The Church of Jesus Christ | Acts 2:41-47
Brian Hedges | June 25, 2017
So before I read the text this morning and launch into this morning’s message I thought I would just kind of give you a heads-up about what’s coming in our preaching and teaching over the next number of weeks. I will be out of the pulpit for the next four weeks, so today will be my last Sunday before summer break. Our family’s going to take some needed time for vacation, then also a few weeks of writing leave and study leave, so we’d appreciate your prayers for us, that the Lord would give rest, that the Lord would give renewal, and then sufficient energy for some of the projects and tasks this summer.
So over the next several weeks you’ll be hearing from a number of men in our church. Wes Ward will be bringing a message to us next week, and then Phil Krause the week after that, and then Del Fehsenfeld will be bringing two messages to us later in July, and I’ll be back in the pulpit the last Sunday of July.
Then beginning about the middle of August we’re going to start digging into Paul’s letter to the Galatians. So that will be part of the focus this summer for me, is preparing for that series. As I’ve mentioned many times, we’re celebrating this year the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation and you know how central the book of Galatians was in the Reformation and especially for Martin Luther, so I thought it was a perfect time for us to spend an extended period of time studying that letter together.
So I’d encourage you to start reading now, as I am. Read through it a number of times this summer, and let’s pray that God will work as we dig into the gospel itself and the freedom that the gospel brings. That’s what the book of Galatians is all about.
Be praying for these brothers who will be filling the pulpit while I’m gone, and again, we appreciate your prayers for our family and also your generosity as a church in giving us this time away.
So this morning we are concluding this mini-series we’ve been doing for the last four or five weeks on Acts chapters one and two. We began on Ascension Sunday by looking at the ascension of Christ as recorded in Acts chapter one, and then the next Sunday was Pentecost Sunday, we looked at the descent of the spirit, the event itself as Christ poured out the Spirit on the church, and then for the last two weeks we’ve been looking at Peter’s explanation of that event, and really it’s a gospel presentation as Peter for the first time after Pentecost declares the gospel of Jesus Christ and explains the significance of Christ’s exaltation and the outpouring of the Spirit on the church.
Today we come to the last paragraph of Acts chapter two, a paragraph that’s really something like a portrait of the infant church, a portrait of the New Testament church, this early church. This is a passage that is remarkable for its scope and its clarity in giving us some understanding of the church. Now it doesn’t say everything that needs to be said about the church, but it’s really amazing how much it does say. As we study through it together you’ll see that there’s mention of all the essential practical features of church life. There’s mention of the word and of prayer, there’s mention of body life, of fellowship, but also of sacraments. There’s mention of worship as well as evangelism. This really is just a wonderful portrait of the church.
As John Calvin put it, the picture of the true church of Christ is here painted to the life. It’s like a detailed portrait of the church. Stott calls it a cameo of a Spirit-filled church.
So we’re going to study this passage together this morning, and of course it’s appropriate that we do so on a membership Sunday as we think in a fresh way about what it means to be a part of the body of Christ, to be a part of the church of Jesus Christ.
So let’s read the text together. Acts chapter two, verses 41 through 47.
“So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”
This is God’s word.
So three things I want you to see about the church from this text this morning. This text shows us the birth of the church, the life of the church, and the growth of the church. So we think of the church as this organic body, as this unified group of believers together, we see how the church comes into being, then we see what the church does together, what their inner life looks like, and then we see the results of that as the church continues to grow.
I. The Birth of the Church
So first of all, the birth of the church. By the birth of the church I don’t mean only the birth of the New Testament church, the new covenant church. There’s a very real sense in which we could speak of the church in the Old Testament. We could think of the people of God, even among the people of Israel, and they are described at times in Scripture as the church. But here I’m thinking specifically about how any church comes into being. In fact, I’m thinking about how the people of God come into being. Where does a church come from? What is the origin of the church; what’s the source of the church? That’s what I mean by the birth of the church.
Here’s the very simple main point that I want to make here, and it’s this: the word is the source of the church. The word! The word of God is the source of the church. Now you see this in verse 41: “So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.” Those who received his word. That’s Peter’s word, or Peter’s message; it’s Peter’s declaration of the word.
The word that is used here for “word” is the same term that is used multiple times in Acts, several dozens of times in the book of Acts, to describe the word of God or the word of the Lord or the message of the gospel.
So what we see here is that the source of the church is the word. The word creates the church. So understand this: the church does not create the word. The word creates the church.
Now this is true because spiritual life, even faith itself, are fruits of the word. You remember how James says, in James chapter one, verse 18, that “of his own will God brought us forth by the word of truth.” He’s using birth language there. He brought us forth by the word of truth!
Or First Peter chapter one, verse 23; it’s even more clear. Peter says, “We are born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, even by the living and abiding word of God.”
So our new birth comes about by the word. The way that we are born again, the way that we enter into God’s family in the first place, is through the living and abiding word of God, and as that is true individually so it is true collectively. The church is born from the word.
Romans 10, verse 17: “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ,” or, “the message of Christ,” “the gospel of Christ.” The gospel is the source of faith, and therefore is the source of the church.
Now this becomes even more clear in the book of Acts when you trace these progress reports that Luke includes in the narrative of the book of Acts. This is really interesting, and commentators, New Testament scholars have drawn attention to this. There’s a wonderful article on this by a guy named Brian Rosner called “The Progress of the Word,” and he just shows how Luke punctuates his narrative with these progress reports that emphasize the power of the word and how through the word the kingdom of God is expanding, the church is increasing and growing, people are being added to the church, and you have these progress reports several times through the book of Acts.
It’s sort of like a report card. You know, my children at the end of every quarter get a report card and we see how they’re doing. Well, that’s what Luke is doing here. He’s giving a report card for how the word is making progress in the world. You see this, for example, in Acts chapter six, verse seven: “And the word of God continued to increase, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests became obedient to the faith.”
You can see it again in Acts chapter 12, verse 24: “And the word of God increased and multiplied.” Acts 13, verse 49: “And the word of the Lord was spreading throughout the whole region.” And there’s more. Just over and over again throughout the book of Acts Luke draws attention to the progress of the word.
To quote Brian Rosner, “To trace the activity of the Spirit in Acts is to observe the progress of the word.” This is how the Spirit works! The Spirit works through the word, and as the word increases and multiplies disciples are multiplied, people are added to the church, people are saved, the church grows, the church is born. The word is the source of the church.
Listen to this statement from theologian Michael Horton: “Just as creation begins with a command, ‘Let there be…’ and there was, so too does the new creation originate in the womb of the word. The Spirit does not eliminate the need for earthly means, but consecrates them in the service of uniting us to the ascended Christ. The word not only sets forth, it also brings forth. The word not only explains, describes the search and proposes, it also arrives. The word is not made alive, active, or effective by human decision or effort; the word binds and frees, hardens and softens, wounds and heals. Not even faith makes the word effective. Faith itself is created by the Spirit through that evangelical pronouncement. We see this in the event of Pentecost itself, where the first public evidence is Peter’s proclamation of the gospel. Repeatedly in Acts the growth of the church is attributed to the fact that the word of God spread and prevailed, and proclaiming the good news is the central activity described in the history of the early church. The spreading of the word is even treated as synonymous with the spreading of the kingdom of God. By the word we are legally adopted, and by the Spirit we receive the inner witness that we are the children of God. The word of Christ creates faith in Christ, and where this is present, there is the church.”
The church springs from the womb of the word. Brothers and sisters, what this means is that the word must be absolutely central to everything the church does. Everything we say, everything we do should be centered in the word, founded on the word. The word of God should course through every nook and cranny of the church; every program of the church should be word-oriented, word-driven, and especially the word of the gospel, the message of the gospel, because the gospel is what brings life. The gospel is the power of God for salvation; it’s the power of God that brings the church into existence, that nurtures the church, that keeps the church in existence.
The birth of the church happens through the word, and therefore we as a church must be a word centered church. So the birth of the church.
II. The Life of the Church
Number two, the life of the church. Not only the birth of the church, where does it come from, but the life of the church. What is characteristic of this infant church, this early church? What are their inner dynamics? What did they do? How did they live together? It’s just amazing when you read Acts chapter two, verse 42. What an amazing, comprehensive summary of what church should be like, what it should be about.
Look at the text here, verse 42, “And they devoted themselves to,” four things, “the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”
Four things that this newly born church devoted themselves to, four things which constitute the life of the church. I want us to look at each one of these things.
(1) First of all, the apostles’ teaching. What is this? What is the apostles’ teaching? Or if you’re reading King James, the apostles’ doctrine, the apostles’ doctrine. What is this?
Well, it’s everything that the apostles taught, okay; it is the content of their teaching. The Greek word that’s used here can refer either to the act of teaching itself or to the content of what is taught. Here it’s very clearly the content of what is taught. It entails not just theological doctrine, although it does include that, but it also includes practical instruction. It includes both theology and ethics, both doctrine and practice, what we might call orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Right doctrine and right practice. Both of those are included. All of that is included, and really, anyone who knows their New Testament will know that you really can’t have healthy Christian living without both of those things.
I like the way Sinclair Ferguson describes this. He talks about the grammar of the gospel, and in the grammar of the gospel the indicatives always come before the imperatives. The indicatives declare for us what is true, what God has done. These are grand statements of God’s work on our behalf through Christ and through the Spirit. God has done this; he has saved us. He has loved us; he has called us; he has redeemed us. These are the indicatives of the gospel, and the indicatives always precede imperatives, which tell us what to do.
You can see this pattern over and again in Paul’s letters. Ephesians one through three, it’s almost all declarations of what God has done; it’s doctrine, it’s theology. And then, Ephesians four through six, Paul says, “I therefore exhort you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling that you’ve received.”
The doctrine precedes the practice, and both of those are included in the apostles’ teaching. In fact, if we want to know the apostles’ teaching all we need to do is read the New Testament, because the apostles wrote the New Testament. So in the New Testament you have the gospels; those are the records, the narratives, of what Jesus both did and said, culminating in his crucifixion, his resurrection. That’s the essential gospel message itself; that’s part of the apostles’ teaching.
But then you have the New Testament letters, also written by the apostles, as they explain and elaborate and apply that gospel message to the church after the event of Pentecost, dealing with the particular problems and trials that the New Testament church faced.
When you put all that together the gospels, the book of Acts, the epistles, the book of Revelation, all of that encompasses the apostles’ doctrine.
Brothers and sisters, we need to understand that doctrine is not just for the leaders of the church; it’s not just for the elders of the church. It’s for everybody! It’s not just for adults, it’s for children; it’s for men and women alike. All of us need to be growing in our grasp of the teaching of Scripture, growing in the apostles’ doctrine. In fact, as Luke calls it we should be devoted to the apostles’ doctrine, devoted to the apostles’ teaching.
I think that includes everything that we do as a church to help us grow in the faith. It includes, of course, what we do on Sunday morning, where there should be regular gospel proclamation, the heralding of the word, but it also includes what we do with Christian education. So we’re on a Sunday school break for the summer, but I want to start making the appeal right now, on September 10th when we ramp back up, let’s go full speed ahead and take seriously the task of Christian education, because we need not only the preaching of the word, we need to be studying the Bible; we need catechetical instruction, where we are growing in the basics of the faith, the basic understanding of the faith.
We need intensive teaching in biblical and systematic theology. And of course we need the personal aspect as well; we need personal reading and meditation and Bible study for individual growth.
All of that is included in being devoted to the apostles teaching, but especially we need the gospel itself. Calvin said, “Wherever the pure voice of the gospel sounds forth, where men continue in the profession thereof, where they apply themselves to the regular hearing of it that they may profit thereby, there, beyond all doubt, is the church.”
The life of the church, just as much as the birth of the church, is founded in the word, the word of the gospel. So they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching.
(2) Now notice this: they also devoted themselves to fellowship, to fellowship. This is that wonderful Greek word koinonia, and it’s a word that carries the connotations of partnership. You might even almost think of a business partnership, where there are shared resources. Sometimes the word has that gloss. It also carries the idea of union and communion; being united together. So we might think of union and communion with God himself. We are called into the fellowship of Christ, First Corinthians one.
Or the apostle John says that “we have fellowship with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ, and we have fellowship with one another.” So there’s a sharing of spiritual experience. You remember how Paul appeals to the Philippians in Philippians chapter two: “If there is any fellowship in the Spirit…” He’s using that word. “If there is any fellowship in the Spirit, then have this mind among you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” Humbly love and serve one another.
It also carries the idea of friendship, gospel friendship, in Galatians chapter two, verse nine. Paul talks about how the apostles gave him the right hand of fellowship. It meant that there was an agreement in the essential message of the gospel. They were together in it; they were together. That’s basically what this word means; it means togetherness, it means to be together. It includes partnership and financial support, as you see in Second Corinthians chapter nine and Philippians chapter one and Hebrews chapter 13, and it includes sharing in suffering for the gospel.
Do you remember how Paul said that his ambition was to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings. That’s the word, fellowship.
Now there are couple implications of this for us. Here’s the first: there is no community without togetherness. Koinonia involves togetherness, fellowship; it involves being together. In fact, when you just read this passage again, the word “together” is used twice, verse 44, verse 46, and then you have plural pronouns used over and over again. The word “they” three times, the word “their” four times. They’re together! They were together! They devoted themselves to fellowship; they were together. That means, brothers and sisters, that we do not enjoy the full benefits of life in the church unless we are together, and together with regularity.
In this passage it says they met not just weekly but day by day, verses 46, 47. There was some kind of daily interaction. Now I know that’s a stretch for busy, 21st-century Americans. The thought that we would have any kind of daily interaction together... We rather think of church as one spoke in the wheel of our lives, and the hub of the wheel is me. But it might be better to think of all the aspects of our lives as springing as spokes from the wheel of Christ himself, with Christ the center and the church the circumference. So everything is actually somehow encompassed in the church.
Now I know we have jobs to go to, but what if part of our lives together was we were sharing the burdens of our work, we were sharing the prayer needs from our work, we were collaborating, we were just thinking of ways to live our lives Monday through Saturday within the context of the fellowship of the church? This is what the gospel leads us to; it leads us to embrace not just me and I and myself but we and us and our.
Second implication is this: there is no unity without truth. There is no community without togetherness and there is no unity without truth. I just want to stress that the fellowship that they had was fellowship in the gospel. It was fellowship around the gospel; it was fellowship based on the truth of the gospel. When Paul exhorts us to maintain the unity of the Spirit and the bonds of peace in Ephesians chapter four, he then goes on to describe the basis of that unity by describing basic Christian doctrine. So let’s not be those folks who are all for church unity and don’t talk at all about church doctrine, the basis of the unity. The two go together; there is no true unity without doctrine.
Now, of course, that doesn’t mean we have to agree on all the secondary things. We can unite with fellow believers in Jesus Christ who have differences with us about their eschatology, how they chart out the end times, or have differences with us about the mode of baptism or those kinds of things, but there must be unity in the essentials of the gospel.
I love the old statement, I don’t know who first said it, but somebody once said, “In the essentials unity, in the nonessentials liberty, in all things charity.” That’s exactly right; we must be united in the essentials of the gospel. That’s central to our fellowship.
(3) So, they were devoted to the apostles’ doctrine, they were devoted to the fellowship, and then thirdly to the breaking of the bread. It’s interesting that the definite article “the” comes before the phrase “breaking of bread.” So commentators seem to agree that this is a reference not just to general table fellowship, but it’s a reference to the Lord’s Table. They were devoted to the breaking of the bread; they were devoted to the regular observance of the Lord’s Table.
If you’ve ever wondered why we come to the Table every week, well, here’s one reason; because we want to be a congregation that is devoted to it. We’re devoted to the sacramental observance of the broken body and shed blood of Jesus Christ, because we understand that the gospel comes to us not just through the proclaimed word, but it comes to us through the visible feast. The gospel is made audible by the word; it is made visible and tangible when we take those elements in our hands. So the regular observance of the Lord’s Supper; they were devoted to that, they were devoted to it, and so should we be as well.
(4) And then fourthly, they were devoted to the prayers, also the definite article, the prayers. Not just prayer in general but the prayers. So he probably has in mind here prayer meetings, gatherings for prayer. Not just private prayer, as important as that is, but praying together as the body of Christ.
Now, I want to make two observations or applications about this fourfold inner life of the church. I just want to observe two things, and kind of use this as a diagnostic for us and ask, “Does this characterize us as a church?” Okay?
So two observations; here’s the first one: notice here the intensity of their life together. The intensity of it. The key word is the word “devoted.” They were devoted to these things! What does that mean? It means to stick closely to something or someone or to attach oneself to someone or something, or to persist in, to continue in. They continued in the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers.
Is that true of us? Are we devoted to these four things? Let’s just take prayer as an example. The same word, devoted, Paul uses twice in relation to prayer. Colossians four, verse two, “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” That phrase “continue steadfastly” is the same word used here. Be devoted to prayer.
Same thing in Romans chapter 12, verse 12, where he says, “Be constant in prayer,” or be devoted to prayer. Can that be really said of us? I know it can be said of us that we pray occasionally. I know it can be said of us that we pray with...what’s the word I’m looking for? We pray on occasion, we pray periodically, but can it be said that we pray constantly? Do we pray constantly? What would that look like? What would it look like for a church to be devoted to prayer, to have that kind of intensity in prayer?
Let me just dream with you for a minute. I can imagine—I don’t know if I’ve ever seen this in any church, ours or any that I’ve been a personal part of. I’ve read about it, but I don’t know if I’ve actually seen it. What would it look like? I can imagine that it would mean something like this: that not a single day in the week goes by where there are not some believers somewhere in the church who are meeting together for prayer. Maybe it’s just two, maybe it’s three or four, maybe it’s a small group. But every day people are praying for the church.
There’s not a week that goes by where people are not praying in their families for the church, that the prayer meeting is not the smallest meeting in the church, it’s maybe even the largest meeting of the church! I think devoted to prayer would look something like that, wouldn’t it? Does that make sense? Does that sound reasonable, that being devoted to prayer would mean we’re giving the same energy towards prayer that we give towards the other aspects of church life. There’s an intensity to it. There’s an intensity to it.
And then secondly here, notice the balance of their life together. Now this is what’s so interesting to me. It’s not only devoted to prayer, it’s not only devoted to teaching, not only devoted to fellowship or only devoted to the breaking of the bread; they’re devoted to all four. There’s a balance here.
Now here’s the deal: when you look at churches, almost every church is devoted to at least one of those things. So you have some churches that are doctrine churches, and it’s all about the doctrine, it’s all about the Bible studies, it’s all about the teaching. Sunday morning is well attended, Sunday school classes are well attended, people read their Bibles. But usually those churches are not going to be equally devoted to other aspects of church life. Often that’s the case.
You have some churches that are fellowship churches. The best attended meeting of the church is the potluck, right? Fellowship churches. People are in each others’ lives; they love being together, but not praying. You know, talking about the latest movie or talking about the football game in the afternoon. I mean, we just enjoy hanging out together.
Nothing wrong with that, that’s great, but is there equal balance? Is there a kind of equal emphasis on all four of these things? Is there both truth, devotion to the apostles’ teaching, and experience? Are we both God-centered in our worship and others-embracing with generosity towards outsiders? Emphasis on both the large group and the small group. I mean, there are lots of ways to slice this passage, to show these dynamics, but what I want you to see here is there’s a balance, and that the healthier a church becomes in its life together the more all of these things get emphasis.
So you don’t just have the prayer meeting and the Bible study group and the fellowship group, but you have every member intensively devoted to every aspect of church life. So the life of the church. I’ll let it stand there; he who has ears to hear, let him hear.
III. The Growth of the Church
Now number three, the growth of the church. Really now we’re just looking at what’s the effect. If this happens, if the word gives birth to the church and the life, the inner life of the church is healthy, what’s the result?
Well, the result is growth. The church grows. And I don’t mean merely that it grows in numbers, although that’s included, but it grows in every way in which it should grow. Let me just point out some of the features of the growth of the church here in this passage.
(1) First of all, they grew in influence with outsiders. It’s interesting how this is described. It’s described in terms of both fear and favor. In verse 43, “awe came upon every soul,” in verse 47, “they had favor with all the people.” When the church is healthy it becomes attractive to outsiders, but there is a mystery and there’s an awe about the church. So outsiders are both attracted to the church and they’re a little bit, “I’m not sure what I think about this.”
Sometimes that even provokes persecution. What doesn’t happen when a church is healthy is the world ignores it. When the church is healthy the world stands up and watches and notices; it either persecutes or converts. I mean, that’s what happens when the church is really healthy, when the church grows in influence.
Notice how this reads in verse 43, “And awe came upon every soul.” What is that? The word awe is the Greek word from which we get our word phobia. It’s the word for fear. It’s kind of a reverential fear or awe of God, and notice says, “Fear came upon every soul.” It’s not something we work up, it’s something that when God’s Spirit is present and powerfully working in a congregation people recognize it and they walk out saying, “God is in this place,” and fear and awe of God is there.
One of my favorite stories, I love this story, comes from Duncan Campbell during the Hebrides revival in the 20th century. The Hebrides Islands off the coast of Scotland. There’s a story that Campbell tells where he was actually the keynote speaker for a conference, but he felt this deep conviction that he was to leave the conference where he was scheduled to speak and he was to go to this little island off the coast of Scotland. So he did it; he left, and he went to this island. There were only 500 inhabitants of this island.
He went to Glasgow, then he took a ferry to the island. When he arrived on the island he met a boy, and he asked the little boy, “Are there any pastors here?” He said, “No, there’s not pastors; there are a couple of elders, though.” He said, “Okay, direct me to an elder’s home.”
He went there, he went to the elder’s house. When he got there the elder said, “I’ve been expecting you.” There was no communication between these guys beforehand, but the elder said, “I’ve been expecting you, and you’re to preach tonight at nine o’ clock.”
Later the elder’s wife told Duncan Campbell that she heard him praying in the barn, saying, “God, I don’t know where he is, but you do. Find him and bring him here.” This elder had been praying this way for the church.
Well anyway, they met that night, they gathered nine o’ clock that evening for a worship service, and nothing really dramatic happened. The church dismissed, the people were filing home; it was just a small village, so they’re walking to their homes. Duncan Campbell and the elder are standing there on the porch, the church porch steps, and the elder says, “Mr. Campbell, don’t be discouraged. The Lord is hovering about.”
Then they just saw spontaneously the people started dropping to their knees, out in their streets, and began praying and crying out to God for mercy and for forgiveness, this conviction that just kind of fell on the whole town. And the elder said, “Mr. Campbell, remove your hat; the Lord has arrived.”
Awe came upon the church. Fear came upon the church. The community, they were so immersed in the presence of God they could not be ignored. That’s where church influence in a community comes from.
(2) So there was growth in that way, then there’s growth, secondly, in ministry, verses 44, 45. “All who believed were together and had all things in common. They were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.” I read that passage and I think, “That looks like communism!” Doesn’t it, when you read it? They’re all selling their stuff and just giving it to the community pool and it gets distributed to everyone else? It’s not communism, because it’s government mandated. It’s not mandated at all; this is the amazing thing: they just voluntarily do it! People just have glad, generous hearts and they just start selling stuff, giving the money away, trying to meet needs, because they care more about the kingdom than they do about themselves.
When you read the passage closely it’s also clear that not everybody sold everything, because they’re still meeting house to house, so people still have houses to meet in. But there is something like a voluntary radical redistribution of wealth that’s happening in this passage because of their mutual commitment to one another, and they’re ministering.
(3) Then in verses 46, 47 you have growth in worship, day by day attending the temple together, breaking bread in their homes. They receive their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God. Praising God. Worship of God.
(4) Then finally, you have growth in evangelism. Look at the end of the passage: “...and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”
So they’re growing in numbers, and their growth—get this—is conversion growth. They’re growing by new believers, and it’s so regular that Luke says it’s daily, day by day. Notice who gets the glory for the work: “The Lord added to the church day by day those who were being saved.” I read that and this is what I think, “Can we settle for anything less than this? Should we?”
So where does that come from? When a church has that kind of impact in the community so that there’s radical generosity, there’s radical conversions, there’s this kind of growth, where does it come from? Well, it comes from the inner life of the church being what we described, intensely devoted to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship and the breaking of bread and prayer. It comes from that, and that comes from the word of the gospel.
So here’s the final call to us, brothers and sisters. As the church of Jesus Christ, the most simple thing we could say is this: we should be a people who are devoted to the gospel of Christ, the word of the gospel of Christ. That’s how we’re born, we’re born of the gospel; that’s how we live, we live on the gospel, devoted to it and all of its implications; and it’s how we grow, as we spread that gospel to others.
I’m very grateful that in significant measure I do believe this is true of our church. I do believe it’s true of our church. But I would say that it’s true in a way that’s something like true of a healthy baby, a healthy infant, where all of the metrics are good, but if the baby stayed where it was for the next 12 years it wouldn’t be healthy anymore. That’s kind of what I think we’re like. I think there’s health, and there’s life, and it’s real, but there needs to be growth, and the growth is going to come as we grow in our intensity and devotion to these aspects of church life, as we hold firmly to the gospel and as we pray for that fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the congregation.
So that’s what I want to call us to, brothers and sisters. Whether you’re new with us today or in recent weeks or you’ve been here for 30 or 40 years, can I call us in a fresh way to pray that God would give us this, that he would give us this, that he would do this, that he would replicate here in our church what he did then, that we would feel the repercussions of this earthquake that was the day of Pentecost, and that we would see the Spirit move in a fresh and powerful way through the word in the life of the church, for the sake of the world? That’s what we need. So let’s pray together.
Gracious Father, we thank you that you have loved us and saved us, that you have called us by your grace, through your word, through the gospel. You’ve called us into the fellowship of your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, into the fellowship and the grace of the Holy Spirit. Thank you that through your Son and Spirit we are united together as the body of Christ, and that we have the great privilege of being your people in the world, your people here in this community.
We pray that as we have studied these aspects of the church this morning that they would be increasingly true in our lives. We pray that you would help us to become balanced in our devotion to these things, and that wherever we have become lackluster in our commitment to the church that you would infuse us with fresh energy and fresh joy, fresh love for the gospel and for one another, and for the communities which you have called us to serve and to reach and to care for.
Thank you for the wonderful privilege we have not only of hearing your word but of feasting at the Lord’s Table, and as we come to the Table this morning we draw near with a sincere heart; with a full assurance of faith we draw near, knowing that we have a high priest who intercedes for us and who gives us boldness to come to the throne of grace, who brings us into fellowship with you, our Father.
So we pray for that now. May we draw near in our hearts, by faith, as we take these elements. May we do so with believing, trusting, repentant hearts towards the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that you would draw near to us as we draw near to you, that you would fellowship with us, continue with us as we continue now in worship. We pray it in Jesus’ name and for his sake, Amen.
Brian G. Hedges
