Life in the Newborn Church Pt. 2

We remain standing for just a little bit more.

We will be reading God's Word from the book of Acts, continuing through our

study of Acts, and we're in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

I'll be reading from verse 36 to the end of the chapter, Acts chapter 2,

Acts 2 · chapter mention

beginning with verse 36.

Listen carefully to what I'm about to read, because this is God's holy and inspired Word.

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him

both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.

Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and

the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do?

And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name

of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises for you and

for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.

And with many words, he bore witness and continued to exhort them saying,

save yourselves from this crooked generation.

So those who received his word were baptized and they were added to them that day, 3,000 souls.

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship,

the breaking of bread and prayers.

And all 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 the word of the Lord.

You can be seated.

We're at a point in our study of Acts chapter 2 where there's a transition,

Acts 2 · chapter mention

and the transition is found in the verses primarily 42 through the end of the chapter.

So Acts chapter 1, the selection of the apostles, the promise of the coming

Acts 1 · chapter mention

of the Holy Spirit, Acts chapter 2, Pentecost.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And now as Acts chapter 2 ends, we're going to see a transition from that day

Acts 2 · chapter mention

of Pentecost to the work of the church, particularly in the work of Peter.

There's blessings in the new church as well. It's wonderful. The church is growing.

The church has been added at least 3,000 souls in one day. Talk about a revival.

This is more than anything that had ever been seen. And this is smack dab,

remember, in the middle of Jerusalem.

One of the things you'll notice is that this situation that occurs so dramatically

and so immediately, no one really knows quite what's going on.

The Jewish community, for instance, doesn't quite know what to make of these

thousands of people claiming Jesus as Messiah. The Romans don't quite know what

to do with them or how to handle them or what's going on.

You'll notice, though, that this little group, this tiny little group of 12

men now is expanding to more than thousands of people all at once.

And we're looking basically at life in the newborn church, life in the newborn church.

What does it look like for a church to be the church of Jesus Christ,

to be an apostolic church?

So many traditions, especially in America, traditions that have sprung up,

say the 1800s, the mid-1800s through to the beginning of the 20th century,

there were multiple numbers of different denominations.

And almost all of them had some sort of interest in going back, they said.

Let's go back to the days of the apostles. Let's go back to the early church

when they don't have traditions, you know, ministers in robes and things like this.

Let's go back to what it was like in the beginning.

In fact, it's not a bad thing to think about. What was it like at the beginning?

And what are the things that we should continue as an apostolic church that

were given to us by Christ and His church?

I want to review just a minute about fellowship, the nature of fellowship in the early church.

Remember Acts 2.42 last week, it says they devoted themselves to the apostles'

teaching and the fellowship to breaking of bread and prayer, those four things.

So doctrine, even though people, many of these denominations,

by the way, that started in the mid-1800s, many of them began to say things

like, we have no creed but Christ.

No, we don't need those confessions. We don't need all those churchy things.

And yet at the very beginning of the church, the first thing that's mentioned is doctrine.

Doctrine is absolutely foundational to the life of the church.

From the doctrine, they moved to fellowship, koinonia, we talked about that,

to the breaking of bread and prayers, the Lord's Supper and praying.

This was the church's basic stuff.

This is the things from which we're going to see in the next few verses flow out of that life.

Doctrine, fellowship, sacraments. Again, a word that you use in the churchy type.

You know, you guys are too church. Well, breaking of bread, let's call it that.

But it's the sacrament of the Lord's Supper.

And prayer. These are the basic constituent four things. Now,

it doesn't mean the church doesn't do more things or there are more things for us to do.

But these are sort of central, simple, foundational issues.

And then you'll notice in the passage, it says that as they're gathered together,

breaking bread, praying, and living together, it says that fear came upon them.

Fear came upon them. What kind of fear was this?

It says that fear stood at the dawn of this new age. They were struck with awe and fear.

They were witnessing the sunrise of a new age. They were witnessing the dawn

of a new time period in which we're now living, a time period of regeneration and grace and kingdom.

And yet it says fear. What was the fear? Were they afraid of the Romans?

Were they afraid of the Jews? They had much reason to be. As we go through the

book of Acts, you're going to see they have reason to fear a lot of things.

People will want to kill them. People hate them. People deride them. They persecute them.

What was the fear, though? It looks to me like in the passage,

the word fear here in the Greek doesn't just mean a fear of an impending dread

or punishment, but it looks like it's more closely related to awe and reverence.

They feared God, and they feared

God, it says, because God was manifesting himself in marvelous ways.

The words of the apostle Peter were put alongside the signs and wonders.

It says they saw these signs and wonders coming from Jesus Christ and the Holy

Spirit, and they were filled with awe and wonder, and I might add, hope.

Imagine this small group of people becomes thousands, and these thousands of

people begin to wonder, what are we doing? Where are we going? What's happening?

And they saw the word of the Lord proclaimed, and they saw the signs affirming

that proclamation, and they were filled with wonder, fear of God, and hope in the Lord.

And they're about to need it, because as soon as they launch into the culture

itself, they're going to be persecuted and hated.

You'll notice it also says something about the church. The church is the gathering

place of God. It says, verse 44, and all who believed were together.

That's a phrase you see over and over in Acts.

It's used five times in the book of Acts. Acts 1, 15, 2, 1, 44,

47, and again in chapter 4, verse 26.

They were one. Sometimes you even see it translated. They were of one accord

together. They had fellowship. They shared things together.

In fact, their fellowship is pretty radical.

As we see in the next few verses. This is a group that were together and out

of that palpable unity, out of that sense of togetherness and fellowship,

it says all who believed were together and had all things in common.

Out of the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. And remember the Holy Spirit is not

a gift that is an addendum or addition to Christ.

The Holy Spirit is bringing Christ.

And as Christ is brought into the midst of this group of people,

out of that fellowship, out of that love for Christ, they began,

verse 45 says, they were selling the possessions and belongings and distributing

to the proceeds as any had need.

Immediately you see in the commentaries, ah, communism. The early church were communists.

I mean, after all, Karl Marx said in a very, very brilliant little phrase,

communism could be summed up by from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs.

You look at the passage and it says, everyone shared out of what they had and

gave to those who had need. It's like communism.

Well, actually, Karl Marx is sort of stealing a little bit from a very beautiful

phrase of fellowship. Like, imagine a community.

That's what Marx was telling people to do.

Imagine a community where everyone just shared things in common.

If someone had two coats or two cloaks and someone had none and it was cold,

I realized that when I came out today, I didn't have a coat on,

and someone would say, here, here's my coat. I have two.

It's a beautiful, actually, idea, isn't it? But it's not Marxism.

It's not communism. It's called Christianity.

It's called Christianity. Some commentators look at the passage and say,

well, the church just made a mistake.

You know, communal living is not cool. Communal living never works.

After all, we're capitalists, and we know it fails every time.

So communalism, that just was a mistake.

Maybe they were over-emotional. You know, 3,000 people get saved,

hallelujah, they all just start acting like communists.

But maybe that, but some commentators say, no, this is the divinely appointed

way of living. Communal living is how Christians should live.

We really should sell everything we have, move to a commune and begin sharing everything equally.

You have more, I have less, give me what you have, so forth and so on.

And yet others say, no, actually it's not communal living. And when you look

at the text, you'll see it carefully.

It's not, they didn't sell everything and move to a commune.

They didn't become Marxist socialist, but rather they were responding to an

immediate need at an immediate time in the way that Christians do.

It wasn't establishing some kind of communistic form of government.

Rather, they were a group of

people in an emergency urgent situation who simply did what Christians do.

They shared. Someone had something. Someone had a need. Well,

I've got something extra. I'll sell it and I'll help you.

It is a beautiful expression of the church of Jesus Christ. And I'm telling

you, it's completely unique to Western civilization.

This kind of thing, the way it happened from the heart, springing out,

I love Jesus. He has saved me. You love Jesus.

We're together in the church. You have a need. I have more. I will share. Of course.

My granny used to say, it's the Christian thing to do, right?

My granny said that all the time. I found it annoying sometimes because she

was usually implying that I wasn't doing the Christian thing.

It's the Christian thing to do, she'd say. And that's exactly what it was.

Now, I want you to notice, by the way, first of all, just because we do need

to clarify, communism doesn't work this way.

Communism, as Marx outlined it and as every socialist plan has ever outlined it, is never voluntary.

Try telling the IRS you'd rather take your money that they're giving to some

program and say, I'd rather give it to my neighbor. I see my neighbor. Try that.

Don't try that, actually. I'm being sarcastic.

You can't do it. Why? Because it's mandatory. Communism and socialism in all

its forms has a mandatory system of taking from those who have and giving to those who have not.

It's mandatory. The government and a bureaucracy becomes responsible for the

distribution of the goods.

That's not at all what you see here in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

It looks at later, you'll see by the way that the church develops a legitimate

program of mercy and mercy ministry in the diaconate.

Along the way, it looks like people are selling things, laying them at the feet

of the apostles, and the apostles distribute it to the people as they have need,

just like the people did in the Old Testament with storehouse giving.

You bring your tithes and offerings to the Levites and the priests.

They eat and drink and carry out their service, and they also give to those who are needing.

It's not communism. First communism, by the way, and all forms of socialism

that have derived from it tend to be atheistic and nightmarish.

They deny God.

You're giving, you know, the haves are not okay with the have-nots.

Neither are the have-nots okay with the haves. They're both at war with each other.

According to Karl Marx, that's the whole history of humanity,

the history of class struggle.

The have-nots want from the haves and the haves don't want to give it.

And so Marx's answer, revolution, violence.

Does that look at all like our passage? Mark said that the communist revolution

will necessarily mean violence because the bourgeois, the people who have,

aren't going to want to voluntarily give it to those who have not.

It's not based on mutual fellowship and mutual concern. Imagine,

I love Jesus. Jesus has brought me into this community called the church.

Remember, the church is absolutely central now to the lives of these people.

They're not living as individualists.

They're not early capitalist in that sense. They're not living.

They realize I'm part of a community, and my community needs my help,

and I might need their help.

It's love for Christ and love for each other, and it just spills out as naturally

as water comes from a spring.

There's no need for a government agency for this. In fact, a government agency,

you see, would be contrary to this.

And just as an historical note, because I know we don't hear this in our media

or in our schools, communism has only and ever produced violence,

death, division, and destruction, as Marx outlined it.

Just for your reading pleasure, there's a book called The Black Book of Communism, published in 1997.

I think he underestimates it, but he thinks that the 20th century has produced,

communism in the 20th century has produced 94 million deaths.

That's more deaths in the 20th century from that ideology, that idea than any

other form of ideology in the history of the world.

65 million in China, dead. 20 million in the Soviet Union, dead.

Cambodia, 2 million. North Korea, 2 million. That doesn't include a lot of other

countries, in Eritrea and Africa and Cuba and other places around the world.

A later professor revised those stats from 94 million to 110,

and another said later, it's probably 148 million. Choose your poison.

90 million, 150. Who cares? This is a system that has, in history,

only produced violence, death, destruction, and division.

That's not what we see in the book of Acts. What we see in the book of Acts

is an extraordinary event that Karl Marx could have never predicted,

and no socialist or communist system could ever either predict it or produce it.

This is the production of the work of the power and supernatural Holy Spirit

that transforms people who now belong to Jesus, and they know now they belong to each other.

No system of government can produce

that. None. By the way, neither can capitalism, just for the record.

Capitalism can't produce a community who loves each other and shares things in common.

It's only and ever the work of the Holy Spirit in the church.

And that's why this church now, as you see it, splash onto the scene of history,

creates a new nation and a new community that no one has ever seen anything like it.

Now, by the way, just another exegetical note, the Greek is interesting.

It doesn't say they all had to share and all had to sell.

It basically could be translated from time to time, they were selling their

goods and possessions and from time to time to anyone as they had need.

In other words, it wasn't a mandatory. They just said, oh, you have something

you need. I have more. I'll take care of it.

Does this still happen today? It happened to us when we came back from Africa.

We left with a container full of goodies. We came back with nothing because

they didn't get a container.

And people at the church there just said, oh, the Jacksons are back from Africa.

They need some furniture.

The next thing you know, a little old lady in Xenia gives us an entire suite of couches and stuff.

Someone from Cincinnati shows up and donates a bed. Another person has a lamp.

All of a sudden, we have an apartment full of things. It happens all the time.

All the time. Where? In the church among Christians.

I had a cousin once that got a brain tumor. He got sick. He is inoperable.

At that time, his church basically just said, here, here's a home.

They rented a home. They got him a car. They paid for his medical bills. It happens all the time.

But it doesn't happen naturally all the time. It happens in communities that

are filled with the Holy Spirit and love for Christ.

Entirely voluntary. That will be, ha, this is the mind-boggling reality of Christianity,

especially in the classical world, and even more so today in our weird-out, confused culture.

This culture is absolutely insane. And a church, by the way,

that lived like this would boggle their minds even more.

And the classical world knew nothing of this kind of entirely voluntary,

entirely heartfelt love for a community.

And that's why the church continued

through Acts and throughout history to flame the fans of charity.

Greek and Roman culture did know something about charity. It was usually something

like a philanthropy where the rich people would give to the poor.

But normally, the government had no programs unless they wanted to entertain people.

If they were on the verge of rioting, rich people would give to poor people.

But they always expected something in return.

The most important thing was honor.

I give to the poor so that I can receive honor. There's nothing like that in this community.

Instead, it says they're breaking bread in their homes, they're worshiping,

they're attending the temple, breaking bread in their homes,

and they receive their food with glad and generous hearts.

Notice, important, they're a worshiping community.

Now, I came across a lot of people who are saying, oh, look,

look, look, pastor, they're in their homes.

I said, yeah, they're in their homes because they don't have a church yet. They're newborn.

Are you kidding me? There was no cathedrals yet. Oh, no, no,

that means you have to worship in your home.

I'm like scratching my head going, wait a minute, how do you get that?

Well, it looks to me like they're worshiping community and they're meeting in homes because why?

That's where they had to meet. I really shouldn't have to say much more,

but these passages and some like it are the birth of what people are now calling

house churches, where people say, I have a house church. I don't need your church.

I don't need the robes and the stuff.

And I don't need all that. I have a house church. After all,

here we go, that's how they did it in the original times.

Well, that's one thing to worship in your home. I have nothing against worshiping in your home.

When we started our church in Dayton, we worshiped in a hotel room with five families.

It was actually pretty cool because it was a banquet room. We had to walk upstairs.

And as you walked in, right below us was this bar. It was closed on Sunday. It was called El Diablo.

We loved that. It means the devil, right?

It's like, yes, we're worshiping right above El Diablo. It was pretty cool.

It doesn't mean you have to do that. We just did it because it was the cheapest place to find.

That's all they're really saying here. They met in their homes together.

They're worshiping there together.

By the way, speaking of, if you're a house church, what gives you the legitimate

right to create a house church?

These people were meeting in the home based on the apostolic authority of the apostles themselves.

You can no more create your own house church than you can create your own country.

It gives you the right to just start and say, oh, I'm a minister now.

Where churches are based on the authority that Christ gives to ministers ordained

and following in the lines of the what? The apostles.

We're actually doing right here what the apostolic church did.

I am an ordained minister. I don't have authority of myself.

Hands have been laid on me by a higher authority in the church.

And they've said, go preach the gospel in the name of Jesus.

That's what was happening. There were a worshiping community.

And they did so, it's amazing, with thanksgiving and sincerity.

A worshiping community. This is just, again, so deeply radical that it's hard.

Historians can't wrap their mind around what happened.

Historians like we always wanna know what strategy did they use?

What program did they start? How did they do this?

What program or strategy did they start? It's interesting. There's a good book.

I say good because it's challenging. I don't agree with everything.

By a Mennonite, nonetheless, who said, who wrote a book called The Patient Ferment of the Early Church.

Subtitled, The Improbable Rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire.

And Dr. Greider argues that the church had no programs whatsoever.

Yay, no way. I was told when we started our church in Dayton,

like people will tell us here, you can't have a church without a praise band.

You can't have a church without youth groups. You can't have a church without programs.

But Greider argues for the first three centuries of the church, there was no program.

They were a loving, Holy Spirit-filled worshiping community Wow And it turned

the world upside down A loving,

Spirit-filled They were harassed They were persecuted for hundreds of years

And yet they flourished And yet they grew Why?

Because they were a Holy Spirit-filled, Christ-centered, worshiping community

And they loved each other Out of the love of Christ came to love for one another.

Pastor Douglas Wilson is fond of saying something that this passage reminded

me of. He said, you know, many people talk about fighting the culture wars. We all hear it.

We all, I know, because I want to fight the culture wars too.

But he said, you can no more fight a tank war without what? Tanks.

If you're going to fight on the water, you need a Navy. You need ships.

Well, if you're going to fight a culture war, you need a culture.

And this is the culture that Christ was creating in the church right here in front of us.

The culture that transformed the world with no programs, no political party,

no protests, no marches, no blocking any streets, unless it was with the bodies

of Christians that had been beaten.

How did they do it? It perplexed the ancient world. This passage is so powerful.

I want you to think about it.

The people in the Jewish world didn't know what to make of them.

Soon they hated them and persecuted them. But the Romans were also equally perplexed.

Who were these people? What is this church?

There's a couple of documents I want to read from, and I won't bore you with

them. I think they're cool.

You historical types will too. But there's one from about the year 130 called

the Epistle to Barnabas, where it explains that those who continually think

about God's word, that is Christians, and holy things are those who chew the cud.

He described Christians as people who are constantly chewing the cud.

Of what? Of the word of God.

They're people who meditate on the word of God.

The epistle to Diagonetis, a very powerful example of early Christian apologetics,

because the Christians were defending themselves because everyone started hating them.

And mostly the common response of the Christians is, what are we doing wrong?

What laws have we broken? Where have we gone wrong? What are we doing?

And the Romans were like, we're not quite sure yet, but we sure do hate you. We hate you bad.

The epistle of Diagonetus described the Christian community as interesting.

He said, For Christians are not distinguished from the rest of mankind in country or customs.

They don't move away and start a little commune. For they do not live somewhere

in cities of their own, or use distinctive language, or practice a peculiar manner of life.

Though they follow local customs in dress and food and the rest of their living,

their own way of life, which they display, is wonderful and admittedly strange.

Like everyone else, they marry and have children, but not a common bed.

They remain on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They're like,

who are these weird people?

Yes, they speak the same language. They eat the same food. They dress the same

way, but they're completely and totally different.

There's something in them that is transforming them. Yes, they marry, but only one wife.

And they love and take care of their children and they're honest and they're

hardworking. That was what was most difficult for the people to figure out how to hate them.

Don't worry, they always figure a way. But the early world was completely,

they were the same and yet radically different because they had committed themselves

solely and entirely to Jesus Christ.

And that would be eventually the central question. It still is, beloved.

Who is your Lord? Who is your master? Who is your ultimate, the ultimate rule

and authority to whom you answer? It is Jesus Christ.

And not a government and not a culture and not any person.

There's a letter from Trajan from Pliny the Younger. He's a governor in Bithynia.

He's trying to, you see at this time, about two centuries in or one century

in, the Romans are like, wait, we've got a problem and it's Christians.

We don't quite know what they're doing. We don't even know who they are.

They don't have a tradition that's discernible. We can't figure them out,

but we're gonna have to start doing something.

So one of the governors started observing Christians and looking at them and

figuring out why they're so bad.

They asserted, however, he said this, they asserted, this is Trajan,

or excuse me, this is Pliny, the governor, to an emperor, telling them about the Christians.

He said, they asserted that the sum and substance of their faith or error had

been that they were accustomed to meeting a fixed day before dawn and singing hymns to Christ as God.

And to bind themselves to an oath not to do some crime, but not to commit fraud,

theft, or adultery, or falsify their trust, nor to refuse to return a trust

when they're called upon to do so.

When this was over, it was the custom of the people to depart to an assembly,

again, to partake food, but ordinary and innocent food. They just worshiped.

And in their worship, they gave glory to Christ and said, we're gonna be honest.

We're gonna obey the laws. We're gonna be trustworthy. We're gonna be good citizens.

Trajan eventually said, basically, I'm not sure what this means,

but the one thing is they're stubborn because they won't turn away from this Jesus.

And for that, they need to be killed.

The story is no different today, beloved. They broke bread. They fellowshiped.

They lived honest, godly lives, full of love to those who had need.

They didn't break laws. They didn't cause civil disturbances.

That was what was so perplexing to people. It's part of what's been so perplexing

to us as we watched Charlie Kirk get killed.

They're saying he's a hater. He's stirring up trouble. He's violent.

He's just debating people, but he wouldn't give up Christ.

And they killed him for it. And they always will. But here in Acts chapter two,

we see in seed form, we see the mustard seed planted.

Just a few thousand people planting a very simple worshiping community full

of the love of Christ and the love for one another, and the whole world was transformed.

Another historian, Rodney Stark, Roman Catholic, I like to read his stuff.

He's challenging, a little bit edgy. He wrote a book called The Rise of Christianity,

how the obscure marginal Jesus movement became the dominant religious force

in Western world in only a few centuries.

Think about it. Stark chronicles like from this time, early 50s or 60s or 40s

or 50s, a few thousand people.

By 350 AD, there were almost 34 million Christians.

What? In three centuries, the church had exploded upon the scene of the Roman

Empire and was basically conquering the Roman Empire without an army,

without a political party, without any programs.

They were just a worshiping community. And the thing that Stark says that's

so funny, he says, you know, this was a community that didn't care about their ultimate death either.

They live for Christ and they live for one another, even if it meant death,

because they had hope in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Stark chronicles how that during diseases and epidemics, the true test and mettle

of a religion came forward.

He gave, for example, some fascinating stories about when plagues would come

to a village or a community.

The witch doctors and the healers, the guys who had the juju,

that normally if you gave them a little money, they'd heal you. They ran.

It was the Christians who stayed, even at the risk of their own death.

Why? They didn't care about death.

It perplexed people. It also meant that when the plague was over and the witch

doctors wanted to come back, they often got ran off or stoned.

Christianity was beginning to win the hearts and minds of the people.

It says they had favor with their community and favor with other people.

And day by day, they were added to them because of this, because of Christian

love and charity, a worshiping community dedicated solely to Jesus Christ.

Christian values of love and charity had from the beginning been translated

into norms of social service and community solidarity, Stark says.

When disasters struck, the Christians were better able to cope with this and

it resulted in a substantial higher rates of survival.

When the witch doctors ran away, Christians stayed and people actually survived

because there was someone to wipe their brow and give them water and feed them.

The Romans took care of them by simply walking them to a curb in a busy city so they could die.

It's only Christianity. In Acts 2, verse 44,

Acts 2:44

they were selling the possessions and belongings, distributing the proceeds

to any as had need, and day by day, attending together in the temple and breaking

bread in their homes, they received their food with gladness and sincerity.

The word sincerity basically means with simplicity.

They lived simple, godly lives dedicated to Jesus Christ.

Verse 47, praising God and having favor with all the people,

the Lord added to their number day by day, those who were being saved.

This is the simple, beautiful church of Jesus Christ.

And it is the center of the world from Acts chapter 2 to the present.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And the church, as the church preaches the gospel, the saving love of Jesus

Christ who died and rose again for sinners, and people believe that,

it transforms their lives.

And then it transforms their families. And then it transforms their communities

in ways that are supernatural and only explained by the power of the Holy Spirit

and the church. So this church.

Back to the days of the apostles, right? Yes, let's do that.

Worship, break bread, fellowship, praying, and living lives together with gladness

and simplicity of heart. Amen? Let's pray.

Father in heaven, we thank you for the power, the power of your word,

especially the power of simple things.

We know that you gave a promise that the Holy Spirit would bring Christ to the church.

The church was formed in Christ, on Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit.

And it thrived, and it prospered, and it is and continues to conquer the world.

Lord, may we also be a church that is like this, very simple,

simply loving Christ and loving

each other, because we have been saved by the grace of Jesus Christ.

As we come to this table now, Lord, we also ask that you would help us to have

glad and simple and sincere hearts, to worship you and to be thankful,

to eat the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to be filled with your

spirit by faith as we do so, that we also may be a church that perplexes the

world, and that you might day by day add to our number. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.