Connecting With God's Family Series

Acts 2:42-47 CONNECTING WITH GOD’S FAMILY

INTRO

ANCHOR no. 2 - FELLOWSHIP - to stay strong, we must connect with God’s Family.

Life is meant to be shared. Doing life together is God’s plan from the beginning of time. From the relationship of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the Trinity, with the 12 apostles, the early church (Acts 2) - all shares the pattern of life together. God longs to connect all His children in loving relationship with one another.

We longs to develop lasting relationship with other people. God makes us with a need for connection. We can connect with anyone intellectually and emotionally, but a spiritual connection requires that both people have a strong relationship with God. When we connect with anyone around our work or school, we feel different from that when we connect around believers - because of our deeper beliefs, values and longings rooted in our relationship with God Himself.

God intends for us to experience life together - that’s why He has brought us together - under one umbrella called THE CHURCH. There are many "one another" commands in the New Testament because it is God’s will for us to relate with one another, especially those in His household.

Ruth Bell Graham, the wife of Billy Graham, has written a story, which she calls “The Mender.”

“He had built for himself a great house on one of the Caribbean islands. It is a thing to behold. Tall rusty iron columns, collected and resurrected with an ingenious homemade device. This Great House is a masterpiece of salvaged materials. A collector and seller of scrap metal as well as antiques, he was also fascinated with broken bits and pieces of chinaware from his front yard.

Carefully he fitted and glued the pieces together. Few ever came out whole. They remained simply a collection of one who cared. When I expressed interest, he gave me a blue-and-white plate, carefully glued together — pieces missing. ‘You remind me of God,’ I said. By the look on his face, I knew I shocked him, and I hurriedly explained. ‘God pieces back broken lives lovingly. Sometimes a piece is irretrievably lost. But still He gathers what He can and restores us.’”

This story is a parable of the church - we are an unusual collection of broken people. But God has taken us, collected the pieces of our lives, and lovingly glued them back together. By His grace, our brokenness has been transformed into something of purpose, of value, of beauty.

But this beauty exists, not just because they are being used – but more so because they are being fixed together. This little piece of mine, when attached with that broken piece of yours, and that small piece of his, and hers… formed what we see as beauty and value.

That’s the fellowship of the church. Rick Warren puts it simply, "You were formed for God’s family." Eph 1:5 In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will... Such a beauty can only be experienced and seen when you and I come together – like this group here - in sharing our lives together and serving our common Father in heaven.

The world gives us a different picture - we see that in TV show Survivor. On the surface, it looks like a team game. But in reality it is about the “survival of the individual”. Those in the game will say, “You are not an asset to us. You threaten us. You don’t do things the way we have always done them. You are not part of our group. We don’t like you, so we have gathered the council and voted you off our island.”

Acts 2 tells us - 44"they were together"; 46"every day they continued to meet together..." - this picture of the church was made possible because the people made the relationship with others a priority in their lives. Luke says they were DEVOTED to fellowship. God wants us to commit to the same thing today.

OUR CHURCH WILL BE LOVING AND WARM...

· The best use of your life is to LOVE OTHERS...

· The best way to love is to MAKE TIME FOR OTHERS...

(1) LIVE OUT THE LOVE OF GOD...

Make the best contribution in life - love others. Care for those in need - physically, emotionally, spiritually.

It is not about having many people – although there should be more than 3000 pp in Acts 2.

· You can have many people – but people who want to experience the love of God, but do not want to share that love with others.

· You can have people who want to be forgiven, but do not want to forgive.