Communion Message 2020 — Zac Poonen

Pentecost, Conversion, and Baptism

Let me read to you how it was soon after the day of Pentecost. Acts chapter 2, when 3 ,000 people were converted, and we read here in Acts 2, Peter preached and 3 ,000 were converted and they were baptized, Acts 2 41.

That day, the day of Pentecost, Acts 2 41, 3 ,000 people were converted and received baptism. So numerous people must have helped these people to be baptized. And in the succeeding days, these 3 ,000, see these 3 ,000 could not meet in one place.

Believers Meeting in House Churches

There was no building to hold 3 ,000 people. So they met in different, different places, in different little homes. When we talk about the church in Rome, it was not in one building, it was in many, many homes like we are today.

Apostolic Fellowship and Breaking Bread

And they received the apostles' teaching and fellowship and they broke bread and prayed. So in their different homes, they broke bread. So if the church in Rome broke bread, it broke bread in so many homes, if the church in Jerusalem broke bread, it was in many, many different homes that they broke bread, but there's still one body.

They were testifying to the fact that they were one body. And it says they continued like that in verse 46, day by day, with one mind in the temple and from house to house, they broke bread, Acts 2 46.

Communion as One Body in Christ

So we've come back to apostolic days now. They broke bread from house to house and they took their meals with gladness and sincerity of heart. I hope that'll also be true in our midst. In our homes, we break bread, recognizing that those people in the other home there are one body with me.

And 1 Corinthians 10 says in verse 17, since there is one bread, we who are many are one body. We all partake of that one bread. Even when we meet together in the meeting hall, it's in little pieces that we take part in here.

Now we are in different homes, but we never forget that we are one bread. We are one body in Christ. And we remember the fact that he died for us. And we take part in that bread to say we want to die with him.

And we drink the cup saying that he shed his blood to forgive all our sins, saying, Lord, I want to take sin very seriously. As I drink this cup, I want to really see what a price you paid to free me from sin.

And I want to be willing to have my life poured out for you as well. So that's the spirit in which we can break bread like the early apostles and early believers from house to house. Amen.