THE FAMILY OF OUR FAITH
Acts 2: 42-47 (p 772) April 15, 2012
INTRODUCTION:
Your faith cannot be healthy if its isolated…you cannot grow to be the servant God wants you to be on your own…
Spiritual maturity, real discipleship can only happen by understanding the real reason Christ left His church…
Last week was Easter Sunday…the glue that held these original followers together was “the resurrection” …as they greeted each other with “Maranatha” which means “He is Risen” the appropriate response was “He is Risen indeed!...The resurrection held together…men, women, Jews, gentiles, slaves, free, rich and poor….None of the normal stereotypes made any difference for people bonded together by a Savior who died…and now lives…Jesus has clearly proved His claim to authority…
So what did they do…these early followers of Jesus after He ascended back into heaven with the promise to return...what happened to these and women after the Holy Spirit clearly manifested himself, one Pentecost and 3,000 respond to Peter’s preaching…Our text says…”they devoted themselves”
These individuals…filled with the Holy Spirit, freshly washed of their sins, bonded together with others who believed the same thing.
“Devoted themselves…made a deep commitment to finding out what all these meant…and they made a deep commitment to the other individuals who believed.
Priorities changed….and
I THE CHURCH BECAME THEIR LIVES
There were great leaders and teachers in this early band…Peter, James, John….the Apostles…Individuals that had been with Jesus in his ministry and had witnessed His resurrection began to share His teaching and what they now knew those teachings meant.
They prayed together…took communion together, ate together…shared their lives with others who had questions could answer some of those questions…and could understand what it meant to be a follower of Jesus.
Originally the Greek word for fellowship is the word “Koinonia”…it carries in its meaning a giving of yourself to others a sharing of your life with others…Koinonia can’t be done just on the 1st day of the week…It can’t be done at a distance. It can’t be done at arm’s length with your defenses up…
It implies getting in touch…opening your heart…Koinonia and real compassion are almost identical twins. Masks have to come off…fences torn down. Welcome signs hung…the front door left open…it’s got to be genuine and authentic.
The example of what “Koinonia” really meant was set by the Apostles…It was modeled by the churches earliest leaders.
They become examples…not of CEO’s or C.F. O.’s, but “Fathers” “Brothers”…this was not an invitation to be administrated (although that gift was needed)…this was a “family” to be lead and loved.
Many of these early believers were losing the bond they had to their earthly families (Christianity, changes priorities) or many of these early believers had no families and they were attracted to the church for that very reason they witnessed a bond they’d always dreamed of…
It’s the reason Peter says to Elders “Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care” …Caring for a flock isn’t the same as ‘running a business”…every family needs a spiritual Dad…Peter says…Jesus is the heavenly Dad…you love his family like Him.
Listen to what the Apostle Paul tells Titus to do when it comes to doctrine….
Titus 2: 1-11 (p 844)
A lot of that sound so “old fashioned” doesn’t it…teach, train, encourage…set an example…show obedience.
What jumps out at me is those truths cannot be shared behind a pulpit…these truths are “Life truths”…”daily truths”…Object lesson truths”….let me show you what it’s like to love my wife, my mom, my son and daughter truths…let me model what its like to live in the family of God and how you treat people in it.
Tough to really do that…or share in that if you begin to think of church as a place you go instead of a people who are….huh?
Maybe the primary reason we do not devote ourselves to one another here in America is that we don’t have enough time because we’ve devoted ourselves to something else. You can’t be a part time shepherd…you cannot be a one day of week member of God’s family…
What happens in many of our churches is that we’re ashamed to ask people to be devoted because we don’t want to make that kind of commitment ourselves…so instead of being a biblical family…we become a watered down 21st century, too busy Sunday morning club….and instead of sharing our lives with each other…we bless God with an hour or 2 of our busy schedule.
But Rick I can’t share my life with hundreds of people!
Your right, but if the church is to become your family and more than just a place you go...when you have the time…then
II PEOPLE MUST BECOME VALUABLE
I’d remind you that there are around 3 to 5 thousand Christians together in Jerusalem right now…and God’s adding to that number…”Daily” … so how are they sharing their lives with each other…as a family?
How could all the believers be together and have everything in common?
They’re selling their stuff for each other and to help fund ministries and outreach. It seems Peter and John are the preaching and teaching ministers in the temple courts…they’re strategically going there during prayer times…3 in the afternoon and believers and non-believers alike are gathering in Solomon’s Colonnade, and other places in the temple…that’s really cool…It’s probably pretty crowded…miraculous signs and wonders are being done…like healing a man crippled from birth at the “Beautiful gate” of the temple.
1 hurting guy among many…was valuable…important…Peter and John took time, he was more important than the sermon for the day.
It’s so easy for us to get caught up in our church schedules and duties and forget that people are valuable…
I have this taped to a mirror next to my office door…it’s a quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer…it says
“It is a strange fact that Christians and even ministers frequently consider their work so important and urgent that they will allow nothing to disturb them… But is part of the discipline of humility that we must not spare our hand where it can perform a service and that we do not assume that our schedule is our own to manage, but allow it to be managed by God.”
Peter and John would not forget the real reason, Jesus left his church…we are here to carry the good news to people…the good news that heals and the good news that saves…When we get so busy that our schedules are more important than people…then we’re in danger of being much more like the religious Pharisees than our Lord and Savior..
They prayed together…they shared the Lord’s supper together…they studied the apostle’s doctrine together…and in the midst of life…glued together by a risen Savior…they enjoyed fellowship….”Koinonia”
People became so valuable that these new Christians sold their stuff, parted with property, sacrificed comfort…needs weren’t met by the government…needs were met by the family of God…
“Selling their possessions and goods they gave to anyone as he had need”
But the ministry existed for the widows…not for the deacons.
Acts 6: 1-7 (p774)
Priorities must be set…God had appointed the apostle’s to lead the church...they set the priority…people need to be taken care of…It’s our job to guide them with the teachings of Jesus…but other needs cannot be ignored…let’s let godly men and woman serve people…
What was the result of this choice to make the church their lives and to raise the value of people…ALL PEOPLE.
III THE CHURCH WAS ADMIRED BY THE COMMUNITY…AND BLESSED BY GOD.
Christians are now the leaven of Jerusalem...they invade the temple courts…in each neighborhood and street homes are being opened…food is being shared and so is the news that Jesus lives…
You can sense the joy…there is a powerful praise factor emanating from the temple courts and these homes… As Jesus changed greedy people into generous people…love imparts shop owners, bakers, and sellers of linen…when they asked…”what the heck is going on?”…
They hear…it’s these Jesus people…
When someone gets injured or hurt…the first people there are…you guessed…Christians “Followers of the way” …It’s not something they have to do…it’s not something that takes their time…it’s sincere…genuine…who they are!
When you say good things about your church family, it’s nice…it’s helpful…when you criticize your family it’s destructive, devastating.
But when the world says “good things” about the church…when your non-believing neighbors say…”Do you know what Jacob and his family did for us?
Favor…becomes open ears…and receptive hearts.
Why are you here? What’s your motive for helping…for helping US?!!!
The response…”I have a Savior who loves me…who helped me…He’s alive.
No wonder the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved…
The Apostle’s doctrine is important…we fidget over essentials and non-essentials…but is strangely ironic I never hear of churches that want to be “New Testament” believers arguing with each other about how those truths are being lived out in the community and world…and the proof …the friend of what doctrine teacher…
The Lord adding to their number daily… the Favor they enjoy in their non-believer world.”
J.B. Phillips writes in the preface to the Young Church in Action, that one cannot spend several months in close study of this book, “without being profoundly stirred and, to be honest, disturbed. The reader is stirred,” he says, “because he is seeing Christianity, the real thing, in action for the first time in human history…Here we are seeing the Church in its’ first youth, valiant and unspoiled…a body of ordinary men and women joined in an unconquerable fellowship never before seen on earth.” But the reader is also disturbed, “for surely”, he adds, this “is the Church as it was meant to be. It is vigorous and flexible, for these are the days before it ever became fat and short of breath through prosperity, or muscle-bound by over organization. These men did not make acts of faith, they believed; they did not say their prayers, they prayed. They did not hold conference on psychosomatic medicine, they simply healed the sick. By modern standards they may have been naïve, but perhaps because of their very simplicity, perhaps because of their readiness simply to believe, to obey, to give, to suffer, and, if necessary, to die, the Spirit of God found that he could work in them and through them, and so they turned the world upside down!
