Gospel-born Community (Acts 2:41-47, Jeff Kliewer)

Gospel-Born Community in Acts 2

Lord, as we sit here this morning, your love is amazing and we are in awe that you, our King, would lay down your life for your friends. We are your servants and yet you have come to serve us, washing our feet and washing us in your blood to wash away our sins.

Thank you, Jesus, for the kind of King that you are. This is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. You are God and we ask, Lord, that our eyes could be set upon you this morning for this brief time that we have in your word this morning and so many hours to live in the rest of the week, Lord.

We pray that these moments would be devoted to you,.

Our King.

Help us to devote ourselves to the apostles' teaching, that we would know you more. Change our hearts, Lord. Help us to love you more, in Jesus' name, amen. It was the winter of 1974, the frozen tundra of Russia.

A book began to be circulated that went from person to person. The way it worked is that the book would be read in a 24-hour period and then passed on to somebody else. Meanwhile, by hand, in secret, people were typing copies of this book to expand the circulation.

The book was Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago. Gulag Archipelago was a compilation of 277 eyewitness accounts of what happened in the Russian Gulag. In the concentration camps of Russia, run by a communist government, it told the story of suffering and oppression.

As that book circulated from person to person, the eyes of the Russian people were opened to the truth about communism, and it was only a matter of time before the communist regime would fall. Of course, we know Ronald Reagan teared down this wall, and in the 1980s, indeed, the reign of communism in Russia came to an end, although probably not completely.

I bring this up for two reasons. One, today we're studying Acts 2, verses 41 to 47, and there has been a misconception of these verses that what is being taught is communist in nature. It's not. What we have in communism is a government taking control and commanding an economy.

It's very different, in fact, quite the opposite of what we'll read in the Bible today. What we have in the Bible is free will offerings, people giving voluntarily of their own private property. Number two, I bring up Gulag Archipelago because I think living where we do in this country, with the freedom that we have, and being able to assemble in a church like this, we take what we have for granted.

We forget the suffering of a majority of the world and a majority of Christian history because we live in an amazing country, and we have something far more amazing even than this free country. We have the church, and I think we take that for granted.

Today we're talking about the church, the beauty of the church, the community that we have together. We are not individual Christians isolated from one another. We are a community of faith, and some of the things that we have are, to be honest, the envy of the world because look around.

What you'll find is that the world is always creating wannabe churches, wannabe churches that lack the essence and the treasure of what we have.

Think about it.

Some people build wealthy residential communities thinking that in that place they'll find life, and there's nothing wrong with having wealth. It's a matter of the heart, but what I've noticed in many residential communities is that there is no community at all.

People drive home from work. They hit the button on their garage door. The door opens, they drive in, and the door closes, and behind those beautiful walls there's often turmoil and isolation and loneliness because you can't build community with wealth.

There's another form of community that's developed in our day, and that is the online community. People get online to form communities of people that have like interests, and in that space they have interaction through the invisible arena of the internet, but here again there's no genuine community.

I even just recently read about a woman who goes online and argues on theological websites, and to bolster her point she logs out of her own account and goes on to another account operating as somebody else and supports her own comments, so she'll make some theological point and then she'll log on with somebody else.

And say now that is a good point.

When in actuality she's talking to herself. You see, there's something inherently artificial about online community. It's not community at all, and yet so many people are substituting real community for this online thing.

There's another kind of community that people form around, and that's athletic community. People gather around athletics. I see this especially in the running community where the running that happens, which is either 26 miles or 13 or a 5K, a 10K, that happens on Sunday morning, but it's more than the run that brings people together.

It's the beer and the food and the community that they encounter on Sunday morning. It's a wannabe church. People are devoted to it partly because they want to be with other people that have similar interests to them, but what I've noticed about my own running, it used to be a race to get better.

Each year I'd try to beat my times, but after a certain point, I think the tipping point was 36 years old. Now my goal is different. It's to not lose ground as quickly as possible. So if at 40 now I can keep up somewhat close to what I did at 36, I'm winning, but see, listen, nobody wins the race against father time.

And communities built around a sport or any form of athleticism are necessarily short-lived. They come to an end because father time always wins, doesn't he? In fact, Tom Brady has a recent thing online that's called Tom versus time.

And I found it interesting because in the episodes in Tom versus time, a commentator in the Washington Post said this about it, quoting Brady. I do want to know the whys in life, Brady said. I do want to know why we're here, where we're going, trying to find that deeper purpose, to live it through sports in a very authentic way.

That makes so much sense to me. And the article has gone on to point out that in a sense, Brady is creating a religion around health and fitness and sport. In fact, one of the mentors that has spoken about this quote-unquote religion is the son of Deepak Chopra.

You might remember him from the New Age Movement. Chopra's son says this. He's also a devoted Boston sports fan. He sees sports as a religion that makes sense. Both create community. They have saints and rituals and take place on hallowed ground.

It'd be hard to argue that many people who approach football don't see it as a religion. I think many people have a religion on Sunday morning and it's not in the church. It's a wannabe church. More on that later.

The main idea here, we have gospel-born community. We have a community in the church that's born from the gospel. And it is capable of heights that no other community on earth can come close to reaching.

We're gonna look at what those are today. We have what the world lacks. Although they hold our treasures to scorn, they mock what we have in the church. The church is the object of mocking. We delight in what is truly valuable.

Let's read together Acts 2, 41 to 47, and keep in mind this idea of community, community, delighting in the treasures that we have. We're gonna see 10 of them here. Acts 2, verses 41 to 47. You can find that on your smartphone if you don't have a book with you.

But turn there, we're studying the ESV, the English Standard Version. I should say we're using that version. We're studying the word of God. It says in verse 41 and following, Acts 2, so those who received his word were baptized.

And there were added that day about 3 ,000 souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread.

And the prayers.

And awe came upon every soul. And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 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 as any had need.

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

In Acts 2, 41, we see the first thing that we have. And that is baptism. It says, so those who received his word were baptized. Baptism, being dunked underwater and coming back out again. But see, baptism is only symbolic of something that happens on the inside.

Those who received his word were baptized. Those who heard the word of God and believed. It ties back to verse 39. The promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off. Everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.

The command is to repent and be baptized. And the grounding for that is that there is a promise for, which grounds the reason why you need to be baptized in the promise it's for you and all who are far off.

The promise of forgiveness of sin, that your sins are washed away, that you are raised to newness of life, that you get eternal life. See, baptism is a strange thing to the world. Imagine it, you're in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost.

Thousands of people are gathering to see this strange sight. All the people listen as Peter preaches the gospel. And then one by one, they are dunked underneath water. That is almost as strange as the speaking in tongues thing that kicked it all off in the first part of the chapter.

1 Peter 3, verse 21 and following, it says, baptism now saves you, not the washing away of sin, but the pledge of a pure conscience before God. And even as in the days of the flood, Noah and the eight who were with him were saved through the water, so it is with baptism.

And then in chapter four, we're told that the world who sees us the Christian community thinks that we're strange.

Why?

Because we don't plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation and sin that they go into. The world thinks we're strange. Instead of plunging with them into the indulgence of the flesh to do what the flesh wants to do, to do what they do, we go an entirely different direction and we get dunked into water, plunged underwater to come out and live an entirely different way.

We are strange to the world. But this first gift to the church is crucial. It marks us off as different. We are no longer going this way with the world according to the pattern of this world and the ruler who is the devil.

According to our flesh, we are marked off as dead to that and now through the water, we proclaim that Christ has made us alive in him. This is the first thing that we see that makes us different. It makes us completely different.

But notice the second thing in verse 41 and following, and there were added that day about 3 ,000 souls. I want you to notice what Luke does here. He counts. He gives us a number. 3 ,000 people were added to their number.

Now look in your Bible, turn to a couple of verses and I'll give you some more references that you can look up later. But Luke has a concern with counting the number of believers that are coming to him.

Chapter two, verse 41, 3 ,000. Verse 47, and the Lord added to their number day by day those who are being saved. Chapter four, verse four, but many of those who had heard the word believed and the number of the men came to about 5 ,000.

The number is growing. The church is growing. Chapter six, well, 514, chapter five, verse 14, and more than ever, believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women. Chapter six, verse seven, and the word of God continued to increase and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.

We could go on in 931, 942, 1121, 1126, 1223 to 24, but return with me to Acts chapter two. The point is Luke is counting numbers for a reason. Remember the great commission. Go, make disciples of all nations, baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and lo, I am with you always to the end of the age.

This is the command. This is the mission, and Luke is marking the progress of the mission by counting the believers. The numbers are adding up. This is incredibly important because in church, we need to recognize that we have a mission.

The mission is to preach the gospel to the ends of the earth. As God adds person after person to the church, he is being glorified in that process. Now notice, it's not us who can convert anybody. We speak of baptism.

Did anybody see online that some of the Eagles were baptized before a game last year? You hear about Carson Wentz and Foles. Marcus Johnson was baptized last year. Zach Ertz about a year ago. They were added to the family.

See, we have a purpose. The church has something that the world does not have. We have a purpose. We have a mission, and that ability to go out and preach the gospel to all people will become in you like a passion, like a flame that gives your life meaning.

This is what the world cannot find. In all forms of community, the substitute forms, the wannabe churches, there's no eternal purpose to the things that they do. In fact, I would suggest this. When you're talking to people about Christ and about religious things, lead them to the end point of their own worldview.

If they say that there is no God, lead them to understand that that means there is no purpose. There is no meaning. They will become nihilistic, but in the end, they'll recognize that they need something more than what they have.

Purpose.

Keeps going and it gets better. Acts chapter two, verse 42. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. The third thing that we have that the world can never substitute for.

Is the word of God.

We have, in this assembly, the apostles' teaching. What the apostles verbally taught has been recorded in these 27 books of the New Testament. And their interest was to teach not only the new covenant, but to tie that in with the old.

If you notice Peter's sermon, he valued the word of God. Chapter two, verse 16. This is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. He cites the Old Testament. Chapter two, verse 25. For David says concerning him.

Chapter two, verse 34. For David did not ascend into heaven, but he himself says.

Follow this.

Peter valued the word of God.

He knows it and he quotes it because he holds it as a treasure. We, the church, as we sit here today with Bibles opened, we have something in our community which is valuable. Psalm 19 says it's more valuable than gold.

One of my favorite teachers and preachers is John Piper. Many of you know that. He wrote a book called A Peculiar Glory. It's a thick volume just about the peculiar, unique glory that is the Bible. That the Bible is different from any other book written in the history of the world.

Every verse that we're talking about can capture you, get inside of your bones and become like a fire, as Jeremiah says. The word of God is a treasure that our community has. It is the words of the living God.

We have that.

We have the Bible here with us today. That's part of our community. Next, the fellowship. The fellowship.

We have potlucks.

We have food.

And in this particular church, we have some of the best cooks, too. The church has fellowship. Genuine love for one another. Time spent together. Here, the early church is not just meeting and seeing each other once a week.

But there's interaction beyond that. There's what's called fellowship. Paul in Philippians 2 addresses them and commends to them who he calls his fellow brother. His fellow worker. His fellow messenger.

He tells them to welcome him. He is a fellow. What does it mean to be fellow? What does it mean to be fellow? It means we have something in common. We have work in common. We have a message in common.

We have fellowship. Well, what is it that brings us here this morning? Because we're quite different, aren't we? As we get to know one another's stories, what is it about this community that's different?

Our fellowship is built on a treasure that far surpasses any other thing in this world. Our fellowship is built on the person and work of Jesus Christ. The gospel that brought us together in the first place.

Each of us are broken vessels. We're just jars of clay. But we have a surpassing treasure in these jars of clay. God has spoken into our hearts and said, let light come out of darkness. And that treasure that's inside of us is Jesus Christ himself.

All who believe in him share him in common. We have fellowship around Christ. That's what brings us together. That's what we celebrate when we gather in the home, in the church. I could talk about Jesus all day.

I could talk a little bit about sports, talk politics, can talk about just about anything. It's fun to do. But man, don't you love the brothers and sisters? When you get together with them, all you can talk about is Jesus Christ.

He's on their lips all the time. That's fellowship, that's koinonia. It's centered around the person of Christ where the word of God is in your thinking. That's a depth of fellowship the world can't have.

Next, we have the breaking of bread. And again, that does include potlucks and getting together to eat. Nobody can cook and eat like Christians. But the breaking of bread has a deeper meaning because Jesus took bread and he broke it.

And he said, this is my body broken for you. We have communion with one another in the breaking of bread, in the remembering of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And I wanna ask you this. If you neglect fellowship in the church, if you neglect gathering together, how is it that you can take communion?

Where are you gonna get the Lord's Supper? Can you do that at your kitchen table? And is it important in the first place? Jesus didn't suggest that we take communion. He says, do this in remembrance of me.

We gather the first Sunday of every month. We break bread and we take the cup and we pass it.

Why?

To remember him.

That is a gift.

And what I've found in my life is those moments of communion where you sit and you hold that bread before you eat it together, you examine your heart and the Lord reveals areas in your life that you need to confess and repent from.

It's a crucial time. It's unusual again, like baptism. We have this ordinance called the Lord's Supper.

It's a gift to us.

Celebrate it, enjoy it. Recognize we have something truly valuable that the world knows nothing of. Next, the prayers.

The prayers.

They were devoted to this, to the study, like we're doing now, to gathering together as we're here in fellowship with one another. They were also devoted to prayer. And prayer is a gift to the church that we vastly underestimate.

Maybe because sometimes we're so comfortable. Maybe because we're self-reliant. Maybe because we think we can handle our lives on our own. We go about our days doing the best we can and hoping for great outcomes.

But prayer is a powerful, powerful tool at the disposal of the church that we often neglect. In Indonesia in 1999, there was a jihadi impulse rise up among the Muslims of Indonesia. And they decided at the turn of the millennium there that they were gonna crush out the Christian villages in that part of Indonesia.

And so, I believe it was mid-December of 1999, they fell upon the Christian villages with swords and fire and guns and began killing. There was a woman who ran with her family. And I'll spare the details because they're gruesome.

She saw horrible things even happen to her own family. But in each thing that she saw, she prayed. The blood of Jesus is all-powerful. In those moments, she could think of nothing else to say. She could do nothing, she was helpless.

But she could call upon the blood of Jesus. The blood of Jesus is all-powerful. And she prayed it so much it sustained her. Finally, she was captured by that mob and brought to this Muslim town where she was forced to marry a Muslim man who then impregnated her.

And she hated the child that was in her womb because she was separated from her real husband. But she began to pray the blood of Jesus is all-powerful. The blood of Jesus is all-powerful. In her testimony, you can learn of it from the Voice of the Martyrs.

That's who's published a book about this. She began to love that child that was growing inside of her. She gave birth to that child. And as she prayed and prayed the blood of Jesus is all-powerful, before long, her husband found her.

And with the help of the government, rescued her out of that bondage with her daughter. And her daughter from her husband as well. The blood of Jesus is all-powerful. Most of us will never experience that kind of persecution.

But all of us experience persecution. It might be shaming, it might be ridicule. It might be your difficulties at work and in the family. It might be a struggle against an illness. Come to the church and let us pray.

Let us call upon the name of Jesus and say, the blood of Jesus is all-powerful. He moves mountains when God's people pray. We have access to the throne of the Father through the Son of God, by the Spirit who lives inside of all of us who believe.

And the blood of Jesus is all-powerful. Pray with expectancy.

We have this gift.

This is ours. We have a mediator who can take us to the Father. We can pray and he unleashes his power in response. This is our inheritance. This is what we have. This is our community. Next, awe came upon every soul.

And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

We have awe.

There is nothing on earth that can produce the kind of awe that we experience. Now, I understand that in the apostolic age, we saw many more organic healings. And what those charlatans do with the leg lengthening and things that you'll see on YouTube, it's nothing compared to what the miracles we saw in the Bible.

There's a lot of counterfeit miracles and counterfeit signs and wonders. And I've never seen the kind of miracles that I see in the book of Acts. But I'll tell you what I have seen. At camp a couple weeks ago, I saw a fifth grader and his fifth grade friend rally the second graders to the fifth graders, the boys in the cabin, to read the book of James.

And I was in awe to hear young boys reading the Bible on their own when they could be out running in the snow. It's a miracle in my book. I was in awe to see that. And God often shows me things, like I told the story last week about how he just told me to go to a church.

And when I was there, I got to see someone get baptized that I had led to Christ. No way of knowing, I sat right next to him in the same chair. I was in awe. I tell you, when I see some of these signs and wonders, I, when I get alone and I'm driving in the car, I'm yelling at the top of my lungs.

Thank you, Jesus. Do you know what it's like to experience awe?

Awe.

You're awestruck because only God can do that. That's our inheritance. Baptism. When a young person or an adult goes down under the water and is brought out again, the world says, okay, so what? I got a swimming pool.

I can jump in and out of a pool, who cares? But the Christian who knows Jesus and knows the burial and the resurrection of Jesus and sees someone buried with Christ, raised to newness of life,.

We're in awe.

We have these miracles. We have the joy, the awe that comes from following him. A couple more things that we have is our inheritance in this community. Selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all.

We have sacrifice. You hear me?

Sacrifice.

Not government seizure of property through taxation or some other redistribution of wealth scheme like communism. We have sacrifice. Individuals who are giving their private property to know this, read on to the story in Acts chapter five, Ananias and Sapphira bring an offering.

They lie about what they're offering because they're holding back some for themselves. And Peter will say to them, look, wasn't it yours to begin with? And once you sold it, wasn't it your money to do with what you want?

In other words, this is private property belonging to you.

But they sacrificed.

And in the context here, they were giving everything for the church. They had all things in common. Selling their possessions. Notice though, they still have homes, verse 46. They're breaking bread in their homes.

They're still maintaining private property. This is not a call to like a commune like many times has happened with the Essenes back in the first century. Or even today you have kind of new monastics that say you have to sell everything and go live in a Christian commune.

No, it says their houses. They maintain private homes.

The point here is sacrifice.

They're willing to give of their own possessions. Their greed has been broken. And now they're willing to offer freely. Next, one another. As any had need. Galatians 6 .10 says that we should do good to everyone, especially to those who belong of the household of the faith.

Especially to those who are in the church. As any had need. They looked for real needs. In fact, there's other parts of scripture that govern how we do this. Second Thessalonians chapter three, we don't just indiscriminately throw money at everybody who asks.

Some widows who are asking were to say no to because there's another means where they're to be taken care of. Whereas certain widows who meet a qualification were to be cared for by the church. The church needs discernment in how it spends its money.

And it should be devoted especially to those who belong in the household of the faith. Doesn't mean we don't help everybody. You know, the story in Luke about the man who was beaten and left on the side of the road.

That's my neighbor. A person who's in need. As God brings you into proximity to those things, sometimes you are to step in and help. And that's good. We help everybody. But there's a special thing that happens in the church.

When one of our own has a genuine need, here's a family that's here for each other. That's why we have a benevolence fund at this church. To help when we can, when there's a genuine need. Finally, day by day, attending the temple together, breaking bread in their homes, they receive their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God.

We have worship. We can join together and sing the praises of our King of Kings. We have gladness and joy in worship. Something that the world doesn't understand, once again. So in closing, have you properly valued the church?

In this free country, there's churches everywhere. Back in the day in Scandinavia, churches were run by the state. But a group of believers gathered and said, no, we're not part of the state-run system.

We are free. That's where the evangelical free church comes from. They wanted freedom to worship as the word of God taught. Here in America, we take that for granted because all the churches are free.

But do you truly value what we actually have here? The Gulag Archipelago was a devastating place. Did you know, my grandfather was there for four years? Captured and held by the Russians for four years.

In the Gulag Archipelago, they take your Bibles. Bibles are outlawed in communist Russia, the Soviet Union at that time. And in fact, it's happened again that Vladimir Putin now has outlawed evangelization in their land.

But back then, my grandfather was held captive, not many people survived the Gulag. So for me to be standing here is a miracle because if he doesn't survive, my dad is not born and neither am I. But in the Gulag, they tried to take his Bible.

He found a way to hide it in his water canteen. What do you value so much that you would choose it over water in a Gulag? We have that, we have the treasure, the word of God. We have each other. We have the church.

Don't take it for granted. I know there's other things that can steal our interests and give us a sense of community, whether it's sports, whether it's online, TV, all of these things offer a pseudo community, but what we have here is truly worthy.

Have you been undervaluing the church? If so, repent of that. He's faithful and just. To forgive and cleanse you of all unrighteousness. But we have true gospel-born community right here. And so let's stand and we'll ask the worship team to come.

I'm gonna close in a word of prayer and then let's sing like the saved. Let's be thankful for the community that we have. Gospel-born community, let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word to us this morning.

We thank you for Acts chapter two and this incredible picture of what community is supposed to look like in the church. Help us, Lord, to value these things, to value prayer together, to value communion and baptism and the promise of eternal life, to value your word and the exposition of your word that we could know you, to value one another, to value any who have need, the chance to meet those needs, the fellowship.

Thank you, Lord.

And most of all, Lord, we say thank you for Jesus. We value the son of God. We value his blood shed for us. It's our highest joy. We are willing to devote ourselves to these things. Help us, Lord, to be more devoted because our devotion is so fickle.

We take these things for granted, but Lord, help us to be devoted to this gospel-born community. In Jesus' name, amen.