Acts 2:42-47
“What It Means to be Church”
by: Rev. Ken Sauer
Grace United MEthodist Church, 9833 Hixson Pike, Soddy Daisy, TN www.gbgm-umc.org/grace-sdtn
Have you ever felt lonely, even when you are surrounded by a large crowd of people?
Have you ever moved to a new town or headed off to college or started a new job where you knew no one?
If so, you have probably experienced that unpleasant feeling we call loneliness.
Immediately following high school, I headed out to Santa Barbara, California to attend college.
My wife recently took a look at a beautiful picture of the place and said, “No wonder you wanted to live out there!”
Nevertheless, I was 3,000 miles from home, and this is where I came to know what loneliness is.
I only stayed at that school for a year before transferring to one closer to home.
Why do people become lonely?
Why is loneliness such an unhappy emotion?
Just think of some of the things persons do to try and solve the loneliness problem.
Children cave into peer pressure in order to fit-in with a group…any group of other kids…any group that will accept them no matter what they are doing, be it drugs or a whole host of other unhealthy behaviors…
…simply to fill-in the hole that loneliness causes…
…and in doing so, people find that they are quite capable of doing almost anything in order to eliminate loneliness.
I think our need for other people, for relationships, for community, for acceptance is what drives most of what we do.
And why is this?
Well, God made us this way.
In Genesis 2:18 “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone…’” so He created another person.
We are not meant to be alone.
It’s not in our genetic make-up.
We cannot thrive in loneliness and isolation…we need other people…we need community.
And the sad part about all this is that there are oh, so many lonely people…living, working and going to school right next to us!
Paul McCartney and John Lennon wrote a song about this:
“Ah, look at all the lonely people…
…All the lonely people where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?”
It is not just our need for other
humans that cause us to feel isolated and alone.
It is also our need for God.
The 17th Century physicist/philosopher Pascal spoke of a “God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every [person]” which can only be filled by a relationship with God.
That’s why Jesus came to this earth…to restore the severed relationship between fallen humanity and God.
Before Jesus was arrested and crucified He assured His disciples: “I will not leave you as orphans…I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth…
…on that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”
Jesus kept His Word, did He not?
For on the Day of Pentecost, after Jesus had ascended into Heaven, the Holy Spirit came.
And the disciples were emboldened, for they knew they were not alone.
And three thousand new converts joined the brand new Christian Church in one day!!!
Finally, there was a prescription for the “God-shaped void.”
There was an answer for “all the lonely people.”
Notice, from our Scripture Lesson for this morning, what the thread is which holds the new Christian Church together and enables it to thrive and grow.
The early Christians devoted themselves to the fellowship.
They studied together, they broke bread together, they prayed together.
They were all filled with awe together as they witnessed together the many wonders and miraculous signs.
They were all together and had everything in common.
They shared their material possessions together.
They worshipped together…continuing to meet together in the temple courts.
They ate in one another’s homes together.
They praised God together; they shared their lives together, “And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
Wow!
Now isn’t that the kind of church you would like to join?
That’s what it means to be church, is it not?
And I have no doubt that this model we are given in Acts Chapter 2 can be duplicated right here at Grace United Methodist Church in Soddy Daisy, Tennessee in the 21st Century!!!
Because the needs of people are the same.
The Holy Spirit is still present, and God’s desire for us is that we will be in community, one with another in the name of Christ!
No. We are not meant to be alone.
How many times have you heard someone say: “You can be a Christian without going to church?”
That would not have even been thought of as a possibility by the early Church.
A person can have a conversion experience.
Their life can change in the twinkle of an eye.
But if they are not in fellowship with other Christians, if they are not worshipping with other Christians, if they are not sharing their lives with other Christians, if they are not praying with other Christians, if they are not studying God’s Word with other Christians…
…they will miss out on the awe…
…they will not mature…
…they will not thrive…
…and more than likely, they will eventually go back to living in the same desperate, isolated way they were before they were born from above.
A Christian can never thrive outside of the Church…much less survive.
A young man who was fed up with church went to see a wise Christian to get some advice.
As they sat in front of a fire, he told him all the things that were bothering him about church, and how he felt he would be better off without it.
As he was speaking, the wise Christian silently took the fire tongs and removed a red-hot glowing coal from the middle of the fire and set it on the hearth.
The coal glowed for a while, but eventually dimmed and turned black.
He let it sit there a while and then took the tongs and placed the coal back in the middle of the fire.
Within seconds the coal was glowing red hot once again.
The young man took the wordless lesson and left determined to stay with the church.
The writer to the Hebrews tells that community that they have failed to grow as Christians.
He tells them that although by the time of the letter, they should be mature in their faith…having grown a long way since they first came to Christ, they are in fact still just “infants.”
The writer goes on to say: “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing…”
We cannot grow in our walk with Christ outside of the church!
We need one another.
Just as coals soon burn out when they are removed from the company of other coals, we will not last long in the faith if we remove ourselves from regular fellowship.
In Romania, after communism fell, we in the West became aware of the many orphans there who were basically warehoused in huge orphanages.
They were vastly understaffed.
So the babies, while they had most of their physical needs looked after—food, shelter and some hygiene, were rarely picked up and snuggled or played with.
Many of them had what doctors aptly call “failure to thrive syndrome.”
They may have been many months or sometimes even years old, but they still looked and acted like newborns.
And this is what happens to those of us who do not share our lives with our brothers and sisters in Christ.
We have a “failure to thrive syndrome.”
Proverbs 27:17 says: “As iron sharpens iron, so one [person] sharpens another.”
A wise person once said: “Snowflakes are frail, but if enough of them get together they can stop traffic.”
The church is like that, is it not?
Did not Jesus say, “where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am with them”?
Jesus taught in community so that we would learn to discover His presence in others.
Deitrich Bonheoffer reminds us that an incomparable joy comes from the physical presence of other Christians.
We see “in the companionship of a fellow Christian a physical sign of the gracious presence of Christ.”
According to Bonhoeffer, every Christian needs other Christians when she or he becomes uncertain or discouraged.
“The Christ in one’s own heart is weaker than the Christ in the word of a brother or sister.”
We see the model of what God desires His Church to be in Acts chapter 2: “All the believers were together and had everything in common….And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
Is that what is going on here at Grace United Methodist Church?
Are we all intentional about coming to every worship service?
Are we all involved in a Sunday school class?
Do we all come to pray together?
Do we all come to Bible study together?
The church is not just about individuals…
…it’s also about the community which is fostered when individuals come together in the name of Christ.
If one of us miss a worship service, a Sunday school class, a Bible study we all suffer….
…we all miss out!
We all need each other.
Before Christ left this earth, He prayed for all those who will believe: “May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.”
My friends, “look at all the lonely people.”
Look at all the lonely people who need to know God loves them, that they are of supreme value, and that their life has significance.
Look at all the lonely people who
need to know that they are not alone;
that when they face life’s difficulties,
they are surrounded by a
community of grace and that they do
not have to figure out entirely for
themselves how to cope with family
tensions, self-doubts, periods of
despair, economic reversal, and the
temptations that hurt themselves or
others.
Look at all the lonely people who
live in our neighborhoods, work
beside us, go to school with us.
They need to know the peace that
runs deeper than an absence of
conflict, the hope that sustains them
even through the most painful
periods of grief, the sense of
belonging that blesses them and
stretches them and lifts them out of
their own preoccupations.
People need to learn how to offer
and accept forgiveness and how to
serve and be served.
As a church, we are to be a school
for love…a congregation where
people learn from one another how
to love.
Ah, look at all the lonely people
who need to know that life is not
having something to live on but
something to live for…
…that life comes not from taking for
oneself but by giving of oneself.
People need a sustaining sense of
purpose.
People need a relationship with
God through Jesus Christ…which
is what those of us who belong to a
community of faith receive as we
“devote ourselves to the apostles’
teaching and to the fellowship, to the
breaking of bread and to prayer.”
How are we doing in these things?
Can we do better?
Most people discover their need
for God’s grace and for the love of
Christ through the experience of
receiving it.
There are countless stories of
people who didn’t know how hungry
they were for genuine community
until they experienced it, of people
who never knew they needed the
connection to God which worship
fosters until they regularly attended,
and of people who sensed something
missing from their lives and didn’t
know what it was until they
immersed themselves in regular
service to others.
When we invite people to a
Sunday school class, a worship
service, a Bible study, to a prayer
ministry, to sing in the choir, to help
with a service project, we are
providing an avenue by which the
Spirit of God shapes the human
soul, fills the empty spaces in
people’s lives, and brings them to a
relationship with God and other
people.
How many folks have you invited
into the fold this week?
An invitation is not complicated.
In the first chapter of John’s
gospel, Jesus’ invitation was simple:
“Come and see.”
His disciples then used the
same language to invite others.
You don’t need to know the
answers to all the questions of faith
and life to invite someone to church.
We all simply and naturally
need to say to acquaintances and
those with whom we share common
activities: “Come and see.”
The power of an invitation to
change another person’s life must
never be underestimated!
Perhaps that is how God began to
change each one of us!
Let us pray: Dear God, stir up in us a desire to be the church you want us to be. May we all be intentional about worshipping together, sharing our lives with one another and learning better how to love our neighbors and You. In Jesus’ name and for His sake we pray. Amen.
