Old Foundations for a Fresh Start (Acts 2:42)

Acts 2:37-47 and the Birth of the Church

If you have a Bible, and I hope you do, take it and turn with me to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. Acts and the second chapter. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2. If you grabbed one of the red Bibles in the rack out there that we give away, that's on page 968.

Acts chapter 2. On screen it says we're going to read from verse 42, but I want to start a little bit earlier. So we're going to pick it up in verse 37. So Acts chapter 2 from verse 37. We're only going to look at one verse this morning, but I want to read it in its context.

So Acts chapter 2, beginning in verse 37 and reading through to 47. So Acts chapter 2, beginning in verse 37. It's our custom here at Redeemer that we stand at this point in our service for the reading of God's word.

So if I can invite you to do so. Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2, beginning in verse 37. Acts 2 .37, brothers and sisters, these are God's words. When they, and this is the crowd who had heard Peter, when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what should we do?

Peter replied, repent and be baptized each one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call.

Within many other words, he testified and strongly urged them saying, be saved from this corrupt generation. So those who accepted his message were baptized. And that day 3 ,000 people were added to them.

They, the 3 ,000 people devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles.

Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds as any had need. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple and broke bread from house to house.

They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. Pray that God will bless that reading of his word and give us understanding of it.

Let's pray, ask for his help, and we will get to work in God's word. Gracious Father, we thank you so much because of your provision. We thank you for this space that we are able to meet in and to worship together in.

We thank you for how you've been with us up to this point and trust for your continued presence and your continued blessing as we continue on meeting here week to week. So Father, I simply ask that as we open up your word even now, that your spirit would speak to every heart, that as we open up the scriptures, we would be freshly amazed at the Lord Jesus and what he has done in not just saving us, but in bringing us together as a body of your people.

Father, be at work in this sacred time and in this sacred space, and we ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. Please be seated. I have as my title for the message this morning, thought it would be appropriate given our first Sunday in this space, gave it the title Old Foundations for a Fresh Start.

Old Foundations for a Fresh Start. It was that great genius Albert Einstein who said, or at least we think he said this, we're not 100 sure, but it was Albert Einstein who's believed to have said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

As it stands, the phrase reminds us that you can't really complain about the results of something when you're happy to keep doing the wrong thing. If you keep doing the wrong thing and keep getting bad results, you shouldn't really complain about the results you get because insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting differing results.

It's what we call a truism. It's one of those statements that's mostly true most of the time. Chances are that in life, if you're doing the same thing and getting results you don't like, you probably should do something different.

I think we can all agree to that. Again, it's a truism, but here's the thing about truisms. Truisms are mostly true most of the time. They're not always true all of the time, are they? And I want to argue that when it comes to church, when it comes to church life, sometimes it is actually doing the same things over and over that lead to results.

No disrespect to the great genius that was Albert Einstein, but sometimes it's not insanity to do the same thing over and over because sometimes you actually get good results. I think when it comes to church, it's all too easy for us to be tempted by the flashiness of the new, the creative, and the innovative.

And let's be clear, I'm not bagging on things that are new. I'm not bagging on things that are creative. I'm not bagging on things that are innovative. Far from it. But sometimes the temptation can be to think we need more new things, more creative things, more innovative things.

The same old things that we've done, just don't cut it. But here's the question I want to leave with you this morning. What if the best thing any faithful church can do is not something new? It's not something creative.

It's not something innovative. What if actually the healthiest thing a church can do is to be committed to doing and believing the same old foundational truths for its life and its ministry? We're in Acts chapter 2 this morning, and as we come to Acts chapter 2, we are on the front porch of something of a fresh start.

We didn't read the whole chapter because we didn't have time, but let me allow me to summarize real quick. The Spirit has been poured out in the first four verses. The demonstration of the Spirit attracts a crowd.

This crowd then hears the gospel through the preaching of Peter, who will preach the first sermon of the New Testament church. We read the response in verses 37 to 41, where they hear this message, and they're convicted by the power of the Holy Spirit, and they ask, what should we do?

And so Peter says, repent and be baptized, every one of you, for the forgiveness of sins in the name of Jesus Christ, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so the gospel is proclaimed, and as the gospel is proclaimed, people come to faith in Jesus.

And look at verse 41 in our passage. It says that those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day about 3 ,000 people were added to them. I wish I had time, but allow me to kind of do a hit and run real quick with the statement.

I'm just going to say it and move on. I don't have time. It's interesting in this passage that Peter doesn't try to plant a church. Think about it. Peter preaches the Word and the power of the Spirit, and the church grew around that proclamation.

Again, I wish I had more to say about that, but time is not on my side, so let me leave that alone. People are saved, and a church is formed, but what did that church look like? 3 ,000 people are added to the number of the disciples.

Remember, we know this from the beginning of the chapter. There are about 120 people, so now there are about 3 ,120. What does this really large church look like? What did their life look like? More importantly for us this morning as we embark on something of a fresh start here in this new location, on the cusp of a fresh start, what can we learn from the early church as we embark on a new chapter of life together?

Well, I think very simply, this is my big idea. I've got to put it on screen, so you have to listen with me. Faithful ministry, if you think about it, we learn from this early church that faithful ministry is a matter of commitment to the right priorities.

I don't really have anything profound to say this morning. Faithful ministry is a matter of commitment to the right priorities, and as you read Acts chapter 2 and verse 42, you get an insight into what the priorities of this very early church was, and so for the rest of our time, I want to consider four faithful foundations, four foundational principles for making the most of a fresh start.

If we're going to make the most of this fresh start in this new location, there are some foundational things I want us to go back to. Again, I'm not going to say anything that's revolutionary or new, I hope, but I hope this will be something of a blessed reminder and blessed encouragement for us to continue in the things that we've been faithfully doing up to this point.

So, four faithful foundations for a fresh start. The first one that you see in the passage is the foundation of biblical teaching, the foundation of biblical teaching, the foundation of biblical teaching.

Before we go any further, again, look at our verse for today, Acts chapter 2 verse 42. The text says that they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. That verb, to devote themselves, actually applies to all four of the things we're going to see in this passage.

Whatever they did, they didn't do by halves, they were all in on these things. Did you also notice in this passage as we read it that you don't see Peter trying, or any of the apostles, trying to convince them that this is what they should do?

Granted, this is a summary statement, what you read in Acts chapter 2 verse 42 to 47, so there's a lot we're not being told because it's a summary. But again, you don't see anywhere where Peter has to convince them or the apostles have to convince them to do these things.

The text is explicit in saying that they devoted themselves, this was a voluntary act on their part, this was the natural response, if you will, of transformed hearts. Understanding the grace of God in the gospel didn't dull their devotion to God and to what He was doing.

Remember, these are not people who are irreligious who come to faith, these are Jews. These are faithful, practicing Jews. We know this because early in the chapter, they've come into town for the Feast of Pentecost.

These are faithful, believing Jews. And yet, they've come into this new understanding of what God is doing, a clarity has come to all that they had seen in the Old Testament, and yet the grace of God didn't dull their devotion to God and what He was doing.

If anything, they devoted themselves to these things. And the first thing we're told that they devoted themselves to was the teaching of the apostles. The term for teaching here carries this idea of a body of truth that is committed to a person.

That there was a body of teaching that the apostles began to do very early on, and this early church devoted themselves to that teaching. In one sense, this isn't a surprise given how this church began.

We saw that Peter has preached, and Peter is the one who calls them to faith in Christ. He's the human instrument that the Lord used to bring these people to faith, and it was through a sermon that this took place.

It was a sermon actually explaining the prophet Joel. This young church was born through the preaching of the Word, and it continued through the preaching of the Word. John Stott, the British Anglican pastor, I think got it exactly right when he said, quote, the first evidence Luke mentions of the Spirit's presence in the church is that they have devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.

One might say that the Holy Spirit opened a school in Jerusalem that day. Its teachers were the apostles whom Jesus had appointed, and there were 3 ,000 pupils in the classroom. This was a church that was very clearly devoted to the apostles' teaching.

Okay, Kofi, where do I find the apostles' teaching today? Well, I'm glad you asked. I believe that we have the teachings of the prophets and the apostles available for us in the pages of the Word of God.

Every time that we read and we study and we hear this Word of God, we are hearing the teachings of the apostles and prophets as they were sent by our triune God. I'm thankful that from the beginning, Redeemer will always say, we don't do a lot of things here at Redeemer, but we've always been a place where the Bible is rightfully central.

Some might say too central, but I'd rather that it was too central than the word be. You ever seen this in some churches where the Bible is conspicuous by its absence? It might not win you awards. It might not make noise and all sorts of things, but I'm firmly convinced that that's how God chooses to work, that God chooses to work through His Word read, heard, and preached in the power of His Spirit.

For a moment, let's think about this a little bit more. What are some of the markers of the apostles' teaching? If we say that the apostles' teaching is what we should be devoted to, and that's kind of the point I want to make in this first point, what are some markers of this apostolic teaching?

If we say, okay, we have the teachings of the apostles in the scriptures, well, what are some high points? What are some highlights of this teaching? Just a few of them. Again, things that if you've been at Redeemer for any length of time, you know that we hold these to be dear.

For one thing, it involves a high view of God, understanding God as the sovereign creator of all things, understanding His providence and His care over all things, a high view of God in His redeeming and His saving work.

It involves a high view of God. It also involves a high view of Christ, a high view of Christ. If you've been here for any length of time, you've probably heard me say this, but probably do for a reminder, that when we talk about our Lord Jesus, we can't not talk about Jesus and not talk about the fact that He is our prophet, He is our priest, and He is our King, that He is a prophet to deal with our ignorance.

We do not know the will of God, but in Christ, God makes His will known to us. He's a priest to deal with our sin. He doesn't just offer a sacrifice, the Bible makes us to understand, He is the sacrifice.

He's a prophet to deal with our ignorance. He's a priest to deal with our sin. He's a King to deal with our rebellion. We were at enmity with God, but through what God has done in Christ, we are brought into loving submission to Christ.

And so we can never have too high a view of God and too high a view of Christ. We also have a high view of God's Word here. We believe it to be inspired. We believe it to be inerrant. Inspired, that means that the Holy Spirit was one who breathed out these words.

Inerrance, that it has no error, that in everything it teaches, it teaches us the truth. You might be able to find truths here and there, but if you want the totality of the truth, you're only going to find it in one place, in this Word of God.

And we believe it to be sufficient, that since it's inspired, it's the product of God speaking and it's inerrant, it cannot teach error, then it's sufficient. We don't need anything else. Everything we need, 2 Peter 1 .3, for life and godliness has been given to us through the knowledge of Him.

Where do we find that knowledge? In God's Word. A high view of God, a high view of Christ, a high view of God's Word. We treasure an accurate understanding of the gospel here. You might have noticed this big thing over here.

When we were thinking about moving out, I wanted to have this visually in front of us at all times. If you are a theological nerd like myself, you're familiar with what they call the five solas of the Reformation.

These simple statements that came out of the Reformation period, summarizing the biblical gospel. That salvation is by grace alone, that it's not on the basis of any works that we have done, but it's solely on the basis of God's grace.

That salvation is received by faith alone. Salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, that salvation is found then in Christ alone. It's not Christ plus the saints, not Christ plus another mediator, not Christ plus joining the right church or being baptized or anything else.

No, it is Christ and Christ alone. And we find that truth in scripture alone. And all of this is to the glory of God alone. So, we treasure the understanding of the gospel. We treasure the doctrines of grace here.

We, again, try to be, as I like to think, somewhat gentle about that. Not trying to cram them down people's thoughts, but if we believe in a high view of God in salvation, then we believe that God is sovereign in the work of salvation.

And finally, we treasure an accurate understanding of discipleship. Recognizing that every believer has the, think about this, it's your birthright as a Christian. God gives you the Holy Spirit, 1 John chapter 2 verse 28, so that you can understand the truth.

Every Christian can understand God's word and be equipped to know that word. And as they are equipped through knowing the word of God, we are then able to live life together as the people of God. And these are some of the highlights when we think about the apostles' doctrine.

There's so much more we could say, because there is so much to the teaching of the prophets and the apostles as we find it in the word of God. And the reality is that as people whom God has brought together, it's a commitment to the word that secures us in this world.

And think about this, it secures us in a world that's overrun with utter and complete confusion about just about everything. If you think about the world that we live in, it's like, what a time to be alive.

And I don't mean that in the best sense. The world is such a confusing place right now. And as confusing as the world is, isn't it good to know that we have something of a sure foundation to plant our feet on as God's people?

Isn't it good to know that we are not left to what we think is right or what some institution tells us is right, or what our experience tells us is right, that we can go to God and we can ask him and we know that he has spoken.

And so if we're going to make the most out of our fresh start, it begins with a foundation of strong biblical doctrine. But that's not everything. We could stop there and that'd be great and wonderful, but there's more.

There's a second foundational principle that appears in our text. You have the foundation of biblical teaching, but you also have the foundation of shared life together. The foundation of shared life together.

So again, come back to our text, Acts chapter 2 verse 42. It says, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship. Now, at the risk of stating the bleeding obvious, please note that at least in my translation here, the CSB, it says the fellowship, because there is actually an article there.

This wasn't just the sort of vague way that we sometimes use the word fellowship. No, and then those of you who were here in the summer in our previous location, when we went through Philippians, I talked about this at length.

That fellowship, let's use a more modern word. Let's not use a churchy word for a second. Let's use just a word we all use all the time. Partnership. That we are all sharing in life together. Again, we just spent a month thinking about life in the Father's house and what the Bible teaches about our shared life together as God's people.

So I don't want to be here too long. I just want to note two observations really quickly. First of all, we need to understand what we can call vertical fellowship. Vertical fellowship. When I say that, vertical is that way.

Vertical fellowship refers to our fellowship with God. Fellowship starts with the blessed truth that if you are here today and you are a Christian, you have come into a relationship with the Father, with the Son, and with the Holy Spirit.

So John can say, I won't have you turn, I'll just read these passages, but in 1 John 1 .3, John could say, what we have seen and heard, we also declare to you so that you may also have fellowship with us.

And indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. There's a benediction that we use every so often here at Redeemer. 2 Corinthians 13 .13, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

The reality is if you are a Christian, you have come into fellowship with the triune God. And what a wonderful thing that is because by nature, we should have nothing close to fellowship with God. Think about who God is and who we are for just a moment.

God is pure light, the Bible says. We are nothing but darkness. The Bible says that not just God is loving, which is true, but the Bible says that God is love. Let's be honest, is humankind always the most loving?

The Bible describes God as holy, holy, holy. And we are definitely, definitely, definitely not. But that's the glory of the gospel, isn't it? That in the person of Jesus Christ, that light has overcome the darkness, love has overcome enmity, holiness has overcome unholiness, and as a result, we who were not loving, who were not holy, who could not come into the very presence of God, we're now able to come into His presence.

And now we can have true fellowship in the Father's love for us, in the grace that Christ brings to us, and in the partnership of the Spirit. It's that glorious reality, what I've called vertical fellowship, our fellowship with God.

The reality that we've been united to the triune God, and we share in the life that God extends to us in Christ. It's that reality that leads to horizontal fellowship. Horizontal fellowship, our fellowship with one another.

In fact, so we just saw that in 1 John, didn't we? Where he said, remember 1 John 1, 3? He says, what we've seen and heard, we declare to you so that you may have fellowship with us. It's fellowship with God that makes fellowship with one another possible.

And that's the fellowship that's in mind as we come to Acts chapter 2. This horizontal fellowship, this fellowship with one another, a genuine shared life together. And if there's any confusion what that looks like, Luke tells us.

So look at verse 44, Acts 2 -44. Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. They sold their possessions and property and distributed the needs to all as any had need. Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple and broke bread from house to house.

They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to the number of those who were being saved. Do you get the sense that this newly founded church took life together very seriously?

Now I'm sure I don't need to say this, but just in case anyone gets worried, there are people who have taken this passage over the years, over the centuries, and said, well true Christians don't own their own property.

They sell everything, they live together. This is not spiritual communism. Let's all just take a second. It doesn't mean that, you know, if a church is for real, you know, we're going to sell all our stuff, pack what clothes we have left in a bag and go live in a commune together.

I don't think that's what Luke is getting at in this summary. I don't think the point is so much a form of spiritual communism, if you will. I think the very simple point Luke is making here is that they took care of one another, even when it cost them.

Think about it. These people come to faith in Jesus. Think about it. Jesus was not the most popular person in Israel. Oh, you mean that rabbi that was traveling around doing all sorts of chaos? That guy who said that he would destroy?

That guy? That's who you want to follow? Yeah, you don't need to work here no more. That was a very real reality for lots of people who came to faith in Christ. You can imagine a young person who comes to faith in Christ and parents say, yeah, you can't live here no more.

You can imagine someone who's high ranking in society, who suddenly discovers he's not quite welcome in the corridors of power like he once was. Now you've got a bunch of people who need help, very real tangible help.

And so what does the church do? Church says, if you're hurting, I'm hurting, let's find a way to solve this. They were all in on life together, no matter the price tag. It's a beautiful thing to watch as the coming of the Spirit created a people who were willing to truly invest in life with each other.

And if I can speak plainly to us, as we begin a new season here, we are being afforded fresh opportunities to pulling closer to one another, fresh opportunities to share in life together, a renewed commitment to our Lord's Day gatherings, making a priority of spending time together in the week.

Even if it's just, okay, I'm going to send somebody a text message, see how they're doing. How can I pray for you? Opening up our homes and hospitality. There are just so many ways in which we can move closer to one another in shared life together.

And again, if we're going to make the fresh start, it's going to be built on the foundation of genuine biblical apostolic doctrine and the foundation of shared life together. But there's a third foundation in our text.

We can't stop there. There's a third foundation that's evident in our text. If we're going to maximize this fresh start, then we're going to need thirdly, the foundation of the means of grace. Oh, lost a couple of slides.

Yikes. Point number three, the foundation of means of grace. Look again at our text with me. Acts chapter two and verse 42, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread.

To the breaking of bread. Now here we need to do a little bit of background work. The breaking of bread here, is it a reference to just eating in general? No, that comes later in the passage. The fact again is there's a definite article here.

It's referring to a particular event that they knew as the breaking of bread. If you're taking notes, Acts chapter 20 and verse seven, I won't read it, but Acts chapter 20 and verse seven notes that when the people of God gathered together on the first day of the week, they gathered together, the text says, to break bread.

As far as I can tell, and the majority of God's people down through the ages have agreed, this seems to be a reference, not just to general fellowship meals, but to the Lord's table. Okay, Kofi, how did you get from the Lord's table to the means of grace?

Well, think about it. We read in verse 41, they've already been baptized. Think, if I can pause for a moment. God has given two sacraments, two seals of grace. You can call them sacraments, you can call them ordinances.

Ordinances just means that they're commanded. Sacraments means that they are means by which we participate in God's grace. God has given us two of those things. He's given us baptism, which brings us into the life of the people of God.

It doesn't save, but it does bring us into shared life with the people of God. And then he gives us the Lord's table, which nourishes our ongoing life together as God's people. And in our theological tradition, just as a way of shorthand, in addition to the word and prayer, so you have word, prayer, baptism, Lord's supper, we call these things together the means of grace.

As our fathers in the faith put it, what are the outward means by which Christ communicates to us the benefits of his mediation? Christ is our mediator. He is all that we need. But how does Christ minister to us the benefits of that office of being our mediator, the one who stands in our place before God?

Well, he does so, our fathers in the faith said, through all his ordinances, especially the word, the sacraments, and prayer, all of which are made effective to his beloved children for their salvation.

And what Luke is reminding us is that the early church were committed to these means. When people were saved, they were baptized. And then those who were baptized came together in the celebration of the Lord's table, remembering the Lord Jesus and receiving from him the benefits of his mediation.

These means of grace don't save us, only the blood of Christ saves. But they do minister to us as we grow in our salvation. And the apostolic church didn't see these means as unimportant or unessential.

I remember when I was in university, had a friend, really, really great guy. His dad was a professor actually at a theological college in London. I remember this is, I want to say my second year in university.

We're having a conversation. My friend says, you know, I don't get why we do baptism in the Lord's supper. Like, it just feels like we could save so much time. He was in a church where they did it every week.

Well, when people need to be baptized, they did. And they had Lord's table every week. It just feels like we could save so much time. And I remember another one of my friends before I could jump in kind of said, but if you love someone, why would you not want to sit at the table and eat with them?

And what my friend was getting at was that in our participation in the means of grace, we are sharing in what Christ has done for us. And my friend wasn't entirely off the money here because that's kind of the language Paul uses.

Again, I won't have you turn there, but you can write it down if you want. First Corinthians chapter 10, verses 16 and 17. Paul is rebuking the Corinthians for their over friendliness with the world. And he says, the cup of blessing that we bless, referring to the cup used in the Lord's supper, is it not a sharing?

It's also, by the way, the word we get the word fellowship from, same word. Is it not a sharing, a fellowshipping, if you will, in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing, a partnering, a fellowshipping in the body of Christ?

Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body since we all share the one bread. God's people, as we partake of the Lord's supper week by week, as we will do in just a moment, we are not just remembering what Christ did for us in the past.

I mean, we are definitely doing that. The Bible says we should do that, but we're not doing just that. We are also sharing in, fellowshiping in the benefit of his work in the here and now. Yes, we remember his work in the past, we receive the benefits of his work in the present, but also we're anticipating the glory to come.

What we celebrate each week as we come to this table is simply the fact that one day, we will replace bread and juice with a far more sumptuous meal. We will replace that, not just with a meal, but with the very presence of the one we celebrate.

Call this a very small advance on that day, and done in the right spirit and for the right purposes, the means of grace are not just things we do in our worship. Their foundation was why we, I at least, often talk about ordinary means ministry.

Again, we're not trying to do a bunch of things, but we are trying to do the things that Christ has commanded us and to do them well. As my friends at Nine Marks Ministries like to say, the ordinary means of grace, don't do weird stuff.

If we're going to maximize this fresh start, we need to build on the right foundations, the foundation of apostolic doctrine, the foundation of shared life together, the foundation of the means of grace.

Our fourth foundation this morning, the foundation of corporate prayer, the foundation of corporate or earnest prayer. So again, let's go back to our verse and see how it ends. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.

Anybody got the ESV here? No? Oh, ESV? I believe the ESV says to the prayers in verse 42. Someone can check me on that. I love the CSB translation, but sometimes it gets things not quite right. Yep, it says the prayers because that's what's there in the original.

It doesn't say to prayer, it's prayer in the plural. Actually, if you've got a King James version in the room, it does the same thing too. The church in Acts was a church that was characterized by ongoing, regular, corporate prayer.

Now, if you're at Redeemer, you know I kind of pound this drum every chance I get because it's something that we just don't talk about much in the modern church, in my opinion. For a moment, can I walk you through the book of Acts?