What Could The Resurrected Life Look Like?

4.30.23 Acts 2:42–47 (EHV)

42 They continued to hold firmly to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of the bread, and to the prayers. 43 Awe came over every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They were selling their possessions and property and were distributing the proceeds according to what anyone needed. 46 Day after day, with one mind, they were devoted to meeting in the temple area, as they continued to break bread in their homes. They shared their food with glad and sincere hearts, 47 as they continued praising God and being viewed favorably by all the people. Day after day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Those were the days. You look back at pictures in your photo albums, think about days gone by. We do the same thing in the church. Look at the anniversary services. Remember old pastors and celebrations. Those were the days. Trinity is full of rich history over the past 137 years.

Today the Holy Spirit takes us back and gives us a glimpse of how the early Christian church lived right after the resurrection and ascension of Jesus. In these verses Luke paints a beautiful time, very romantic in a sense. There was genuine love and fellowship among the early Christians in Jerusalem. It shows us what life could be like in the fellowship of the church.

What Could the Resurrected Life Look Like?

When we look at this we might tend to be filled with guilt, because we don’t match their standards of joy and fellowship. It seems like pulling teeth when trying to get people together to enjoy some fellowship even for food and games. But as we look at this it could perhaps motivate us to set our goals higher, and realize that if God could do this with them, then He could do it with us as well.

The NFL Draft just happened last weekend. Those who are excited about football talk about who was drafted and when. They either get excited about it or depressed. They think their team will win the Superbowl this year or they think they will be awful. But either way, they UNITE around their excitement for football. The Christians of Luke’s time were excited for a different reason. Awe came over every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. It’s hard for us to imagine the power that emanated through the apostles at this time. Listen to Acts 2:15-16 for instance -

People were even carrying the sick into the streets and laying them on cots and mats so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on some of them. 16 Crowds also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, and all of them were healed.

What kind of a power trip would that be for people just to want to stand in your shadow?!? And what did the apostles do with that power? They DIDN’T let it go to their heads. They pointed people to Jesus. They said, “Jesus is still alive and ruling in the heavens, performing miracles through us.” It’s important to understand this. These miracles weren’t just being done for entertainment’s sake. The people say “ooh” and “ahh,” eat some popcorn and head back home. There was THEOLOGY behind this. There was a LIVING and TRUE GOD behind this. His name is Jesus. So they SPOKE about Him as they did the miracles. And that’s what we want to be the main focus in our worship services as well. The music and the readings and the liturgy are meant to point you to Jesus. When the church was growing back in apostolic times, they weren’t weren’t just coming for the miracles. They were coming for the God who gave them forgiveness, peace, and hope. They were coming for Jesus.

How do we know this? Luke says so! They continued to hold firmly to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of the bread, and to the prayers. The word for “hold firmly” is p??s?a?te????te?. In the Greek world that also meant to persist in something. If you persist in something and hold firmly in it, there has to be something in there that intrigues you and feeds you, it nourishes you and makes you want MORE of it. Think of Jesus in the temple as a 12 year old boy. Even though He was a part of that history, He wanted to learn more in His humiliation. He couldn’t get enough.

Right now we’ve been going through the book of Luke during the week, very slowly. I’ve been trying to dig into every word and every aspect of every verse, getting as much out of it as possible, and it’s been FUN for me. It tastes like MORE. That’s the way the Bible is supposed to be. Think about it. Here in the Bible we have a book that was given to us from GOD HIMSELF, written through 36 men over 16 centuries, focusing on one God and one Man Jesus Christ. It shows how God Himself comes to us, how He works in this world. It shows us who we are and what we need. It is real with us. It peeks behind the curtain and reveals to us what the future is going to be like and how God is going to end this world, and how we can be ready for that Coming. If you take the time to dig into it and ask questions about it, it can really be fascinating.