others. Again, you can check that box in the back of the connection card and turn it in, and we'll do the best that we can to get you connected in a timely manner.

Maybe you need to make room in your heart for others to join in the fellowship. Maybe you've begun to allow the church to be a click to you, and you've got your friends that you gravitate towards during connection time, and someone else will greet the visitors.

I've got my posse. I've got my people. I've got my friends, and nobody else is invited into your circle.

Maybe God wants to use you to see others added to the number of those being saved, and he's calling all of us to be welcoming to those who come in.

The bottom line today is that God has saved us into a community. The root of the word communion is community, and we take juice and the crackers to remember together in unity what

Jesus has done for us. If you are in Christ and have asked him to be your

Lord and Savior, then let's practice devotion to the breaking of the bread this morning. As we pass the bread and juice,

I would encourage you to look around. You heard me right. I'd encourage you to look around and reflect on the others here that God has brought into fellowship with us.

To take communion in a worthy manner, according to 1 Corinthians, is in context to be connected together in a healthy way with those around you.

I think often we get that wrong. We think that to take communion in a worthy way is to eyes down, quietly rehearse all the sins that I committed this week, and try to confess those.

And oops, you know, how many of you know you're going to forget one? You're in trouble. Oh no, taking this holy bread and putting it in my mouth, and I'm unholy.

God knows that. You already are. Okay, you've sinned. To take communion in a worthy manner is to be in right relationship with others.

In other words, to head up, look around the room. Have I offended somebody in this fellowship? It would be glorious.

I would love it to see a couple people shifting in their seats to get closer to somebody to say, you know what? I've wronged you.

I've wronged you this week, and I need your forgiveness. I can't take this juice, and I can't take this cracker and pretend that we are unified when we are not.

And so I need that. I need your forgiveness before we can take the next step and move on in our spiritual growth.

That's what it means to take communion in a worthy manner. That's why I say head up, look around.

We are rejoicing together that we are unified together through the blood of Jesus Christ and through his body that was broken for us.

That's what we're doing here. So take communion together, head up, looking around, and rejoicing that God has brought others here.

Rejoicing that we are together, the body of Christ. And consider what your next step is in community as we take communion together this morning.

Let's pray. Father, I rejoice in these people that you have brought here.

I am grateful and thankful. You have done amazing and glorious things here, and we've seen with awe and wonder,

I've seen with awe and wonder, your movement and your spirit in healing people and bringing them to a place of wholeness and helping people to grow in faith and grow in community and grow in service.

And it's your work. And Father, I pray that as we contemplate and consider during this communion time, just the reality of your creation and the way that you've made us for relationship and with heads up, looking around, just identifying that we're not alone, but you have brought us together into this body.

Father, I pray that you would empower us as we praise you together, as we do life together, as we interact with each other, to value that, to be devoted to the fellowship, to be devoted to your teaching, to be devoted to prayer, and to be devoted to this life of remembering the cross.

And even as we take communion, allow that to fill our minds as together we remember the cross and remember you are the one who has brought us together in Jesus' name.