Sermon Brief
Date Written: October 13, 2010
Date Preached: October 17, 2010
Where Preached: OPBC (AM)
Sermon Details:
Series Title: Reaching Our Community
Sermon Title: Devotion – The Seed of Growth!
Sermon Text: Acts 2:44-47 [ESV]
42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
Introduction:
In reading this passage, most people get really excited about what happens in v.47 where the Bible tells us, “…and the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved…” and people SHOULD be excited about that verse! Growth in the church is an exciting event in a church fellowship.
However, what most believers DO NOT see is the previous 5 verses that reveal HOW the growth of the church in v.47 was achieved! There are some things here that we overlook and read right past because we want to get to the exciting part!
What I saying is these 5 verses reveal a template for how a church can grow… how the Lord intends the church to grow! For a church see the harvest of souls that are revealed in v.47… the church must be willing to take the steps necessary that are laid out in the preceding 5 verses!
And growth is really what we want, right? Isn’t the focus for Oak Park Baptist church all about growing our church in the Lord? The goal is to see the Kingdom of God grow and souls come to Jesus and lives be changed by the power Jesus!
This morning as we celebrated the Lord’s Supper we remembered what Jesus did to provide that salvation for us! We thanked God for Christ on the Cross of Calvary… we thanked God for the sacrifice He made on OUR behalf!
Ask yourself, what is the purpose of church? I would say that for many believers, the purpose of church is like a ‘spiritual filling station’… a place where they can come…get a quick ‘fill up’ in worship and grab a ‘snack’ of spiritual food to get them by… however, this is far from the picture of the 1st century church!
Far too many believers see church as a place to minister to them... and they don’t see it as where God wants them to serve Him. They look for the best children’s ministry or youth ministry or small group ministry… but not where God wants them to serve!
Wanting a good ministry for you and your family is NOT a bad thing…BUT, that has NEVER been God’s focus for the church! The church was created to make disciples…not coddle believers! We were saved to become fishers of men… NOT keepers of the aquarium!
When we look at the passage from Acts 2 this morning we can see a template being laid by the 1st church… a template for growth. If I had to compare…I would compare this church growth template to the process of growing a crop.
If the soil is properly prepared and a good seed is planted… with some water and nurture the plant will begin to grow… you won’t have to convince it to grow… it just grows… because a healthy plant grows, that is just what it does!
However, for a plant to BE healthy there are some actions that must be done to ensure its good health. What would you call a farmer who expected his crop to just appear in the field? Delusional? Lazy?
To ensure a crop, the farmer must take action… He must GO OUT into the field, prepare the field, plow the field and then plant the seed. After the seed is planted, the farmers work is to care for the coming crop by watering it and keeping the weeds out of it…growth will happen, but it takes time! Nothing grows overnight!
Now apply that analogy to the church. No church can just expect church growth… it doesn’t happen like that! There are actions that need to be taken and when we look at this passage we can see God’s pattern for growth in the church… when the church stays true to God’s pattern, God will bless… when they stray, God’s blessings are removed! So a fact we can hang our hat on is… A “healthy church” will grow!
Now that we know and understand that concept, I want us to look at 4 acts of devotion we find in this Scripture… that this 1st church put into practice that resulted in the EXPLOSIVE growth that they experienced–
They acted in devotion…
…to studying God’s Word…
…to investing their lives into each other by truly caring for each other…
… to a TRUE fellowship with ALL believers not barring any, accepting all and adhering to a spiritual intimacy with God and others…
… to a TRUE desire to commune with their Savior in all aspects of worship, especially to prayer…
This morning we are going to look at these corporate devotions by this 1st church in an inverse order of how Luke wrote them down… but we need to understand that this approach does not reduce the importance of any one particular devotion… they are all are important.
However, before we get to these devotions, I want us to look at one particular Greek word in v.42 that enlightens us to the utter importance and vitality of these four separate devotions.
That word is the Greek word [pross-kar-teh-rout-enn] which means:
to adhere to,
to be devoted to,
to be steadfastly attentive unto,
to give unremitting care to,
to continue all the time in a place,
to persevere
This word is written in the imperfect indicative mood and what that means is that it represents continual or repeated action that has occurred and continues to occur...
All of these things bring honor and glory to God! So the early church understood that these things were vital to the life of the church and that if they did NOT do these things… the church would not progress forward!
In other words, these were truly DEVOTIONS practiced regularly by ALL members of the early church… so as we begin to look at these DEVOTIONS practiced by the early church I challenge you to ask yourselves… am I doing this? Does our church do this?
Let’s look what I would call the most significant area… the most significant preparation or characteristic of a healthy church is that of true worship and TRUE worship begins with prayer!
To Pray…To Worship: v. 42d
42 And they devoted themselves to…prayer
The ultimate expression of love and devotion to God is made clear in the corporate worship setting. When one is willing to worship openly and plainly, it is evident where his or her heart is with the Lord. What better view of the fellowship… of the church… than that of the fellowship we enjoy with each other in a corporate worship setting.
But not only do we enjoy fellowship with one another through worship we also enjoy fellowship with Jesus on a deeper and richer level when we come together in worship…
Luke uses the act of prayer as the expression of worship here in this verse… this act of prayer reflects the reverent awe these believers had for the worship of God…prayer was a integral part of the worship experience!
2 weeks ago I called us to a season of Prayer because prayer is the foundation of anything and everything we do for the Kingdom. We can look at Scripture and see that prayer was the foundation element for the church in the 1st century as well… let’s look back at Acts 1:14 [ESV]
14 All these [the disciples and the women] with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and His brothers.
The disciples had been told by Jesus to go and wait for the promise that God was going to deliver… they had gathered in the upper room and they were praying! But let’s look at that verse a little closer
It says that they were ‘devoting themselves to prayer’ which means that there was more to them than the perfunctory ritual prayer, but it was a devoted and from the heart prayer that cried out to God! They had seen the resurrected Jesus taken up into heaven and had witnessed His resurrected body.
They went to pray and wait on the delivered promise of God! That promise is made by Jesus in John 14 when He tells the disciples that God the Father will send another helper… another helper of the same substance as Jesus… we know that helper as the Holy Spirit! Or the 3rd person of the Trinity.
While in the upper room in prayer, God showed up in a mighty way! The Bible describes the scene in very stunning and explicit detail!
Acts 2:2-4[ESV]
2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Have you ever been in or around a tornado? Have you ever ridden out a hurricane where there were high winds? That sound is like a freight train coming down the track… it is a distinctive sound! Can you imagine being in prayer and then all of a sudden there was the sound of wind… but NO wind…
And when they looked up for the wind that they were hearing, they saw something very wonderful… what appeared to be cloves of fire dancing over every person’s head…what a tremendous feeling they had at this point, and then they began to speak and realized that God had supernaturally endowed them with the ability to communicate in the native tongue of the travelers who were in the city for the Festival time of year…
All of this… from prayer! What happened after they prayed? God moved, first in their lives and then in the lives of those they came in contact with… After Peter’s sermon in chapter 2, the Bible tells of 3000 people accepting Christ as Savior and being baptized! Now that is the power of prayer in the church!
The humble and confessional prayers of God’s people will move God from the very throne of Heaven. He promises this in 2 Chronicles 7:12-15 when He says:
12 Then the LORD appeared to Solomon in the night and said to him: "I have heard your prayer and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. 13 When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, 14 if My people who are called by My name humble themselves, and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. 15 Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place.
I want you to think about all the times throughout the Bible where God’s people humbled themselves and prayed… think about what happened!
Gideon and his army of 300 defeated an unbeatable foe!
David and his slingshot brought down a giant who threatened the safety of his nation.
Nehemiah and others rebuilt the wall around Jerusalem, even when opposition was strong against them…
Prayer opens the doors for miracles! Think about it Oak Park… when we come together in true, confessional, and repentant prayer… I want you to ask yourself… what is NOT possible? What can God do with our people? What can God do in the lives of those within the community around us?
Will He send a sound like a rushing mighty wind? Will we have a supernatural experience like those people in the Upper Room? Will we have tongues of fire dancing over our head? Will we supernaturally be instilled with the knowledge of how to speak another language?
I will have to admit that I have never been in a prayer meeting where any of those things have happened, but that is not to say that I doubt that they could. However, our focus should NOT be on these supernatural pictures of what God is doing… but our focus must be on GOD! The people in the upper room were focused on God and God moved within them… We can totally MISS the significance of the events of Acts 2 if our focus is not on God!
The simple fact is that without prayer… our church suffers… ANY church is going to suffer! More importantly without prayer we are going to suffer as individual believers! Have you ever heard the term ‘seven days without prayer makes one weak’ [put slide on screen]
When I say that prayer is the foundation of the church, I see it like the farmer striving to prepare his field for the crop… tilling and weeding and fertilizing… getting the soil ready to receive the seed! His expectation of a crop is there, but he understands that there are things he must do to see the harvest come in…
For the believer… PRAYER is our preparation of the field for the Spiritual Harvest! Prayer does that for our hearts… for our fellowship… prayer paves the way for all the great things in the life of a church!
The Apostle Paul wrote that we are to pray without ceasing… meaning that we are to live our lives in a constant state of prayer and in a prayerful state of mind… ready to pray at a moment’s notice! Are you ready to pray? Are you willing to pray?
Our church meets every Wednesday evening for a corporate prayer time… at 6pm. Have you been? This time is focused on contemplative prayer and we have begun to add the corporate aspect to our prayer time… We must be a church that meets and prays… are you willing to be here and pray with us?
The 1st church DEVOTED themselves to prayer… are you ready to do that here at Oak Park…However, that is not all I can see in this verse, I see another characteristic they devoted themselves to…
To Break Bread Together: v. 42c
42 And they devoted themselves to…the breaking of bread...
Preacher, NOW you are talking! We now know that this WAS indeed the 1st Baptist church of Jerusalem… don’t we? This HAS to be the scriptural basis for Baptists being the Denomination of the Potluck…right?
That may seem funny, but the most important part about this devotion by the early church is that the ‘breaking of bread’ carries with it a far greater meaning than just eating food with your fellow believers… Eating food is one of my favorite things to do… but what about ‘breaking of bread’ do we do that like we should?
The ‘breaking of bread’ with others is a powerful tool… If you want to get to KNOW someone, what do you usually do? You have them over for dinner or you take them out for lunch or dinner… there is something about ‘breaking bread’ together that breaks down barriers and crumbles any walls that separate us…
Breaking bread together is an intimate part of fellowship, but this devotion by the early church was far more than just sharing a meal. This devotion by the early church draws us the picture of a closeness that this group experienced.
In Luke 24:30 the disciples on the road to Emmaus had traveled all day with this man and it was not until they sat at the table with Him and He broke bread with them that their eyes were opened… it was made clear to them over the breaking of bread!
When we sit down and break bread with others, it opens doors for us to get to know them on a deeper and more personal level and that opens doors for ministry and spiritual growth. It also tears down the walls that many people build in their lives if they are skeptical or distrusting… breaking bread opens the door to the heart!
This became a standard by which the church could become more intimate with one another, and still today, the breaking of bread together is beneficial to the fellowship… That is why I urge you to join us on Wednesday evenings when we have our fellowship meal… It is my desire that we become close and intimate in our spiritual walk and our spiritual relationships with one another.
Another aspect of this is that the ‘breaking of bread’ carries with it a double meaning… it is the sharing of a table with fellow believers or even non-believers for the purpose of spiritual intimacy… but it is also a stark reminder of what our Savior has done for us…
Today we ‘broke bread’ symbolically to remember the sacrifice that God made in sending His Son Jesus Christ… to remember the suffering that Jesus endured on our behalf… the breaking of bread together helps us to ALWAYS remember what God has done for us… to keep us thankful!
They prayed together… they broke bread together, but we can also see that…
To Love On One Another: v. 42b
42 And they devoted themselves to the…fellowship...
The term fellowship here in the Greek is the Greek word koininia which carries with it a sense of intimacy that goes beyond a surface and superficial type gathering of likeminded people.
Likeminded people gather all the time, but rarely is there true fellowship like described here in this passage. Churches all over this country gather together every week… shake hands with each other… ask each other how things are going… but are really not interested in knowing… really not interested in caring for their fellow believer!
In our Sunday School/Small group Bible study groups we have tried to establish a care group leader within each class/group… some groups are large enough that more than one care group leader is needed.
The care group leader helps bring about this close and spiritually intimate atmosphere in the class. However, this must not be limited to the Sunday School class… this must flow outward from the entire body of our fellowship… a willingness to love others and include others and incorporate new members and visitors into our fellowship!
We have all heard the phrase, “They don’t care how much you know… until they know how much you care!” And as clichéish as that sounds… it is a dead on true statement. We can have all the knowledge in the world about Christ, but if we don’t care for others, that knowledge is wasted!
Paul tells us in 1 Cor 13:2 [ESV] 2 And if I…understand all mysteries and all knowledge…but have not love, I am nothing.
The believers of the early church understood what it meant to love first… First let’s look at v.44-45
44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.
The believers were TOGETHER… they socialized with each other; they were investing themselves into the lives of other believers! They were showing love by being a part of something greater than themselves!
The phrases had all things in common and selling their possession and distributing the proceeds to all, is not some reference to a socialistic or communistic ideal… Socialism and Communism are mandatory state run and state directed collectives…there is no choice in the matter in those systems!
But THIS community was a free and willing and voluntarily surrendering their possessions for the needs of others. This was people living unselfish lives, think of God first, other second and themselves last… not how our society thinks today!
Having all things in common also refers to the way they saw things, their beliefs, and how they acted and reacted in situations that presented themselves. This was a fellowship that looked out for ALL its members!
Second let’s look at v.46
46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts,
Daily they were doing things TOGETHER… this is the 2nd time in 3 verses that Luke impresses the togetherness of this fellowship! Doing things together, breaking bread together and living their lives as Scripture teaches us to live… thankfully! If they had something and others needed it… they gave! If they were in need and others had… their need was met!
This was a fellowship who did not think to themselves… these things are MINE, I earned them… I deserve them! In fact it was just the opposite… their thought was look at what God has blessed me with, how can I use it to glorify Him?
We can be all knowing but without love and it brings us to NOTHING. No person will desire to cleave with our fellowship if we do not have love for one another. We must show our love to them… unconditional and accepting love! Taking all whom God brings in those doors and loving them with the love Christ has bestowed upon us… that is our calling!
But it goes a step further than that… not only are we to love all those whom God brings to our church… we are also called to love our brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus!
Now I know that we all have had to deal with THAT family member at family get togethers… you know who I’m talking about… EVERY family has one… some have MORE than one! We have ALL had our encounters with that person at one time or another!
Well our church family is like that as well. We are all called by God to be here at Oak Park and God has called us to be in unity serving Him. Jesus prayed that His disciples would be unified in their service… John 17:11b [ESV] tells us…
…Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one…
It is the desire of our Lord that we be IN FELLOWSHIP with each other… that we love each other, that we are there for each other, that we include each other, that we invest our lives and hearts into each other! The Apostle Paul wrote about this in his letter to the church in Galatia:
Gal 6:2 [ESV]
...Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ...
This passage by Paul is referring to the spiritual aspects of the fellowship, but that can easily be paired with our passage this morning that deals with both the spiritual AND the physical and practical needs of the fellowship. We are called to invest our lives into our fellow believers for the cause of Christ! Not to lift them up, and not to make us out to be some sort of ‘saint’ but to glorify God in heaven!
It is like Jesus said in Matt 5:16 [ESV]
16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
We are called to ‘shine our light’ to ‘share our love’ with those around us so that when others see it… they will be curious… they will ask… we can then share about the goodness of our God and glorify Him! Our works are for His glory! Our fellowship is for His glory!
Each Sunday we come together to fellowship in corporate worship, but also in small group Bible study. Each Wednesday we come together to partake of a fellowship meal and pray together…
This is done for 2 reasons, first it is an encouragement for the believer, but 2nd and more importantly, our fellowship is experienced to glorify God in heaven… it is supposed to be a picture of His love for us… reflected in OUR love for Him and others!
So the true question for you about this particular devotion by the early church is that DO we as Oak Park Baptist church, love as we should, do we welcome as we should, to we take those whom God has sent into our fellowship and invest in their lives… fold them into the fabric of who we are as a church? If not, we must start!
The First Church was:
Devoted to prayer [worship]…
Devoted to the breaking of bread [spiritual intimacy]…
Devoted to the fellowship of believers [investing our lives into those God provides]
But finally we can see that this church was devoted…
To Learn about God: v. 42c
42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching…
The believer of the early church had a desire to learn about the things of God. They had a desire to know about God and learn His Word!
Preacher they didn’t have the Bible back then… so what did the apostle ‘teach’ these believers? What was there to ‘learn’? Well they did have Scripture that came from the Jewish tradition, which included the Torah (or the Law of Moses) and the accounts of the Prophets and the books of wisdom… these were vast resources that they could draw upon for teaching materials. I am sure that they had been taught by Jesus on more than one occasion about how the Law, Prophets and wisdom books revealed Messiah… and how Jesus fulfilled those revelations!
Also I can see the apostles teaching a LOT about the life of Jesus as they experienced it, and as accounted by the eyewitnesses of Jesus’ ENTIRE life.
They would have also shared with these new believers…the teachings of Jesus, such as the Sermon on the Mount and the parables He had shared with them. I am also VERY sure that Jesus had intimate spiritual moments with all of these disciples and all of them had stories to share about what Jesus taught them…
But the apostles probably also taught these new believers other practical teachings that Jesus had given them… things like be ready for persecution because it is going to come… beware of a wolf in sheep’s clothing…
But at the very CENTER of their message was the Gospel that Jesus had preached! The Gospel that Peter had preached; the Gospel that Paul preached to the Gentiles… the gospel of grace in Jesus Christ! In other words… EVANGELISM!
The early church was devoted to learning about how to share their faith… about what to share… about where to share… about whom to share it with… They were DEVOTED to learning about God and telling others about Jesus!
Today in our church we are devoted to sharing the Gospel, as in our Sunday School classes and in our corporate worship services we are encouraged to share our faith… we are admonished to give our lives over to the spreading of the Gospel! But we are probably not doing enough and we need to do more! This is where I can lead you and it is where I am GOING to lead you!
We are going to begin having MORE discipleship classes here at the church and in homes of our church members! But I cannot do this all on my own… I cannot facilitate EVERY class… for our church to grow ALL our members have to be devoted to learning and teaching!
Are you willing to step up? Are you willing to devote yourself to learning? Are you willing to devote yourself to teaching others… this is what the early church was willing to do… this is how the early church had massive growth in such a short period of time…
Conclusion:
To learn about God’s Word is so very important for the believer, it is our spiritual food and we should dedicate ourselves… we should DEVOTE ourselves to the study and learning of God’s Word, however…
Learning about God’s Word without caring for OR loving one another will make us a empty and hollow churchy social club. Taking in spiritual nourishment but never spiritually exercising to utilize the power we have at hand… we will become fat and lazy and our witness will suffer, so we must know that learning God’s Word is important, but also we must show how much we care about others… we must invite them INTO our fellowship by weaving them into the fabric of our church!
And for us to DO that… for us to care about one another… for us to get to know each other on an intimate spiritual basis, we must be about the action of true fellowship… the kind of fellowship that happens when we break bread together… when we break bread together we tear down the walls that separate us and it opens up our hearts to love them even more!
And when we have gathered together to study the word, and when we have come together in a spiritually intimate gathering by breaking bread together and ministering to one another… what better expression of our thankfulness to God for our fellowship than prayer and worship to Him!
If we as a church can get these four very basic characteristics down pat… we will become the growing church God wants us to be… we will become the change agent in Algiers community that I believe God desires us to be…
Prayer, the breaking of bread, loving and ministering IN LOVE to one another and the study and learning of God’s Word! With those 4 elements, our church is going to grow…
Today you have heard 4 devotions that the early church dedicated themselves to doing for Christ! They exalted Christ in their obedience to these tasks at hand. They honored God by their willingness to devote their lives to these things and invest their lives in their fellowship!
As they honored God thru obedience God honored them by sending others to become a part of their fellowship… God honored them with GROWTH!
In v.47 there was excitement in the fact that God was adding to the church daily, but that success in growth was not accomplished by the believers sitting and waiting on God…
They had to prepare the field, weed it, fertilize it, sow the seed and do the work of preparation in the field… they watered it and nurtured it and it was God who provided the increase!
We cannot expect God to bless us with growth if we are not willing to devote ourselves to Him in a corporate sense… devote our fellowship to learning about God’s Word thru sermons and Bible study, through loving and investing our lives into others…
Even when they are different from us, through opening up our hearts and tearing down walls and barriers that separate those in our fellowship, and finally to prayer and worship of God! If we will devote ourselves to these things… our church is going to grow… Are you willing?
Today if you are willing to be one of Oak Park’s devoted followers of Christ I am going to ask you to make a public profession of that devotion to God… that devotion to seeing God’s increase in our fellowship! Today is the day we have set aside to make our public commitment of faith and giving to the Haitian Mission trip!
We use the term ‘commitment’ so loosely in our world today… So today I don’t want you to commit to this trip to Haiti, but today I call on you, not only to give to this mission trip… either thru prayer, time or money… Today I am also calling you to step out of your seat, come to this altar and surrender to God… surrender to the devotion of Him! Surrender to Him today!
Committing indicates that it is on YOUR schedule… but when you fully surrender to God… it’s on HIS schedule and you are selling out to God’s will and plan, regardless of what that may be…
As Jason comes to play our hymn of invitation… there will be no singing today, but my prayer is that there will be MUCH praying going on… much conviction being realized and much surrendering of hearts! Won’t you come as we all stand… come and surrender to His will for this church!
