Church The Way It Ought To Be
Acts 2:42-47
Preached By Pastor Tony Miano
Pico Canyon Community Church
October 22, 2000
Grand Opening Service
Introduction: This truly is a day for celebration. Those of us who make up the Pico Canyon team has been looking forward to this day for two years. The thought of planting a church in the Stevenson Ranch/Valencia area goes back as far as November of 1997. That’s when I met Pastor Dave DeVries of Lake Hills Community Church.
I met with Dave one afternoon in November of that year to find out more information about his church. Like many of you who are here today, my family and I were looking for a new church home. By the time our conversation was over, I was convinced that we would probably end up calling Lake Hills home. But it wasn’t until I was about half way home that I realized that Dave had me seriously considering leaving my career in law enforcement and planting a church in this area.
It wasn’t be long before I learned that before you share an idea with Dave DeVries, you better be sure you’re willing and able to carry it out, because by the time the conversation is over, you will find yourself on a mission of some kind. Have you ever found yourself resenting someone for pushing you into doing something? The neat thing about working with Dave is that you usually find yourself thanking him for pushing you into doing something. I know that has been the case for me.
Well, I’m not going to spend all morning telling you about how we got here, how this new church came together. If you want more of those details, you’re just going to have to hang out with us for more than a Sunday and spend some time getting to know us.
There are so many people to thank--so many people who have been instrumental in helping us get to this point in the life of our church. If I were to take the time this morning to recognize the people who have helped us in the planting of this church, there would be no time for anything else, and we still wouldn’t have the time to thank everyone during one service.
So if you’re here this morning and you have helped us in any way--thank you very much. I’ve put together a list of people I want to thank and you’ll find it in your worship folder. If you’re here this morning and you’ve participated with us and you don’t see your name in the worship folder, please excuse the oversight. Come up to me after church and I will make sure to thank you personally.
Not only do we want to thank those who have helped us plant the church, but we also want to thank each of you who are with us today that we’ve yet to meet. Some of you may be in church for the first time in years, or ever, for that matter. We hope that some of you fit into those categories. Whether you’re long-time friends, who are here to celebrate with us, or you’re looking for a church home, or you’re just curious about a church that would meet in a clubhouse; I’m glad you’re here.
Now, although this is our grand opening Sunday, we’ve been meeting here for church for the last three weeks. We called it our preview phase. It was an opportunity for us to get together for worship and see what church was going to look like. It gave us an opportunity to find out how long it would take to set up the church, whether or not the sound system works, if we had enough supplies for the children’s ministry, and the list goes on.
During the last three weeks, we looked at a small church plant from two thousand years ago--a church that was planted by the apostle Paul in the Greek city of Thessalonica. This small church served as an example then, and still does today, for what a healthy church looks like.
This being the first Sunday in which our doors are open to the entire community, I thought it would be appropriate for us to spend some time looking at the characteristics of the first Christian church. Like the church in Thessalonica, this first church was also a healthy church. It served as a model to other churches then, and it continues to serve as a positive role model for churches in the twenty-first century. And we find the story of this early church in the New Testament Book of Acts.
One of the things we want to bring to the community is the simple fact that God’s Word, the Bible, is very practical and relevant--even in today’s constantly changing society. To us, the Bible is more than just an interesting book from antiquity. It is a living and active document. It is reliable and trustworthy. It’s not meant to be thumped. It’s not meant to be misquoted for personal gain.
God has given us His Word to show us how we should live our lives, how we can have an authentic and personal relationship with Him, to show us the purpose of His Son’s life, death, and resurrection, and how we can be assured of a place with Him in heaven for all eternity. A book that does all of that, and more, is not just worth reading--it’s worth knowing.
Before we dig into God’s Word, let’s pray.
Open your Bibles with me to Acts 2. You’ll find Acts between the Gospel of John and Romans in the New Testament. We’re going to be looking at Acts 2:42.
The Book of Acts, written by Luke, is a history book of the early, Christian church. By the time we get to this portion of chapter 2, Jesus has been crucified and resurrected. He has appeared to the disciples and some five hundred other people before making his ascension into heaven.
Jesus then appeared to the disciples in the upper room. The group of some 120 people, which also included Jesus’ mother and His half-brothers, James and Jude, were the beginnings of the first church, in Jerusalem. Shortly thereafter, Peter gives one of the greatest sermons ever preached on the Day of Pentecost and three thousand new believers were baptized. That brings us to our text for this morning. Let’s read Acts 2:42.
From the moment this church came to be, the people were fired up. They were exhibiting the critical characteristics of a healthy church. They were doing church the way Christ intended it to be done. The church was alive.
There are several ways we can distinguish a living church from a dead church. Here are a few.
Living churches are constantly changing. Dead churches don’t have to. Living churches have lots of noisy kids. Dead churches are fairly quiet. Living churches’ expenses always exceed their income. Dead churches take in more than they ever dreamed of spending. Living churches are constantly improving for the future. Dead churches worship their past. Living churches move out in faith. Dead churches operate totally by human sight. Living churches focus on people. Dead churches focus on programs. Living churches are filled with givers. Dead churches are filled with tippers. Living churches dream great dreams of God. Dead churches relive nightmares. Living churches don’t have the word “can’t” in their vocabulary. Dead churches have nothing but. Living churches evangelize. Dead churches fossilize.
Now, the list of bullet points I just gave you may be valid in their description of living and dead churches, but God’s Word gives us a far better description of a healthy church in its description of the first church, in Jerusalem.
This verse of Scripture outlines four distinct characteristics in the DNA of the Jerusalem church that every Christian church, that Pico Canyon Community Church, should model. The first Christian church was steadfast in their study, steadfast in their fellowship, steadfast in their worship, and steadfast in their prayers.
They were continually devoting themselves . . . (2:42a)
Notice that the verse 42 begins with “They were continually devoting themselves.” In the original Greek, the word translated continually devoted means “to attend constantly, continue steadfastly, wait on, or to strongly carry on.”
This continual devotion was applied to all four aspects of church life we see in this verse. The devotion of these early Christians was not merely an emotional attachment. It was a devotion that was authenticated by their strength and commitment, their steadfastness, and it caused the rest of the world, particularly those who were involved in other religions, to take notice.
. . . to the apostles’ teaching . . . (2:42b)
They were steadfast in their commitment to the apostles’ teaching. After coming to a saving faith in Jesus Christ, these new believers clung to the teaching of the apostles.
Now, in these early days of the church there was no New Testament. The apostles taught from the Old Testament and showed how the Old Testament pointed to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They also taught through their testimonies of their time with Jesus Christ and what they actually witnessed while in His company.
The majority of these new believers were Jewish by birth. Now that their eyes had been opened by the grace of God through the power of the Holy Spirit, they were eager to see the Scriptures as more than just an arduous set of rules and regulations, more than just a history book of their people, but, probably for the first time, as living and relevant to their lives.
These new believers were steadfast, continually devoted, toward the apostle’s teaching not just during church services. They were constantly attending to the Scriptures. We see this theme reoccur later in the book of Acts. Turn to chapter 17. By the time we get to chapter 17, some time has past since the start of the first church. In verse 10 and 11 we read, “The brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.”
Paul is on his second missionary journey and had just been chased out of Thessalonica, where he had planted another church. The believers in Thessalonica sent him to Berea. As was Paul’s custom whenever he entered a new city, he went to the synagogue to teach. Like the Christians in the church in Jerusalem, the Bereans received Paul’s teaching with eagerness. But they were not so enamored with the apostle Paul that they took everything he said at face value without careful review. Look again at verse 11.
The Bereans examined the Scriptures daily to see whether the things Paul was teaching them were true. This is what the Christians in the first church did. They were continually devoted to the study of God’s Word. It was the basis of their spiritual diet. They couldn’t go a day without it.
Now, these early Christians were not obsessed with the Scriptures. We eat food every day, but the vast majority of us are not obsessed with food. They fed daily on God’s Word in order to grow and remain spiritually healthy. In order to do that, they had to feed on the Word daily, having a well-balanced diet of teaching and study.
You’ll notice that we have our core values listed on the back of your worship folder. Our first core value is the priority of God’s word. At Pico Canyon, we are committed to the teaching and study of God’s Word. It’s our owner’s manual, so to speak. Everything we need to understand and practice our faith, to understand the sovereignty of God, is contained in the Bible.
We believe that there is only one interpretation of God’s Word. Now, you may hear that and think, “This guy thinks he knows everything.” That’s not the case. You see—we believe that our God is not a God of confusion. He has not given us His Word so that we can interpret it to fit our preferences and comfort zones. He has not given it to us so that we can draw from it whatever meaning we want. He has given it to us to draw us to Himself through His Son Jesus Christ, and to give us direction in our lives.
The challenge for me, for any pastor, for any Christian for that matter, is to study God’s Word with an attitude of continual devotion to the truth it contains so that we can discern what is the correct meaning of a particular verse or passage.
One of the things we challenge people to do in our Shepherd Group, our mid-week Bible study, is that if you disagree with a particular teaching, we welcome the discussion. The only dumb question is the one not asked. We also understand that there is a difference between asking a question because you want to know more and disagreeing because you don’t like what you hear.
Our rule of thumb is that if you’re going to come to the table with a different point of view it should be based on your own study of God’s Word and not based on just how you feel about the text or what someone else has told you the text means. We believe that there needs to be integrity and accountability in our study of God’s Word. And as the pastor, I not only need to preach it, but I have to be willing to live by it and welcome the accountability of others.
Many people who go to church, and maybe some of you here today, only know what other people have told you about the Bible. Because God’s Word is a priority at Pico Canyon, we not only want to teach it rightly, but we want to equip others to be able to study it and understand it for themselves. The best way to avoid falling prey to a lie, to false teaching, is to have a clear understanding of the truth so that you recognize false teaching when you hear it.
Go ahead and turn back to Acts 2. There’s something else I think is important to point out about the teaching. Notice that the verse says the believers were continually devoted to the apostles’ teaching. It does not say that they were devoted to the apostles.
Certainly these new believers looked to the apostles for leadership. Certainly they held them in high esteem and respected them as men. Certainly the new believers saw spiritual traits in the apostles that they wanted to model in their own lives. But the believers were continually devoted to the teaching, not the teachers.
It’s very easy to be captivated by a charismatic leader or a persuasive speaker. The danger lies in being so captivated by the teacher that we stop holding them accountable for what they teach. If you consider any of the cults, especially those that have ended tragically, there are several common denominators that link them together. But the one that stands out the most in my mind is the seemingly mindless devotion the members of these cults had for their leaders.
Sadly, some of the more prominent cult leaders started as pastors or evangelists in mainstream Christianity. The beginning of their downfall, their journey away from truth, came when people stopped holding them accountable for their teaching because of their rise in popularity and influence. Pico Canyon is church that will be continually devoted, steadfast, to the apostles’ teaching. Since there are no apostles today, we rely on the apostles’ teaching that has been handed down to us in the Scriptures.
. . . and to fellowship . . . (1:42c)
The early church in Jerusalem was continually devoted, steadfast, in their fellowship. This young church was already known as a loving, caring, and sharing group of believers. The word “fellowship” comes from the Greek word koinonia, which means “share, having something in common, or a close relationship.”
Verses 44-46 gives us a more detailed description of what fellowship looked like in the early church. “And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and began selling their property and possession and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart.”
It’s important to note that the activities are not what held this group of believers together. It was the common bond they shared in Jesus Christ that was at the center of their fellowship. Just as they daily devoted themselves to the study of God’s Word, they also daily devoted themselves to spending time together. This seems like one of the greatest challenges in the body of Christ today.
We live in a very busy society. How many of you work outside the Santa Clarita Valley (show of hands)? So, many of you probably spend a significant time on the road, at least five days a week. How many of you have kids who have extracurricular activities two or more days a week (show of hands)? How many of you feel like there are just not enough hours in the day (show of hands)?
Every person on our church plant team, the group of folks that has worked very hard to bring us to this point in the life of our church, has a very busy life. I am the church’s only full-time staff person. Just about everyone else works 40+ hours a week, outside of Santa Clarita, and has kids who are involved in extracurricular activities.
Some time ago, our team made a commitment to make community, fellowship with each other, a very important part of the life of our church. You’ll notice that another one of our core values is to be a church made up of a caring community of believers. We’ve learned over the last year or two that this isn’t as easy as it may seem. It takes work—a lot of work. We’ve decided that if we are truly going to be a church that models the healthy churches of the New Testament, we are going to have to be a church that is continually devoted to fellowship.
Some have looked at this passage, especially verse 44 and 45, as a description of communal living. That’s not the case. The fact that they had everything in common is not to say that they sold all of their goods and threw the proceeds into some kind of community chest. It meant that they willingly shared their possession with other believers. They opened their homes to those in need. They shared what was there’s with those in need.
We need to remember that many of these new believers came to faith while visiting Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost. When they came to faith in Christ, some of them decided to stay in Jerusalem to begin their new life in Christ.
Faith in Christ was also not a very popular thing. The first church began only a few short months after Jesus’ death and resurrection. The ministry of Jesus was still very fresh in the minds of those who wanted to destroy Him and anyone who dared to follow Him. Many of these new believers probably lost their jobs, their livelihood, when they professed faith in Christ.
If any of the believers were in need, whether it be food or shelter, others within the body would care for them. Verse 45 says “they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need.” Again, it wasn’t that they sold everything and had nothing of their own. They would sell portions of their assets, when a specific need arose, in order to be able to minister to someone who was lacking basic necessities.
You’ll notice that in verse 46 we’re told that the church in Jerusalem worshiped together and went from house to house for meals—day by day. Their devotion to each other was a daily thing. You may hear that and think, “How is that possible?” Well, frankly, it takes a shift in priorities. You see—church is more than what we do on Sunday mornings. It’s who we are. It’s the relationships we share with the common bond being our faith in Christ.
It takes time to build those authentic relationships. It takes a devotion to each other that is strong, that is steadfast. We have to go from listening to WIIFM—“What’s in it for me,” to SIWFM—“Sharing is what fellowship means.”
So, what does community look like at Pico Canyon? Well, one thing we like to do is what we affectionately call “Pico Pasta Parties.” We get together Sunday after church, in someone’s home for a big pasta meal. Everyone participates by bringing something to add to the sauce or to the salad. Eric’s garlic cheese bread is beginning to reach legendary status.
After the meal, we’ll play a friendly game of some kind. You learn a lot about a person watching them play a game of “spoons.” The agenda for the afternoon is to enjoy each other’s company, to grow closer together as a church family. We gather on Wednesday evenings for worship, prayer, and the study of God’s Word. Our “Pico Pasta Parties” is just a time to goof off. We believe that relationships, authentic caring relationships, are more important than any program we could devise.
Without authentic relationships, we will not effectively minister to each other. We will not hold each other accountable. It is unlikely that we will bring people we care about to a church where we don’t receive care. Relationships matter. Pico Canyon will be a sharing church where fellowship is something that happens all the time, all over the place.
“One of the great heartbreaks of the 1988 Winter Olympics was the story of speed skater Dan Jansen. Just hours before his race he received news that his sister, who had been fighting leukemia for more than a year, had just died. Bearing the weight of his sorrow, Dan laced on his skates to race for his sister. When the gun sounded, he sprinted from the starting line, only to slip and fall in the first turn. Four days later, in the 1,000-meter race, he fell again. The whole country mourned with him."
"Many Americans sent Dan letters of consolation. According to Sports Illustrated, not long after returning home, Jansen received a letter from Mark Arrowood, a disabled thirty-year-old from Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Mark wrote:"
"Dear Dan, I watched you on T.V. I’m sorry that you fell two times. I am in Special Olympics. I won a gold medal at Pa. State Summer Olympics right after my dad died seven years ago.” “Before we start the games we have a saying that goes like this. “Let me win but if I can’t let me be brave in the attempt.” . . . I want to share one of my gold medals with you because I don’t like to see you not get one. Try again in four more years. Inside the envelope, Dan Jansen found a gold medal that Mark Arrowood had won in a track-and-field event” (Larson, p. 86).
To be a healthy church, we need to be a church that champions sharing—not so we can add spiritual notches to our belts, but so that we can imitate Jesus Christ and the way He ministered to others. Jesus Christ loved those to whom He ministered. He taught them. He corrected them. He fed them. He gave them water. He washed their feet. His devotion was so steadfast, so continual (and continues today); that He willingly died for those He loves.
. . . to the breaking of bread . . . (2:42d)
The church in Jerusalem was continually devoted; they were steadfast, in their worship. The “breaking of bread” mentioned in verse 42 is a reference to communion. The Greek is more literally translated “the breaking of the bread.” Their times of corporate worship included the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. We can see in the passage that they worshiped together both formally and informally. They worshiped in the temple courts, probably the Court of the Gentiles just outside the Jewish temple, and they worshiped, as we see in verse 46, in each other’s homes.
Something I found encouraging from this passage was the confirmation that believers can participate in communion in their own homes, whether or not a priest or pastor is present. Remember, this was a brand new church of some 3,000 people. The fact that they were meeting from house to house tells us that they were meeting in various homes throughout the city, in smaller groups. There obviously weren’t enough apostles to preside over the communion tables in every home, at every meeting. Neither had the apostles yet appointed deacons to assist them in ministry. Since it’s clear that communion was taking place in many homes that means these new believers were leading the breaking of bread themselves.
These young believers were able to sustain their worship of God day after day because their focus was always on God. Communion, as is every other form of worship, is an opportunity for believers to wait upon the Lord, to be devoted to Him by making Him the object of our attention and our affection. During communion, we focus on, we remember, the incredible sacrifice made and gift given by Jesus Christ’s finished work on the cross.
One of our core values is to be a church where inspiring and reverent worship takes place. We were created for this purpose—to worship the living God. Contrary to some popular beliefs, worship is a one-way street. Certainly, we can receive great blessings and have our hearts ministered to during times of worship. But the object of our worship is always to be God.
Sometimes it is easy to loose sight of the fact that worship is not for our own entertainment. We shouldn’t gauge the impact of worship based simply on what we feel that we get out of it. We need to remember that worship is something we do for God because He alone is worthy of our praise.
The blessing comes not from how good the songs make us feel, but through having the opportunity to be in the Lord’s presence. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through Me.” The only way to experience authentic worship, the only way to truly come into the Lord’s presence, is through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Without that relationship, it is impossible to remain steadfast in our devotion to God in worship. The Good news is that this incredible relationship, if you don’t have one already, is available to you today.
We would love to share with you how you can have that relationship with Jesus Christ and be assured of your place in heaven for all eternity.
. . . and to prayer (2:42e).
Okay. We’ve seen how this young church was continually devoted to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, and worship. In the time we have remaining, let’s look at why it’s important to be continually devoted to prayer. The prayer that Luke is describing here is corporate or group prayer.
E.M. Bounds was one of the great writers and prayer warriors of the 19th century. He fought for the South in the Civil war, was captured and later became a chaplain for the North. He had this to say about prayer. “When the angel of devotion has gone, the angel of prayer has lost its wings and it becomes a deformed and loveless thing” (Hughes, p. 317).
It’s been my experience that it’s much easier to rally people to participate in an outreach event, Christmas program, or church fund-raiser than it is to marshal the Christian family to pray. Sure, if I were to ask you each as individuals, from the pulpit, to pray for this person or that person’s needs, most of you would do it. But if I were to call you to join on a particular day and time to come together for prayer, the level of participation would probably be less. Why is that?
I think Bounds was right. I think the reason has much to do with the fact that the Christian church, probably more so in America than in other places in the world, has lost the attitude of steadfastness, of continual devotion, in prayer. The American church will fight vehemently for the right to pray in schools, on streets, and in other public forums, yet I wonder how many of us actually spend even fifteen minutes or more a day doing that for which we seem to be so passionate about protecting.
Prayer was a critical component in the health of the church in Jerusalem. They were gathering together every day, as a group of people who had been saved by the blood of Christ, to seek the Lord’s will and direction, His comfort and protection, through prayer.
The first part of verse 43 tells us why they were able to maintain their continual devotion to prayer. “Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe.” The believers were in awe in the sense that they had a reverential fear of God. This reverential fear was not the kind associated with terror. It was a healthy fear that I like to describe this way. As a kid, I had a healthy fear of my dad. I idolized my dad as I was growing up. When I messed up the first thing I thought of was, “What’s Dad going to say?”
I never worried about being beaten. I was never afraid to go home because I thought my dad would hurt me for something I did. I had a healthy fear of my dad in the sense that when I did something wrong, my heart would sink because I knew I had disappointed my dad. The healthy fear, the respect I had for my dad kept me from doing many things that would have gotten me into a lot of trouble.
When I did screw up, I knew that things wouldn’t get any better until I went to my dad and told him what happened. These young Christians in Jerusalem had a similar relationship with their heavenly Father. Their fear of God was born out of the conviction they felt over their sins. Because of the authentic relationship they had with Christ, the love and respect they had for Him not only convicted them of their sins, but also made them aware that they had to repent of those sins before they could experience the forgiveness and the peace they wanted.
This reverence for God, the awe they felt about the One who saved them from their sins and was the Creator of all things, inspired them to remain fervent in their prayers. At Pico Canyon Community Church, we need to be continually devoted to prayer. Our prayer needs to not only be for each other, but with each other—not only on Sunday mornings, but also throughout the week.
We must pray, believing that our prayers are heard by God and answered according to His perfect will. God loves to hear and answer the prayers of His children. Those who know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior have been given the wonderful gift of fellowship with God and can experience that authentic fellowship through prayer and worship.
The believers in this first church had a great attitude about their study, fellowship, worship, and prayer. We see it at the end of verse 46. It says the Christians did these things with “gladness and sincerity of heart.” There was no drudgery in their participation in the church. They happily gave of themselves with sincerity.
They weren’t looking for pats on the back. They knew that their good works toward one another didn’t earn them anything. It didn’t earn them their salvation. It was because of their faith in Christ and the salvation they freely received that compelled them to serve the Lord by serving each other with glad hearts.
The Greek word for “sincerity of heart” has an interesting origin. It literally means “simplicity” and comes from the root word that means, “free from rocks” (Robertson, v. 3, p. 39-40).
As John MacArthur has said, “There were no stones of selfishness in their hearts” (p. 89). Although it didn’t always remain that way (the church in Jerusalem would eventually have its share of problems), in the early days of the church their fellowship was simple. It wasn’t bogged down by agendas, ulterior motives, and “What’s in it for me.” Their fellowship was healthy, reverent, and pleasing to God.
Well, I hope you will consider spending more time with us as we seek to fulfill God’s design for our church, which is to build a church that brings Him glory. We believe that the best way to do that is by following the Book.
We want to be a church that is continually devoted to growing closer to Christ through the study of His Word. We want to be a church that is built upon the genuine, loving relationships between people who share the common bond of faith in Jesus Christ. That is the basis for our fellowship. We want to be a church where we are not the focus of our worship, but God is—all the time. And we want to be a church that is constantly seeking God’s will and that is lifting up and encouraging each other through our prayers. If we do these things, if these things are at the heart of everything else we do, we will be a healthy church.
One last thing—if we are doing these things we will experience the same kind of results the young church in Jerusalem experienced. Look at verse 47. “. . . praising God and having favor with all people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.”
If we model these characteristics of the early church, our attitude will be such that we will be praising God every day of our lives. If we build this kind of church, not only will we find favor with other believers, but also those who don’t know Christ will take notice. The best way to reach people with the gospel message, the good news of Jesus Christ, is by letting people see an authentic relationship with the Savior in your own life.
We want God to add to our numbers the way he did with the early church, not for numbers sake, but because people are coming to faith in Christ. When those of us who are planting this church stand before the Lord, He will not ask us how many seats we filled, but how many lives were changed through the ministry He has given us. Our prayer is that we will have the opportunity to minister to each of you in this way.
Let’s pray.
