Life in the Newborn Church

If you remain standing, we'll read from the book of Acts, Acts chapter 2,

Acts 2 · chapter mention

the reading from verses 29 through 47, the conclusion of Peter's great sermon at the Pentecost event.

If you're there together, listen now, because this is God's holy and inspired word.

Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David,

that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.

Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him

that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke

about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades,

nor did his flesh see corruption.

This Jesus God raised up, and of all that we are witnesses.

Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the

Father the promise of the Holy Spirit.

He has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.

For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,

the Lord said, sit at my right hand.

Until I make your enemies your footstool. Let all the house of Israel therefore

know for certain that this, that God has made him both Lord and Christ,

this Jesus whom you crucify.

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?

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

Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

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 other 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 that day about 3,000 souls.

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

to 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 from 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.

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we thank you that your spirit is with your people in Christ.

And so we ask that by your Holy Spirit, we might be able to hear and see from

this particular passage,

the blessings that come to us through Jesus Christ, our Savior,

even loving him more and more. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

So we're gonna move a little faster now through Acts chapter two as we go to

the end of the sermon for Peter.

Last week, we looked at the gift of the Holy Spirit, which remember we said

is not the same as the signs and wonders that attend those gifts.

We also noted that the gift of the Holy Spirit was never given primarily as

some kind of an individual experience for personal, emotional,

spiritual needs, but the gift of the Spirit is the gift of Christ.

Christ has been ascended into heaven. We saw earlier in the chapter,

he's seated at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty.

And as he rules from there, he sent his Holy Spirit to unite us with Christ, to give us Christ.

So the Spirit is not an addition to Christ or an extra added bonus of Christ. The Spirit is Christ.

The Holy Spirit brings us Christ. And you'll notice that the Holy Spirit brings

us together in Christ with one another.

This is going to be one of these constant themes you'll hear as we go through

the book of Acts, which I think is very different from common cultural themes

that we hear, particularly in America.

The church and the gospel are always linked together. The gospel and the church are never separated.

Notice in Acts chapter two, verse 40, it says, and with many other words,

he bore witness and continued to exhort them saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation.

Save yourselves that's what it says in english

i think that's the esv version it's a

it's actually a doesn't mean save yourselves as

in do something to get out of your situation it's actually a weird kind of command

form but it's in passive voice it's a command be saved how can how can you carry

out a command that's passive voice on you in other words you're not the one

saving yourselves but you must be saved, in other words.

So be saved. And the word is, I mean, usually is something where you're rescued from an enemy.

In this particular case, the primary thrust is be saved from this crooked generation.

There's judgment coming of the nation of Israel.

In terms of chronology of 70 AD, the Roman empire destroyed the Jewish temple

in the city of Jerusalem.

That judgment was coming, it was imminent. And Peter is saying,

be saved from the coming judgment It's also included in the whole idea of salvation

in general Salvation from sins,

Repent and believe And all who call upon the name of the Lord They will be saved

Not just from the eminent judgment coming to Israel But from the judgment on

each one of us That's due to our sins.

Peter's saying that also something interesting that I was thinking about this

week, because he says, be saved from this crooked generation.

The word in Greek is the word skolios. I remembered it.

As soon as I saw the word in Greek, I thought, oh, my mom had scoliosis is what it's called.

It means your spine is bent and it's not bent in a good direction. It's not bent.

It's usually twisted in a way that deforms you and makes things difficult.

We hear the word skolios, the word twisted or crooked or bent is not just in

terms of a spinal column, but in terms of ethical moral standards.

Peter was speaking to a people who lived in the days of a generation of people

who received a Messiah himself, Jesus, came to these people.

And instead of receiving Messiah, these people would end up shouting, crucify him.

Remember in Peter's sermon, he says, this Jesus who you crucified.

It's not just the Jews, by the way. They were the crooked and bent generation

who actually crucified him, but our sins also crucified Christ.

This is a common phrase Jesus himself used of the generation of Jewish people who lived in his day.

In Luke chapter 9, he says, oh, you are a faithless and perverse generation.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

Luke 11, 29, he says, this is an evil generation.

Matthew 23, if you want to hear, I heard recently someone say,

well, we need to be nice like Jesus was nice. Read Matthew 23.

Jesus, when he was lambasting the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the religious

leaders of his days, was referring to them as snakes and vipers and whitewashed

tombs and all kinds of not so nice things.

Because Jesus was speaking of a particular generation, he said,

assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.

He's using language even from Deuteronomy, and Deuteronomy is a kind of a law-like

book where you see a lot of legislative language.

Deuteronomy 32, 32, 5 says, They have corrupted themselves. They are not his

children because of their blemish.

They are a perverse and crooked generation.

This is speaking specifically to the generation that lived in Jesus' day where

we were coming to the end of the age.

That's a phrase you see a lot in the New Testament and in the book of Acts.

The end of the age is about to come.

Why? The beginning of the new age of salvation and regeneration and grace and

Holy Spirit has come at Pentecost.

Now, Peter now moves us an interesting way, or Luke does through the book of

Acts, from away from the Pentecost event into the life of the church itself.

We're going to see him do this in the book of Acts several ways,

where he'll say things like this, verse 41, and those who received the word

were baptized, and they were added to that day about 3,000 souls.

This is a transitional phrase you'll see where Peter is now,

or Luke is now moving from Pentecost and the Pentecost event into now the life

of the newborn apostolic church.

The newborn apostolic church. He does this in several places.

We'll see stages where now we're going to move to Stephen and Peter,

and then we'll move to the life and ministry of Paul, and we're going to move

through the history of the early apostolic church.

One of the reasons I wanted to preach through the book of Acts as your new pastor

is because I personally love the book.

It's exciting, but it's also as a church.

You know, you're not a new church, but I'm the new pastor for this church.

So it seemed appropriate for us to ask questions like, what should we do?

What should we be like? Now that you have a pastor, how are things going to

change? Are they going to get better? I hope so.

But what's it going to be like? What should we do now? In fact,

this is one of the things that so many people are asking in our context,

particularly after the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

People are saying, what can I do? What do I do to make things better?

What do I do to make a difference?

One of the most important things we can do is we can understand the centrality

of the church in our lives and live in the church, live the gospel in the church

by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The book of Acts is going to tell us over and over again that the church is the center of history.

The church is the center of history. And so Luke is moving us through this story.

Now we're opening a door from the Pentecost event into the life of the newborn church.

And every church, whatever stage they are in their history, should be asking

themselves, are we an apostolic church?

I don't mean, do we have signs and wonders and speaking in tongues?

And I don't even mean, do we have apostolic succession like the Roman Catholic

Church says? We can trace all the popes back to Peter.

But are we apostolic in the most biblical sense of that word?

This is now the church in Jerusalem, and they were added.

Let me just start by simply looking at the passage and reminding us of what

we need to be as Christians.

We need to be members of a church.

How about that? What can I do to change the world?

How about stop thinking about changing the world and just individually say,

what do I need to do to be a faithful believer in Christ?

Number one, you need to be added to a church. Look what happens here in the

story. 3,000 souls, by the way, this is awesome event.

3,000 people repent and are baptized. And then it says they're added. Added to what?

Is there something they're added to? Yeah, they're added to the church.

You could say they immediately became members of First Presbyterian Church of Jerusalem.

That's what I'll call it. When we get to Acts 15, I'll show you it was Presbyterian,

but the church in Jerusalem now has 3,000 members.

And the thing that strikes me as interesting about this is that it seems obvious

to me when I'm reading the text, but when you speak to American Christians,

nobody wants to be a member of a church.

Church membership is passe now. Some churches don't even have such a thing as membership.

And you say, well, wait, how do you get

the Acts chapter 2 added to church membership? What were they added to?

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Tell me that. They were added to the church. By the way, these are Jewish people

who were obsessed with genealogies, heritage, names, and so forth.

Peter, or Paul even tells Timothy, don't get obsessed with genealogies. Why? Because they were.

They were obsessed with it. You mean to tell me that people,

Jewish people of this time, who in their synagogues always, by the way,

all the way back to the days of Babylon when synagogues developed,

the first thing they would do is gather a group of people together in the synagogue

and add their names to the role of the synagogue.

They were members of the synagogue. You say, well, yeah, but does that mean

that we have to use the five next, a few weeks from now, we're going to add

a member to our church. We're going to ask him five questions.

Did they ask everyone those five questions? I don't think so.

But did they have some sort of accountability, some sort of community of which

they were a part and to whom they had to answer?

Later, it says they all answered to the apostles.

There was authority in the church. There was structure and order in the church.

And there was membership of some sort in the church.

I don't know why, actually, I kind of do know why, but Americans are,

we are, I should say we, obsessed with our individual rights,

so much so that we never want anybody telling us what to do.

You can't tell me what to do. I don't need to join a church.

I have Jesus and my Bible.

That's all I need. Well, these are unthinkable ideas in these days.

It was absolutely incredible, inconceivable, use that in Sunday school,

inconceivable in those days for people to say, well, I just got saved. I'm on my own.

Maybe I'll join a church. Maybe I won't. Maybe I don't. What?

There was no such thing as individual Christianity.

In the book of Acts, we see all throughout the study that when you're saved

from your sins, you're saved and gathered into a community, the church.

There is no such thing biblically as a Lone Ranger Christian.

No such thing. We all need to be a part. Again, let me make it clear.

I'm not saying you have to join Wilmington Reformed Church.

I wish you would. You're welcome to. I hope you all do. But you need to be in

some church and accountable in some way to that church. That's basic Christianity 101.

You want to be apostolic, join a church and join a church that teaches these kinds of things.

Luke says that church membership became fundamental to life.

Later in a little bit, we're going to see that they all start sharing things

together. With whom are they sharing?

With the church, with members of the church, of course.

Again, they didn't do the same exact membership vows.

Maybe they didn't have, they obviously didn't have a membership class because

3,000 were added in one day, but they were a part of a community,

a part of a group of people who covenanted themselves together, who loved each other,

who shared bread together, and

even they sold things and helped each other in this great time of need.

This was an urgent emergency in Jerusalem.

Thousands of people had just basically rejected the entire Jewish establishment.

They needed each other, and they knew it.

Do you know that? We need each other as Christians. And we'll see in the book

of Hebrews, other people also need us.

When the author of Hebrews says, don't forsake the gathering of yourselves together,

as some of you are inclined to do, he mentions, he said, so that you can see

ways to edify and build each other up. Other people need you too.

It's not just that you need the church, which you do.

Our names need to be somewhere in some role of some church as a member.

It's likened unto, and this is the way they thought, Revelation 20 says that

there's this, I saw dead, small and great stand before God, and the books were

opened, and another book which was opened, which is the book of life,

and the dead were judged out of those things which were written.

And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, the dead were delivered,

goes on to say, and death and hell were opened, it says, the second death.

And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Now, I'm not saying that your name on the role of a church membership means

you won't be cast into the lake of fire.

I'm telling you that the idea of having your name added and written to a group

of people to whom you're accountable is something that the Bible understands

very clearly and we should as well.

Book of life, church membership isn't the book of life but it's what we recognize

that when we are called out of darkness into light, were called into a community.

By the way, this is not a Roman Catholic teaching.

The church and membership in a church from the first generation of the Protestant

Reformation, everyone understood.

Again, 500 and some years ago, it would have been inconceivable for Martin Luther

to say, let's go out and get people saved, and then let's leave them saved on

their own. Not possible to think about.

When people get saved, they get saved into Christ and into his church.

We're not just This is a very different way of thinking than popular Christianity today.

When people come forward and get saved and get baptized, that's it.

They basically say that's all there is to it. You're now not going to hell,

and now you get to go to heaven.

The Bible doesn't teach or speak this way. When you're saved,

you're saved into a worshiping community.

Are we together? We're saved into a community. Listen to what the Belgic Confession

says about church membership.

We believe that since the holiest, by the way, this is 1550s and 60s when this

was written, adopted later in 1619, I think.

We believe that since this holy assembly and congregation is the gathering of

those who are saved and there is no salvation apart from it. Ooh, that wasn't a pope.

That was the Dutch Reformed confession of faith. People ought not to withdraw

from it, content to be by themselves, regardless of their status or condition.

But all people are obliged to join and unite with it, keeping the unity of the

church by submitting to its instruction and discipline,

by bending their necks under the yoke of Christ and serving to build one another

up according to the gifts of God that he has given to them, each member in the same body.

Now, I wouldn't agree with this confession, because it says specifically,

if you're not in the church, you don't have salvation. I think that's too much.

But even our own confession of faith, the Westminster Confession,

written about 100 years later, 1646, says this.

The visible church, which is also Catholic or universal under the gospel,

that is not confined to one nation, consists of all those throughout the world

that profess the true religion and of their children.

And this is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, the house and family of God,

outside of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.

I like that because it hedges our bets a bit. Basically, it says when you get

saved, you need to be a member of a church.

If you're not in a church, you're not ordinarily going to be saved.

Where will you hear the word preached? Where will you receive the fellowship

of the Holy Spirit through the bread, to the breaking of bread?

Where will you receive the prayers? Where will you sing together?

You won't. You can't because you're not gathered.

So the church is so central to salvation. In the book of Acts and in all the

confessions of faith that I've ever read, Protestant confessions of faith,

they speak of the church as a necessary part of your basic Christian duty.

And Pentecost brings unity to this, and then we'll move on to this next section.

I'm not just, by the way, I'm not just hammering away at church membership because

I'm a new guy and I want lots of people to join.

This is basic Christianity. This is Acts chapter 2, the birth of the newborn church.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And immediately you see whatever form it took, some kind of membership,

something, some kind of accountability.

And Pentecost then describes, or after Pentecost, Luke is describing the four

basic kind of practices that a good church has, apostolic Christianity, basic Christianity.

He says these things, and I never have, if you'll notice so far,

I don't preach with three points and then a conclusion and application.

I usually just preach the text as best I can. I sometimes have points,

but this time I have four basic points because it's in the text.

It says, they devoted themselves, verse 42, to the apostles' teaching,

fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayers.

These four basic practices of the apostolic church, which gave them strength and unity and hope.

By which, I might add, the whole world has heard of Jesus Christ.

It's astonishing how simple it is, how powerful it is.

The church for 2,500, maybe 2,700 years never had what we today would refer to as youth programs.

Not against youth programs, by the way, but they never had praise bands,

unless you count like monks with Gregorian chants in the medieval cathedral.

It wasn't quite a praise band.

All the things that people think are essential for growing the church today

are not anywhere in the Bible or especially in the book of Acts.

Notice number one, apostolic teaching. What was the church's primary focus? Doctrine.

Teaching the words of the apostles. And notice it also says they devoted themselves to this.

They weren't just interested in doctrine. You know, a lot of you are here at

a reformed church because we just are interested in doctrine.

That's fine, but this is more than just an interest. This, it says,

the word indicates a strong devotion, a dedication with persistence and with

the assumption that this persistence will require some measure of difficulty.

That's an understatement. As soon as we move into the next few chapters,

people are getting killed for this doctrine. They're getting killed.

So they're devoted to doctrine more than just, hey, I'm interested in being

a Calvinist. You know, they're like, this doctrine is our life.

It's our hope. And I'm going to devote myself to the doctrine of Jesus Christ

and the doctrine of the scripture above all else.

That is very countercultural because today, and I hear it myself,

doctrine divides, people say.

If you're going to teach doctrine, pastor, get people in with the praise bands,

get people in and then maybe pull them

aside and sneak in the Westminster Confession of Faith on the side. No.

I love the apostles because they led the tip of the spear for the gospel.

The apostolic preaching of the gospel is doctrine, the teachings of the apostles.

And I also want to emphasize that it looks like fellowship originates in that doctrine.

What we share together, what we believe and live together, issues forth in fellowship,

definite expressions of fellowship that come from the preaching and teaching of the word of God.

That word after the teachings Devoted themselves to the doctrine of the apostles And then it says,

and the fellowship It looks to me like in the

original language That these first two are connected together And the last two

issue forth completely from the first two But the first two also seem to be

connected I don't know that we can say that you can't have fellowship without

any doctrine But we can certainly say that true doctrine always issues forth in true fellowship.

We share biblical fellowship.

It's that word fellowship is that famous word koinonia.

It became popular for a while. Even groups were called koinonia this and koinonia that.

The fellowship of the early church most definitely originates in the apostolic teaching.

And then this doctrine produces fellowship, which causes the church to be strong.

Do we want a strong church? Then we need to devote ourselves to doctrine.

And I would encourage, especially the men here, especially fathers and husbands,

You need to devote yourself to doctrine And it's not enough As even some of

my own family members say Well, I just don't I'm not a book guy I don't like to read Well,

okay You have no excuse today,

I mean, there are gajillions of podcasts Everywhere you can listen to You don't

need to read Calvin's Institutes You should By the way, it's easier than you think,

But you can listen to a podcast And say, well, I'm not a book guy I'm not a

theologian Everyone needs to be a theologian to some extent,

particularly fathers and husbands.

You need to know the doctrine of the church.

And this doctrine issues forth in strong fellowship.

Church today wants to believe, and it was a bit inopportune because we're having

a fellowship meal at the end of this service.

And I love the fellowship meal, by the way. I can't wait to eat it. I love the food.

But we sometimes think that this fellowship meal is the essence of Christian fellowship.

For me, I grew up Baptist, so we always used to have coffee and donuts after

the service, and they would call it a fellowship snack.

It was the fellowship word. It's all good, and sharing in a meal is particularly

profound and helpful, but it's not the essence or heart of our fellowship or

anything else that we have by way of a program.

The heart and essence of our fellowship is our love and unity in the doctrine

and teachings of Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 9, 13 says, and through the proof of his ministry,

they glorify God for the obedience of the confession of the gospel and for your

liberal sharing with them. Same word, koinonia.

When we share in the doctrines, When we share in the life And by the way When

we share in the doctrine We will share in the suffering,

If you think there's a Christian life Without suffering Wait till we continue

to move To the book of Acts It sounds glorious today Because at Pentecost The

Holy Spirit comes Signs wander Speaking in tongues Yay Three thousand people Hallelujah,

But soon As soon as the church is established They come under intense heat and pressure.

The cup of blessing which we bless, Paul says, is it not the communion of the

blood of Christ, koinonia in Christ?

The bread which we break, is it not the koinonia or communion of the body of Christ?

For we, though many, are one bread and one body,

for we all partake of that one bread, which is going to lead us next after fellowship

or with fellowship will issue forth in true biblical fellowship is not just

coffee and donuts or even a meal,

but true Christian fellowship is sharing in the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Defining and shaping who we are as believers, no longer individuals,

no longer individuals, but members of the body of Christ.

Fellowship issues forth as we are committed to one another, but one and the

same spirit works all these things distributed in each one individually.

In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul talks about a body, the illustration of a body,

how you might be a hand or an eye or a foot or an ear, but we're all one body

and each one of the parts are suffering and working together as one body.

Verse 26, he says, and if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.

Or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.

Now you are the body of Christ and members individually a body,

not individuals as just an individual, but as members of the body of Christ.

This has struck me, and I try, as a former missionary, I try not to tell stories

about Africa every single Sunday.

You'll have to judge me on how well I've done, but it struck me as fascinating

that when we moved to Africa, Africans, at least in East Africa,

have a very different sense of who they are than we do as Americans.

African and Americans think of themselves as individuals. Most Americans don't

know their genealogies past their grandma or grandpa.

They don't have a sense of heritage

or a sense of ancestry or a sense of connection to a larger community.

All the Africans we interacted with and related to, and I admit,

I'm still a strong individual rights American, bit of a libertarian, confessing my sins.

But it struck me as how these Africans, they never thought of themselves alone.

What they did, they did in reference to their individual family, which we're okay with.

Most Americans are like, yeah, my wife, my child. But then they always thought

in regard to their mother and father, their aunts and uncles,

their cousins, their clan, and then their tribe and their people.

And they thought as a community. They very distinctly think as a community.

They don't think as an individual.

The things they do are not simply measured by how it affects them,

but how it affects their community.

I'm not saying it's perfect, and I'm not saying we should move to the African

way, but it struck me as Christian in that sense.

Not that they have allegiance to clan and tribe, but as Christians,

when we join the church, we're members of a new tribe, and we must think of

ourselves in connection with other members of our tribe, which is precisely why Hebrews 10 says,

let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering,

for he who promised is faithful, and let us consider one another in order to

stir up love and good works,

not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together as some are in the manner of

doing, but exhorting one another and so much more as you see the day approaching.

The author of Hebrews is saying, you can't think of yourself selfishly as an individual.

You must think of the needs of other people always, even in going to church.

I don't feel like going to church today. I'm tired. I don't need it.

I don't need it, which means you do.

I don't need it. But the author is saying other people need you.

They need your voice. They need your songs. They need your presence.

They need your stories. They need your encouragement. They need your prayers.

They need your fellowship.

We're not to think as sole individuals.

We're to think as members of a community, members of the church.

It's very different for us, but it's a covenantal way of thinking.

Just like the Jews thought of when they were adding those names to the role.

They couldn't think of themselves as, I got saved. What are you going to do?

I'm going to go back to Mesopotamia and start a home church. What?

It's impossible to think that way. No, they were members of a community under

the leadership of the apostles, dedicating themselves to the apostles' doctrine

and teaching, fellowshipping with one another.

We need each other. We must understand how much we need each other and how much other people need us.

And that leads us to the Lord's Supper, which is the next thing that's mentioned.

They dedicated themselves to all these things. And what it looks like to me is it issues forth.

Doctrine and fellowship issues

forth into breaking bread, the body and blood of Christ, and praying.

This is very simple, by the way. Part of me, as I was preaching this sermon,

thought it's not like the baptism sermon where there were some real zingers

and there were some real interesting stuff to say, but this is just basic Christianity,

and yet it's so foreign to us.

Breaking bread. We can't miss the centrality and fellowship of communion around the Lord's Supper.

When we all eat the bread and drink the wine, we share in Christ together.

We are one people, one forgiven community, which changes the complexion of who

we are and how we love each other.

You can't come to this Lord's Supper and not forgive other people because you

have been forgiven and now you're part of a forgiven community.

It's radical in that sense. And yet we miss it. Some churches don't even have the Lord's Supper.

That's one of the reasons, by the way, we have the Lord's Supper every single week.

It's no different than preaching the word or praying or anything else we do.

Why? Because it's a fundamental means of grace.

And that's what I want to keep emphasizing. The church of Jesus Christ was born

by the power of the spirit and grows by the means of grace. And that's it.

Not a program, not a this or that, but the means of grace. What are the means

of grace? They are the way in which Christ gives us his grace.

You had a tree on one side of your yard and it needed watering,

but the spigot stuck to your house, what would you do? You'd connect a hose.

You'd walk out with the hose and you'd water it. The hose is the means by which

the water gets from the spigot to the tree.

The means of grace are the means by which God brings us his grace.

Without them, that's why our confession says there's no ordinary way to be saved.

Talk to someone who just, I'm hearing more and more stories about people who

say, I don't go to church, but I'm a Christian.

I almost want to say, maybe you're not.

You see, they're thinking that because they had some salvation event where they

prayed a prayer, and now they're not going to hell, but they're going to heaven,

that now they're a Christian.

But wait a minute. Christians don't think like that.

Christians are part of a community, a covenant community. We share together.

We should want to share together.

In fact, when we eat this bread and drink this wine, we're reminded there's

no other way of salvation except through Jesus Christ.

And we thank him for that. It's a glorious Thanksgiving feast.

And it should make sense to us that people who don't go to church and don't

commit themselves to churches are not going to be received and fed the means of grace as they should.

I don't wanna be too harsh. I'm

not saying that they're not Christians because they don't go to church.

But can we at least say they're weaklings in the sense of like nutritionally weak? How can you be fed?

What would you say to someone who said, I wanna really get in shape.

I wanna really be healthy. Well, why don't you eat right and exercise?

Basic to that, isn't it? What about the church? The church is the same.

This is the means of grace, preaching of the word of God, the apostolic doctrine

that's taught, breaking bread and fellowship together in Christ,

drawing us together in Christ.

And this supper is more than just a memorial service. This is a true,

genuine means of grace, where when you receive it by faith, the Holy Spirit

works in you and binds you together in Christ with one another.

Why it really shouldn't be done quarterly. I talked to a session recently that

they sounded really radical, like we're going to monthly communion,

as if that was a big step up from quarterly communion.

Quarterly communion was generally practiced in early American Christianity among

the Presbyterians, partly because they simply didn't have ministers to administer

the Lord's Supper, and so they would itinerate and change, and it tended to

be quarterly, both in Scotland and in America.

But it wasn't the normal practice of a healthy church.

The normal practice of a healthy church is every single Sunday coming and worshiping God,

listening to him speak to us through the word, and coming together as one body

in the Lord's Supper with the body and blood of the Lord Jesus Christ by faith

and the grace that comes to us,

reminding us how great our God is, how much he loves us, that we're forgiven.

And now we're going to live as part of this forgiven community.

And then the last is prayers.

I forgot my phone today, so I don't know what time it is. I guess that means I don't care.

Lastly, people love that. By way of conclusion, prayers.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this one because we're doing a Bible

study or Sunday school class on prayer, and I'll be developing it throughout the series of Acts.

But Luke gives us another element of the life of this newly born church.

What does a newborn church look like in Acts?

Everyone always talks about, I wanna be an apostolic church.

I wanna be an apostolic church. Do you emphasize doctrine? No.

You have the Lord's Supper? No. Fellowship? Not really. We have a great praise band though.

We have, and the singing is so awesome. The music is super loud. Sorry.

What about prayer? What about prayer?

God, Jesus said he wants his church to be a house of prayer for the nations. Do we pray?

Attention and devotion to doctrine, fellowship, the Lord's Supper,

and the breaking of bread and prayers.

That doesn't mean that this is all a newborn church or a healthy church should

do, but these are some of the basics, the essentials.

We know for certain that they made an effort to be faithful to attend the temple

worship, and they were attending prayers, and the Jews would pray many times

a day facing the temple of Jerusalem.

It looks like the early church joined together at those times of prayer and prayed as Christians.

Remember when we were in Turkey a few times and the minarets would go off and

it was the time of prayer.

We thought, well, let's just remind ourselves all the Muslims are bowing down and pray.

Let's just pray for the conversion of everyone in Turkey from Islam to Christianity.

These people will dedicate them to prayer. And you'll notice and we'll see in

the book of Acts, every time a major event occurs, the church is in prayer for it.

Not least of which of the story that we're going to see where Peter is in prison

and they're all praying that Peter would be released from prison.

He's relieved from prison, knocks on the door and they say, can't be.

We're praying for you to get out of prison.

The church is founded on prayer.

One theologian says that prayer is the slender nerve that moves the muscle of

God's omnipotence. A mighty hand of God is moved in prayer.

Do you pray? Do we pray? Is our church characterized as a house of prayer?

Again, that's the reason for the Sunday school and prayer. If this church is

going to grow, not just in numbers, but in faithfulness, we must be prayer warriors.

Is not simply that individual believers, but corporate prayer as well.

The church is always praying, you'll see, together. They're one mind in prayer.

They are, in essence, as they tend to the doctrine of the apostles,

fellowship, breaking the bread in prayer. They're a worshiping community.

They are a worshiping community. This is the means by which the whole Christian

church basically stormed its way through the Roman Empire and now is storming

its way across the world through doctrine, fellowship,

breaking of bread, and prayer.

This community, this simple worshiping community has become the largest religion in the world.

And it will continue, by the way. One of the encouraging things,

and on this I will conclude, is the good news is that for us in this crooked

generation, and when I saw that word skolios, twisted and bent and perverse,

I thought of our culture.

I've never seen such a twisted and bent and perverse culture.

Gay marriage is the law of our land that is twisted and perverse and evil. And we have to say so.

And we have to say, well, how are we going to change it? We're going to change

it by tending to apostolic doctrine and fellowship and breaking bread and prayer.

That's how we're going to overcome it. You say, well, what about all the political stuff?

That will come. But first and foremost, most fundamental for us,

what do we do? How do we be Charlie Kirk?

We attend to doctrine and fellowship and the Lord's Supper and prayer.

And the good news is that promises have been given to us in this regard.

No institution has been given this. No family, no government,

no political party has been given this promise.

Matthew chapter 16, Jesus said, blessed are you, Simon Barjona,

Matthew 16 · chapter mention

for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church. Ready?

And we all know the gates of hell shall not prevail against us. Let's pray.

Father in heaven, we bless you and thank you so much for your word.

Sometimes, Lord, when we want to know how to do this or how to do that,

You often point us back to quite simple things,

Humility and dedication to doctrine and fellowship And

the Lord's Supper and prayer The simple things of

life that are sometimes so hard to do And we

thank you for the promise that the church Our church will not only survive through

this But like the book of Acts The church will prosper through it In spite of

all hardships In spite of all persecutions And anything that will come In spite

of the most perverse And crooked and bent and twisted generation the church

will not only survive, but prosper.

Bless our local church. Help us to reorganize ourselves around doctrine,

fellowship, the Lord's Supper and prayer, and strengthen us and make us a mighty

church from these simple things.

We pray in Jesus' name, amen.