A Model Church

Acts 2 as a Model for the Church

Our scripture this morning will be Acts chapter 2 and verses 43 to 47. I'll actually begin reading at verse 37, but our text for preaching will be 42 to 47. And as you turn there You're going to hear as I read the scripture about the church the church, which is just emerged from the womb if you will a Vibrant church, it's just been birthed and it's full of wonder at the new breath that that has in its lungs it is overjoyed at the continual presence of her midwife the Holy Spirit and Is continually nourished by her bridegroom who is Jesus Christ who day by day feeds them and nourishes this new church By the word which he is giving day by day through the Apostles.

And you'll notice as I read these verses in a moment that their devotion to each other was exceeded only by their devotion to Jesus Christ. Day by day the Spirit of God will find adding to their number.

We'll see them leaving behind their old hearts of stone following the leadings of their new heart of flesh. They worship they gave they testified in every way imaginable. We'll find them becoming such a bright and shining light that the glory of God in and among them was undeniable and It was undeniable even even among the watching looking in unbelievers whose admiration Though probably a bit begrudging was genuine.

This is the church at its earliest the church many would say at its period at its purest. So let us stand as we honor God's Word. I will read Acts chapter 2 verses 37 to 47. Now when they heard this this of course being Peter's Pentecostal Sermon when they heard this they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the Apostles brothers, what shall we do.

And Peter said to them repent and be baptized every 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.

Everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself and with many other words He bore witness and continued to exert them saying save yourselves from this crooked generation. So those who received his word were baptized and there were added that day about 3 ,000 souls.

And now for the text this morning beginning in verse 42 and They devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching and fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers and all 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 who 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 are being saved may God bless the reading and now with his blessing the proclamation this would please be seated.

The Unity of the Church and the Judgment at Babel

Now I want to ask you Whether this church that I just read up to you the Church of Acts chapter 2 verses 42 to 47 Commonly just called it the act to church. Does it sound to you like the ideal of an unreachable of an unreachable ideal of a bygone age.

Like something meant only for those simpler those less hectic times those times when men were more amenable to spirituality than we are today. Does it sound to you like that is the ideal church. But it's something that is past that we can no longer attain to we can no longer have.

Does that church sound like something that we should attain to that we should desire. Now if I took a poll Asking you which church you would rather be ours as it is today or this one in Acts chapter 2 as it was then.

Well, most of you would vote for the latter, wouldn't you. Wouldn't you vote for that new vibrant pure exciting church? When everything was new and fresh and people were coming in and the joy and the enthusiasm of the Lord was so palpable and so Obvious that even the cynics from outside had to look in and say God is truly among this people.

Wouldn't that be wonderful to have. Wouldn't you vote for that church if indeed we could vote. That pure that lovely church before compromise set in that pure and lovely church before the weeds came in among the tears.

Church fresh gleaming gloriously new. Wouldn't that be a wonderful church to be. To model ourselves after and more than model after to actually become. Well the Scriptures here that I just read to you.

Give us this model they give us a model of what the Church of Jesus Christ looked at. Looked like when she emerged from Peter's spirit-filled sermon at the Pentecost. And I ask you again. What if we believe that the church could return to or could have this purity?

What if we believe that I mean what if you really believe that. Heart soul mind and strength you believe that this scripture Describes a church that is more than just an ideal of a bygone age. But a church that is possible today.

What if you really believe that. What if you believe that enough to work for it to fight for it? Would it be worth the effort? If I took a poll I'm not asking you to raise your hands but if I did ask you to raise your hands and say how many of you think if I could develop for you the Idea that this church is attainable.

Not just something from 2 ,000 years ago, and we just gloss it over as historical record an anachronism but something we could indeed do and possibly should do and I ask you to raise your hands if you're willing to work even to strain to sacrifice.

To fight to be such a church. How many of you would raise your hands and say I'm in. I Think we all would. What was the great characteristic of this church in Acts chapter 2. There are many answers to a question like that.

But the answer I'm going to give and I'm not going to go and give you an analysis of other answers that are out there. Impossible. I'm saying nothing for or against them. But here's the answer I want us to focus on this morning the character of this Acts chapter 2 church was unity.

It was unity that made them so unique in that day it was unity That caused them to be this light shining on a hill giving glory to God. So that all the world would look and see that light on the hill and as it says that they had favor with all the People people had fit they had favor with the people.

Why? Because they saw God's glory in what in their unity in their coming together in their practice of worshipping Together as a body and calling out the praises of Jesus Christ their Savior. The character of this church was unity the gospel of peace, which God brings.

Brings you unity to men. We have unity because Jesus Christ won it for us and he gave it to us and you need to appreciate our unity as a God-given gift is something worth having it is something we're striving for it is something worth constantly improving and I would argue in Acts chapter 2 this ideal church this pure church this church before the compromises set in is A church that was characterized primarily by this God-given Unity.

Well, I want us to appreciate this morning. I want us to appreciate it enough that when I say amen at the end of this message, we're all together. We're all saying, you know this is something we're striving for something worth straining for something worth working for and something worth maybe even fighting for.

I Want us to appreciate it. I want us to appreciate what this church in Acts chapter 2 really was. And what it says about what the church today Can be how do we do this? How do we appreciate it? Well first I'm going to come off the text a bit.

I'm gonna take us way back in history because I want you to understand What it is that the church represents in so many ways and I'm only gonna pick one of those many ways. It's a manifold church. There are many things we could talk about this one.

I want to bring us back to his Genesis 11. We'll go back there and there we're going to see one of the major acts of God's judgments that in the church is finally resolved and we need this because if the prevailing characteristic the Characteristic of the church is our unity then Genesis 11.

Genesis 11 explains why this can only be brought about by God. That's first and then we're going to appreciate this simply by going through these verses and Understanding the original pattern of the church.

What does the divine text tell us about this church? How is it described and what can we extract from that and that will take us back to Acts chapter 2 42 through 47 which is our text where the church is described along with the reaction of the watching world.

And third and finally and perhaps most importantly and not absent from any of the other preaching. But what we will focus third on and last upon from the same verses is our total reliance upon God's Holy Spirit.

To accomplish anything of any value any value in his eyes. So Genesis 11 so we understand what is actually being reversed in the church. Then we will go through our verse our verses point-by-point. To see what they tell us how it describes the church to us.

And then we will close by looking at God's Holy Spirit is the only way we can do anything of any eternal value. So only God brings true unity to the church if we enjoy any unity at all. We have to accept it as a divine gift of God.

Only God can do this and if we ask why if the question is why can only God do this? Don't men come together for all kinds of things. We're talking about true unity. We're talking about unity that God is pleased with and only he can bring this about and that's because God is the reason That man became disunified in the first place.

It is God who decreed that men should part company with each other. It is God who decreed it. Therefore only God can abrogate his decree and bring men back together. The church's unity is a reversal of one of the major judgments that God ever made.

And for this you can turn to Genesis chapter 11. There's 11. I'll read Verses 1 through 9. This is very familiar to many of us. This is a story of Babel. This is where men came together for one purpose.

God saw it and disperses them. Let's read these verses beginning of verse 1. Now the whole earth had one language and the same words and as people migrated from the east. They found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there and they said to one another come.

Let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly and they had brick for stone and bitumen for mortar. Then they said come let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens and let us make a name For ourselves lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.

Maybe she's saying we can stop for even a moment they Are afraid of being dispersed throughout the whole earth. But after the flood in Genesis 9 God said repeating what he had told Adam and Eve really go be dispersed.

Go fill the earth. They say no, we're going to stay here. We want to stay here together. We're all speaking the same words. They're all speaking the same language. We like it here and the Lord God came down to see the city.

This is verse 5 and the tower which the children of man had built and the Lord said behold they are one people and they have all one language and this is only the beginning of what they will do and Nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.

Come let us go down there and Confuse their language so that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth and they left off building the city therefore its name was called Babel because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth and from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of the earth.

You don't chapter 2 verse 39 of Acts and Peter's Pentecostal sermon towards the end of it, which we read a moment ago. He says for 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. Now, what does he mean by the promise? Well, the immediate answer to what he meant by the promise was the giving of the Holy Spirit. Now these people had seen the Holy Spirit the tongues the divided tongues as a fire.

They had heard the rushing wind. They heard Peter preaching in languages so that they all understood the unifying language of the gospel and The promise of the Holy Spirit the promise of the giving of the Holy Spirit.

He referred back to the Prophet Joel and some others. Is the immediate answer to what's the promise that you by faith in Christ Jesus will receive the Holy Spirit. But then he adds something and this is what I wasn't want to focus in on here for just a few moments.

He adds that the promise is for all who are a far off all who are far off. If far from where? Well from each other would be a first answer, but why are they far off? Why do they have to be brought from anywhere to come back together as a people and the answer is.

And we just read it from Genesis 11 because God had dispersed them. Because God had broken them up because God had dis unified them. Now the Jews hearing Peter their first thought to far off. Would have meant the Jews dispersed throughout the world after the Babylonian exile of 586 BC about 600 years before his sermon.

And so they would hear that the promise is for you and all who are far off. They would say well, you mean my cousin Joe who's in Macedonia and you mean my uncle Frank who's in Greece and so forth because the Jews had been dispersed throughout the land some 600 years before.

And that answer, you know sense would have been correct, but only in a limited sense. Because was the Gospels the gospel only for the Jews was for the Jew first, but also for the Greek in Acts chapter 8.

The gospel goes out to Samaria. So goes away from Jerusalem and expands into Samaria and soon thereafter. It goes to Ethiopia through Candace's Servant that Ethiopian eunuch and in Acts chapter 10 the the gospel goes to the Gentiles.

When Peter goes to the Roman centurion Cornelius and brings the gospel him and his household is is Converted and on it goes and expands and grows and goes until all the world. Hears the gospel the unifying language of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The church brings it to his fold men and women and children from different peoples and different lands and different tribes and tongues. Revelation chapter 14 verse 6 it says that the gospel goes to every nation and tribe and language and people and Jesus said the same thing when he said go therefore and make disciples of all Jewish dispersed first peoples know of all nations.

Every kindred every tribe every tongue. So it's far beyond. Just the dispersed Jews what we call the Diaspora. It includes them but it goes so far beyond it is all humanity. And this is why we started with Genesis 11 to appreciate what has come together here.

The gospel is the power of God for salvation as Romans 1 16 to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Now as far as I know, there's only one person in this church who was born of Jewish blood and raised that way and that's me.

But our coming together. Our mutual love and care for each other because of our faith in the one Lord Jesus Christ Is a fulfillment of this reversal that's not just for the Jew it's for everyone. It's for anyone who will hear the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and put their faith and their trust in him.

You see the judgment of God at Babel was reversed at Pentecost. There's only one truly unifying language and that is the gospel and is reversed there when the church is birthed by Peter's Sermon there at Pentecost.

When God came down, he saw men striving together unified in their purpose to be his equal. He drove them away. He drove them away from each other. Centuries later God came down again, but God came down in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In him the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we saw his glory. When God came down he saw men striving to be like God. He broke them apart. He gave them different languages says you're going to speak this and you're going to speak that.

And soon men went to gather together with those who spoke the same words and. Then they drew up their borders against others who spoke different words and became enemies with each other. Which is far better than being enemies of God but this is what is reversed in the gospel and.

And the fulfillment of that reversal is Here in this church in Acts chapter 2 and it's here in this church today 20 centuries later God still by his spirit by the unifying language of the gospel of his forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ is Drawing men back from Babel and to his son.

So the church that Jesus Founded and is still building is the place where God can truly and rightly be worshiped by people who come from every background. Babel being completely reversed by what we have here.

Only here is Babel reversed. Only here in Christ is true unity found unity founded on one Lord who is Jesus Christ on one faith one baptism one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

Only here do men and women worship in spirit and truth. Only the church of Jesus Christ populated by we who are called from far off. Only here is that good and pleasant dwelling together that pleases God and brings honor to his son Jesus.

So you see that here at this church? Do you see this kind of beautiful pure loving Christ honoring unity. Perhaps like they had in Acts chapter 2 when the church was first born. Well, it's here. It may be be a bit hidden.

Especially compared to the beautiful picture we have of the Acts 2 church. But it is here our unity may be a penlight piercing through a thick fog. But it's still there and it's here because it's not something we accomplished.

It's not something I can give to you neither can pastor Owens. It's not something you can bring. It's something that Christ has accomplished. It's a great gift. One to be cherished one to be nurtured one to be grown.

Not something we did. Jesus did it by the cross. Unity is something we have we just need to uncover it. We just need to bring back and buff up the what we have so it lusters. So it shines the way it did in Acts chapter 2 if Acts chapter 2 is indeed something that you would have raised your hand.

Say yes, I vote for that. Let's do that. You know many years ago. My dad was a Few days away from passing away. I was cleaning the garage. We turned around on vacation we were out in Yellowstone. Called my mother.

She said you better come so we came my dad had about a week left. And one of the things I did just to keep busy ones there was cleaned up this garage. My dad was not known for having nice tools. Just a lot of tools.

They bought lousy tools, honestly, they bought him a flea market. It's not because he was cheap because he liked talking to people. He would just buy the stuff and all the soccers were rounded and they couldn't grab any nuts and his Screwdrivers were always chipped and they couldn't turn any screws.

And so I'm just tossing this stuff and tossing this stuff and I'm weeping because I know my dad's going to pass pretty soon. And while I'm doing this, I found on the floor of all things a two bladed Schrade Uncle Henry knife four-inch blades.

And I'm about ready to toss it right away because it's my dad's tool and he bought it a flea market. So I know it's not going to be worth keeping but I kind of like knives. So I stopped. I open it a little hard to open the blade, but it opened.

And it was a little pitted a little rusted the emblem on the handle. You couldn't quite see Schrade on it or Uncle Henry and Honestly, you could have given it to a child to play with without any loss of conscience because it wasn't going to do anybody any harm.

But I kept it and I have it now and I buffed it up and I cleaned it up and I got all the pits Off of it and it's been me many hours meeting. Mr. Arkansas sharpening stone. But the point is when I first picked it up it was still a knife.

Couldn't function the way a knife is supposed to function quite but it was still a knife. And I tell you this morning that this church today. Even if we don't have a luster gleaming unity like that Church of Acts 2 which we so pine for so often We're still a church we are a proper church and A church that with the hard work with getting the blade onto the Arkansas stone and putting the right oil I'm working and working with patience and diligence Can give Christ Jesus all the more glory and be all the more like this church in Acts chapter 2 and The first way we begin to restore that luster Is to appreciate where our unity came from.

It came all the way back from Babel in Genesis chapter 11 when God dispersed men. Because of their unity together to insult him really to be like him and In the gospel Brings us back together all these nations all these people who he dispersed he now by faith in his son Jesus Christ Brings back and this is the way We work that old knife and get it functioning the way it should like the Acts chapter 2 Church.

The Apostles’ Teaching, Fellowship, and the Breaking of Bread

So again to our passage To Acts chapter 2 now that we've covered Genesis 11 and seeing God bring back together whom he had dispersed. I want to read the whole passage again from verse 42 and they devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching and fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers and all 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 the number day by day those who are being saved. So what do we have here in this?

Description of the first iteration of the church. The church when it was first born some read this and conclude something like this at the church. Therefore must meet in homes. How do we get back to being that Acts chapter 2 Church?

Why we meet in homes. Because in verse 46 they met in their homes. But brethren, this is narrative and Describes what took place now. Biblical narrative can carry doctrine, but it doesn't usually. Usually it simply tells us what happened and that's here in Acts chapter 2 Telling us what happened telling us what things were like.

But that said the language here does lend itself to seeing a model for the church. Not a model of where they met but how they met. Not a model of the place they went to the homes. But the spirit that they brought with them when they went it's a pattern for that very primitive church.

And we're gonna have the unity described here in Acts chapter 2. The unity that pleases God the unity intended by God in Christ's cross. We need to see something that they had in their church life. They were consistent.

They were consistent in their worship of God. They were consistent in their fellowship together. They were consistent in their unity. Now, how do we say that we say that because the verbs that Luke uses here are what we call imperfects.

That doesn't mean that the bad verbs or that they're less good than any other verb. It means it denotes an action that doesn't come to an end. It denotes a past action. This is history. That doesn't come to an end.

It's continual. It's their practice. It's their habit to do these things. Verse 42 they devoted that's your first imperfect consistently habitually constantly. Devoted themselves to something to the Apostles teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of the bread and the prayers.

So what do we have here? Out of contagious love for Christ out of joy and salvation that he gave them. They just couldn't get enough. They were there because they loved the Lord and knew him to be present where his people gathered and worshiped as Jesus said.

We're two or three gathered in my name there. I am among them. Now a friend of mine had a next pastor as a member of his church who would preach Fairly often for him and it seemed wherever this gentleman was and I liked him a lot wherever he was in Scripture.

He had a single application. Therefore you better not miss a church meeting. Now he could be preaching about Aaron's robes Genesis 1 1. Or he could be in one of the doctrinal sections of Romans and he would always seem to come around to this application.

And had this way of waving his finger. Therefore you better not miss any of the church's meetings. Now how that derived from such a variety of biblical passages is beyond our scope this morning and I love this man.

But sometimes people seem so dull to the things of the Lord. Which are taught and encouraged in the meetings of the church. Sometimes people seem so inured to them that a pastor just becomes desperate to find ways to get people there.

Now I'm not going to bark out some legalistic order to you. I Attending the meetings of the church and If Peter did tell them something like to not forsake the gathering of the Saints our careful historian Luke didn't record it.

He let something else permeate this record. It's the sweet-smelling aroma of brethren who worship together out of unrestrained joy in the Lord. Not the exciting music not the awe-inspiring preaching not bright lights or cute children skits.

But conversion to Christ which is an unquenchable thirst to know him more and to be with like-minded people. This is what is happening here. This is why they devoted themselves to this teaching. Devoted themselves constantly to the fellowship to the breaking of the bread to the prayers after those imperfect verbs and His continual practice.

There's something else here. We need to see and that's all the thus. How many times the word the comes up here. You see they weren't attending some amorphous Organization they had no purpose. They devoted themselves to certain things that they devoted themselves that imperfect verb that constancy relates to these things the Apostles teaching emphasis mine What we would today call the scriptures.

The fellowship not some casual or ad hoc gathering but the fellowship created by the Word of God attended by the Spirit's power. The breaking of the bread now by the article by the word the Luke is making it clear.

He means something other than sandwiches and and and soda he means the Lord's table the breaking of the bread something celebrated even then and. The prayers again prayers offered up by the assembled church.

Very specific very definite things. This was their consistent and continual habit and practice. You know human organizations tend to lose their direction over time. The initial enthusiasm for the fresh vision that first carried them along sort of wanes.

The Boy Scouts lasted a long time before this happened to them, but it did recently happen and. Recent compromises came about from from this loss of vision and now they're practically defunct. And we can think of many other organizations that have had this thing happen to them where they start out with all this energy and all this direction and people are all excited and Soon the succeeding generation says oh if only you had been there then.

Because that was when it was really cool. That was when it was really exciting. The church is the church should be. The church must be different from that. See we're an organization like others were populated by people like others.

But that's where the similarity ends. Listen verse 43 says and all. Came and again an imperfect verb came constantly. Regularly came upon every soul and many wonders and signs are being done again constantly through the Apostles.

What does that tell us about the church. The church is a place of awe. Because here the wonder of God's presence is experienced. It's a place of awe. It's an overused word today. Oh, that's awesome. And we hear it so much that awesome doesn't mean awesome anymore.

It means mundane and regular and everybody's got to be awesome, but here everybody's filled with awe as the word really means Amazement and reverence for God. They were continually awestruck. The signs and wonders of the Apostles are of a time gone by.

I'm gonna let it rest there. They authenticated the Apostles as God's the Lord's true emissaries. They were necessary then in a way that they are not today. How did the unity come about? Well God gave it to him by reversing Babel.

What was one of the characteristics of the unity they were filled with all together? I think sometimes we hold our reverence to God hostage to his doing something to impress us. Pastors do feel this pressure and it leads to disaster quite often as the pastor will distance himself from the Apostles teaching From the Word of God and end up somewhere that they never foresaw or intended entertaining rather than worshiping.

This is when you get preachers just trying to get people excited about being in church and Starting out with a good heart and then compromising on the Word of God next thing. You know he's just a shuckster or a jokester trying to entertain trying to be excited because of his own personage.

Starting out well because I want you to feel the awe of being in God's presence. And I don't sense that you have it. I'm not speaking for me in relation to you my mythical pastor my hypothetical pastor.

Who then goes down this road of compromise in order to gain the awe. Where does awe come from? What comes from faith in Jesus Christ comes from appreciating what he on the cross did to save you. But where does awe come in to the church?

You know Psalm 22 verse 23 says you who fear the Lord praise him. Do you fear the Lord? Praise him all you offspring of Jacob. We say children of Abraham true children of Abraham by faith in Jesus all you offspring of Jacob.

Glorify him and stand in awe of him all you offspring of Israel all you people of faith. All you who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Stand in awe of him. Malachi 2 5 speaks of how Israel once stood in awe of God's name.

How does it wane and fade away if you ever knew this kind of awe and reverence for God? How does it how does it fade away? Like that knife sitting on the floor of dad's garage. Slowly getting a patina of rust and pits in the blades.

I think of the gravediggers in Hamlet. They're singing those happy tunes during their sad task and like them. We just sort of get used to things. You forget the joy of your salvation. You forget the wonder you knew when God first opened your eyes to salvation is so Jesus Christ.

It's like ho hum. Another Sunday, here we go. La dee da another meeting of the Saints. Let's do it. Yawn. Just another morning in the presence of God worshiping his son Jesus in the power of his spirit.

Nice comfortable mundane routine we forget. What a wonderful thing it is to be friends of God by faith in his son Jesus Christ. Where does it all come from? There's all that filled this church. They were continually filled with all.

It comes from you. It's really your job to be filled with all. Not because of me not because of pastor Owens. Not because of the music being exciting or the building being glamorous, but because Jesus Christ is here by his spirit.

You need to bring the all with you. Not something we give you when you arrive on Sunday. Like when we check your temperature and see if you can come in. We have a little scan say oh you have all come on in.

No, you got to go home pick up your all and bring it back with you. No, it's not something we give you. It's something you add all filled Christians make for an awe-inspiring Church a unified Church.

Verses 44 and 45 tell us that their reverence for God led to their devotion to each other as I said to the beginning the only thing that exceeded their devotion and love for each other was their devotion love to Jesus for Jesus Christ and their devotion love for Jesus Christ led to their devotion love for each other.

So is this? Expanding circle. All who believed were together and had all things in common again in perfect verbs this continual practice. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as many as had need.

Now it may have been in Peter's many other words. But Luke doesn't tell us exactly why they held all things in common. So we can engage in just a little bit of speculation and I would say that speculations easily answered.

The Holy Spirit is the reason they held all things in common. It was he who first showed himself in the tongues as a fire and that mighty rushing wind that caught their attention. He the Holy Spirit who loosened Peter's tongue and brought a new unity among men by reversing their confounded language.