The Church Established – 5/17/09

Sermon Series: The Church: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Title: The Church Established – The beginning of the Jerusalem church.
Text: Acts 2:41-47
This sermon will highlight the essential nature of the body of believers as they began to be a community of Christian believers for the first time in history.
Worship and living finally begin to be mixed up and combined. Worship becomes a part of everyday living as the community of Christ becomes the central part of these people’s lives. While this is only the beginning of the Church as we know it, it is a great model to pattern our community around: People who are living everyday in the grace of Jesus and the joy of community.

Introduction: Beginnings can be difficult times.
The first electric light was so dim that a candle was needed to see its socket. One of the first steamboats took 32 hours to chug its way from New York to Albany, a distance of 150 miles. Wilbur and Orville Wright’s first airplane flight lasted only 12 seconds. And the first automobiles traveled 2 to 4 miles per hour and broke down often. Carriages would pass them with their passengers shouting, “Get a horse!”

Transition: Today we are continuing our study which I have entitled “The Church: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.”
Over the course of the last few weeks we have become aware of how God has intentionally fixed a group of people to be His Holy possession here on earth. We see that they are to be set apart, a kingdom of priests. They are to worship and work toward God’s kingdom as their primary responsibility.
Today as we see the effects of the first sermon ever preached in the New Testament age, the Church age we see that the church is something even more important. It has left the boundaries of petty political kingdoms and has moved toward the goal of the eternal goal God has in mind for it.
It is on this Pentecost day that we see the roots for our own congregation as we witness the birth of the Christian Church.

1) People Were Being Saved
a) They received His word.
i) This phrase carries with it the idea of hearing, repentance and a declaration of faith.
b) They were baptized
i) That day 3000 people were baptized – you talk about revival. Can you imagine what the bystanders who didn’t come to faith must have thought as all of the people were standing in line at the pools in lower Jerusalem while the apostles were immersing each one of them.
c) They were added
i) Finally they became a part of the community of faith. They were literally “set to” among the group of believers in Jerusalem.
d) I think the thing that is important for us to see here is that the path to salvation is a process. So many times we treat conversion as something that gets done one day at Church. That is not the picture which we get from scripture at all. Instead it is a process. A process of coming into relationship with Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Like any relationship building exercise it requires some steps.
i) We must hear the word and believe what it says. It must be personal and real to us. An abstract understanding of salvation is worse than unbelief. We have to understand that we need Jesus as Lord and Savior that we are sinful and that we have sin which needs to be taken care of and that we can’t do it ourselves.
ii) We need to confess this new belief and repentance. A public declaration is important because it shows we are serious about what we have heard and now believe.
iii) We need to be baptized. This part of the process, Romans 6 tells us, connects us physically with the physical act of Jesus as He was buried and raised form the dead – we share in that as new believers.
iv) We become a part of the community of believers and our growth and effectiveness has to continue to expand as we grow within the greenhouse of Christian community.

2) People were living changed lives
a) They were participating in four Christian conventions. There are no activities which define us as a people, a holy nation, a kingdom of priests more than these activities. These four behaviors have to be the pillars of our lives as God’s people.
i) Devoted to the apostles teaching
(1) What an incredible time it must have been for them to be able to sit at the feet of Peter and John and hear the teaching of Jesus reduplicated.
(2) Today we get this effect when we open the pages of our Bible and study the teaching as it was recorded in the first century. We also get to study the writings which they had studied as the background of their faith, the OT scriptures, Moses and the prophets.
ii) Fellowship
(1) The word which is used here is probably familiar to you it is Koininia.
(a) This word indicates a sharing of mutual relationship. It also carries the connotation of sharing of physical resources.
(b) In other words the Church is called to be in mutual relationship with one another based upon the relationship which we all share in Christ. – “that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” (1 John 1:3, ESV)
(c) This is a totally different kind of relationship than the kind of relationship which the world is attuned to. The world expects that all of our relationships are based upon some kind of mutual benefit that occurs between the partners. This is not the case with the kind of partnership which we share as Christian partners. I am not your friend because of what I can get from you or because of what I can provide for you. I am in relationship with you because of the fact that Jesus is my Lord, He dominates the landscape of my life and He is your Lord and this sharing goes beyond anything as petty as mutual benefit, it is eternal.
iii) Breaking of bread
(1) Literally this passage says the breaking of the bread. I think that it is clear that these early Christians were participating in the Lord’s Supper with one another at every available opportunity.
(2) I think that the early celebrations of the Lord’s Supper were at the same time less formal and in some ways more celebratory and solemn then the way we enjoy the Communion time today.
(3) Almost assuredly these early practitioners of the Lord’s Supper celebrated Communion in the midst of a meal. It was instituted during the Passover celebration feast and that is the framework that it would have naturally fit in their minds. I also think that they were celebrating this reminder and rededication more than once a week. Later on in this passage we find out that they were sharing meals with one another daily and I suspect that they were daily celebrating the fact of their faith.
(4) Imagine how your world would be different if every day we were gathering together at one time to celebrate God’s grace and redemption as a community.
iv) Prayer
(1) The people who first responded the gospel message in Jerusalem on that day had different spiritual background than you or I. They had been raised believing that daily prayer was to be integral part of their lives. IN the Jewish household there were three specific times set aside for prayer: In the morning, in the early afternoon and in the evening. Each of these times was associated with a particular prayer which was, and is in orthodox households, recited at that time. They understood that God enjoys prayers from His people.
(2) As the Church began to spread we see that this pray time began to take on a completely new significance as God’s people were learning that faith was more about the heart than a simple social identity.
(3) Prayer was and is the way that we communicate, corporately and personally with our Creator.
(4) If prayer is, as we believe, God’s people communicating with Him and if He does like and expect us to do so, Why would you not spend significant time with Him in this manner?
3) They had an effect on their community
i) Did you notice the end of the passage. So many times I think when we study this section of scripture we get holed on the beginning and forget to look beyond that to the effect which these behaviors had on the world which they inhabited.
(1) Glad and generous hearts
(2) Praising God
(3) Having favor with the people.
(4) More and more people were being saved.