Acts: Gospel Community | Guest Speaker: Brad O'Kelley

Uh thank you all for being here.

Apologize to all of you that came and uh thought that you were gonna hear rust today.

Uh you're out of luck.

You're stuck with me.

I'm not gonna lie to you today.

My name is Brad O'Kelly.

I used to be one of the elders here.

My time as an elder came to an end.

Back to being a nobody, and I love it.

It's it's been great.

File your complaints with somebody else, alright?

Because I can't I can't help you at all.

All right.

So uh, but I'm not gonna lie to you today, okay?

As much as I apologize for you being here and having to hear me, uh, this is gonna be a smoke in the bandit type of message right here.

We got a long way to go.

We got a short time to get there.

Y'all buckle up, you just watch old bandit run, okay?

That's how we're gonna do this thing, all right?

So everybody just be prepared because your Matt already read the scripture to you this morning.

We're talking about community.

Community in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Now, here's the great part.

Acts chapter 2 is not actually about community per se.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

There's a few things we can pull out about that because we all have a different idea of community, right?

If we went around the room, everybody gave their definition, we get a hundred different definitions in here of what community is.

I mean, it would all fall under some umbrella of a shared experience that brings people together, right?

I know this feeling well.

When Mandy and I moved into our neighborhood, we were kind of the new people in the neighborhood, the COVID pandemic hits and everything shuts down.

We really got to know our neighbors, right?

And so one day I'm out in the yard, my neighbor Gary, Gary's a good guy, comes over and knocks on the door, and he goes, Hey, I've been meaning to ask you a question.

How do you like your Toyota Prius?

Let me pause this story right here.

You don't know me.

Maybe you do know me, and some of you know.

I do not now, nor will I ever own a Toyota Prius.

You understand?

Let me just tell y'all something.

If you want to get on my bad side, there's a real good way to do it.

I'm pretty even killed guy, but let me tell you something.

Accuse me of owning something outside the Ford family of vehicles, and make that vehicle hybrid or electric.

I make my living off electrical infrastructure in this country, and let me tell you something.

I will never plug my vehicle into my home.

I know that's unpopular right now, but this dude right here is gonna roll coal.

Let me tell you that right now.

I love the smell of diesel in the morning.

Not plugging my car.

It's nothing against you.

You plug your car in.

I will come put the charger in your house and charge you for it.

I'm not doing it, man.

I need diesel power in my life.

So when Gary looks at me and says, How do you like your Prius?

I'm like, Gary, we're about to get in a fight.

And Gary, and I said, Gary, I don't I don't own a Prius.

He goes, and his face changed, and my face changed, and I'm like, What's going on here?

And he goes, There's a Prius that pulls up and parks in front of your house every night at 10 or 11 o'clock at night, and then when we wake up in the morning, it's gone.

Well, let me tell you something.

This ain't a conversation between Brad and Gary anymore.

Now it's Crockett and Tubbs, and it's Miami Vikes up in this place.

You know what I'm saying?

Because we're on it, boy.

We're talking about Gary's in the window with the binoculars.

We're forming a posse.

I'm firing off emails to the neighborhood group, going, whoever owns the Priest, you better come shake my hand, or you better find a place to, a different place to park.

Can I tell you something?

We never figured out who owned the Priest.

Never.

It never came back after I fired off my email.

Don't look at me like that's a terrible story.

You can't hear them coming.

You don't know that they're there.

Obviously, this was driven by a ninja.

I didn't even know he was there.

I didn't even know he was parking in front of my house.

You can't hear them coming.

It's not my fault, but can I tell you something?

Every time I see our neighbors outside, do you know one of the very first questions they ask me when I walk out the door?

Hey, did you ever figure out anything on that Prius?

Shared experience, right?

It brought us together.

It gave us something to go after, right?

And all of a sudden we woke up and we realized there's some community here, and all it took was one random Prius to bring us together.

Can I tell you something though?

As we look through Acts chapter 2, that type of community that I'm talking about, you can get that anywhere.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

You know that, right?

You can get that anywhere.

You can walk out this door, you can have that with a group of people at McDonald's.

That's not the community we're talking about in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

But what we're gonna see is we're gonna see some great pillars, not necessarily that every community has to be built on, but we're gonna notice one amazing thing that brings all of this together in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

So look at verse 42.

Matt read it to you this morning.

It says they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.

Now, I love the very first part of this where it says they were continually devoting themselves.

What were they devoted to?

You've got to remember Russ was up here last week, talked about Peter preaching a message at Pentecost.

3,000 souls are saved, and all of a sudden these 3,000 souls are put together and they have this common bond of a heart being changed by the gospel.

And when the heart gets changed by the gospel, all of a sudden these pillars start to get built among this community.

What are the pillars?

Look at what it says.

It says the apostles' teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer.

Now, some people put fellowship and breaking of bread together.

We like to make those two things because obviously, because we're church people, we like to equate everything with eating, right?

So, like, it all amounts to how you eat together.

That's the way it goes.

But what I believe this is saying here is not only fellowship togetherness, the breaking of bread in between there is the process of serving communion among the people.

What you're seeing is you're seeing them come together and literally build the pillars that the church is built on.

The apostles' teaching, the word, fellowship, togetherness, corporateness.

To the breaking of bread, communion, and to prayer.

Corporate prayer together as a church.

Do you know how powerful that is?

This is not anything new.

As a matter of fact, they're continuing on what Jesus was teaching in John chapter 8, verse 31 and 32.

John 8:31

Listen to what Jesus said.

He said, So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed in him, if you continue, there's that word again, if you continue in my word, then you're truly disciples of mine.

And you'll know the truth.

And the truth will make you free.

We are literally seeing the beginning of a freedom, of a heart changed by Jesus Christ starting to come together in this very first church in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And it's a beautiful picture.

Look at verse 43.

It says, Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe, and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles.

I love that the Bible uses the word awe right here because literally what it is, it's a Greek word called Phibos.

I know you're impressed by that.

It always impresses you when an idiot like me uses Greek, doesn't it?

It only took me four semesters to get out of it.

Those of you that took Greek, it usually only takes two.

Um so, anyways.

Phibos.

And the beauty of this word is that it's translated here by Luke as awe.

But do you know, out of all the biblical times, if we put the entire picture together that this word is used throughout the Bible, guess what it's most usually translated as?

Fear.

Fear.

So what does that mean?

Does that mean that these people are walking around in fear of the signs and wonders that the apostles are doing?

No, no, no, no, no.

That's not the fear we're talking about.

We're not talking about a fear that causes us to shrink back and hide.

We're talking about a healthy fear of the Lord where we become in awe of the things that are happening.

I have a great example of this.

I can, you can have it anytime, not anymore, but used to, when Mandy and I were first married, we didn't have kids.

If you wanted this sense of awe, all you had to do was get in the car and let Mandy drive.

You would white knuckle your way to your destination, and when you got out, you would absolutely praise the Lord for making it in one piece.

Now, since we had kids, that's kind of gone away.

She's gotten a whole lot better, okay?

Don't worry if your kids travel with Mandy, everything's great.

But when we were first married, buddy, I'm talking about you would white knuckle your way to wherever you were going, and it would cause a sense of awe when you got there.

You loved it, right?

What's happening in this first church is that there's this healthy fear of the Lord.

And Luke actually talks about this in Luke chapter 7 when Jesus heals the centurion servant.

Luke 7 · chapter mention

He says in Luke chapter 7, verse 16, look at what it says.

Luke 7:16

It says, fear gripped them all.

Fear gripped them over this healing.

Jesus literally raises the centurion servant from the dead, and it says, Fear grip them.

But look at what happens.

Look at the result of the fear.

It says, and they began glorifying God, saying, A great prophet has arisen among us, and God has visited his people.

The fear of the action didn't cause them to shrink back and hide and be in fear of those things.

It caused a healthy fear to look and go, God is up to something.

We don't understand it, we don't know it, we've never felt it before, but it's happening.

That's what's happening in this first church in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

It's a beautiful picture.

But look, here's the second thing I want you to see today.

The second thing I want you to see is a heart transformed by the gospel.

Look at verse 44 and 45.

It says, and all those who believed were together and had all things in common.

Now, this is where we get into the rub, right?

They were all together and they had all things in common.

We read that, and can I tell you, we're split down the middle in some ways.

There's people outside the church community that like to look in and use this verse as a reason not to be a part of a church community, right?

They'll look in and go, if y'all were really a church, you would all believe the exact same thing and all be together in all situations.

You'd have all things in common.

That's what you'd do.

If you really believed what you say you believed, this is what would happen.

People like to use that as an excuse.

And then there's some of us in here we read that and we go, well, uh, we must have messed that up because uh I know we don't have everything in common.

You know, I'm pretty sure none of us, if we all went around and started getting into the weeds of things, we'd probably have some differences, right?

A few differences would arise out of that.

So what is the Bible saying?

What is Luke saying when he says they were together and they had all things in common?

Well, here's what I think.

I think that they're hearing the apostles' words straight from the people that had been with Jesus, straight from the folks that had seen with their own eyes.

There's no interpretation necessary.

We haven't built any type of church history on top of this yet.

We haven't got far removed from the very first people that witnessed the acts of Jesus and were with him throughout his entire earthly ministry.

So when they're hearing the word of the apostles, it's literally coming straight from the people that were with Jesus.

There's no need for interpretation, right?

They were there, they saw it with their own eyes.

So, what does that mean that they don't have all things in common?

I hate to break it to you, but it means that you and I screwed it up.

Because the further we got removed from that, the more we stacked on top of the pillars that they were building in the beginning of the Word of God and all of those things.

We're the ones that got involved, and guess what happens when we get involved?

It gets messed up, it gets messed up, but the beauty of it is this is that the reason they had all things in common is because what are we talking about?

We're talking about a heart transformed by the gospel, and at this point in the church, guess what they had to go on?

Nothing other than the fact that Jesus Christ and his Holy Spirit had changed them forever.

That's all they had to go on.

The fact that Jesus Christ had bled and died for them, and that the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost had come and changed their hearts forever.

That's what they're living on, that's what they have in common.

And now they're building these pillars.

Look at verse 45.

It says, and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all as anyone might have need.

I need you to realize that this is another area where we look in on this verse and we go, see?

People say, See, that's why I don't want to be a part of the church.

If you were the church, that's what you'd be doing.

You know, we're supposed to be poor and destitute and sell everything off, and it's gonna be this uh this you know example of some sort of like socialist experiment or something.

You know, we're supposed to put it all in a pool and distribute it evenly.

No, no, no, no, no.

We're missing a point here.

I want you to look at the end of verse 45.

Look at what it says.

Sharing with all of them as anyone might have need.

Now, here's the great part about that is that you can look in on the church and you can blame the church for not being this, for selling possessions and wandering off and doing all those things.

You can blame the church for that.

But can I tell you something?

And I'm just being 100% honest with you today.

If we were to stop this sermon right now, open this microphone right here up to anyone in this building where the church or someone in this church has met a specific need for you.

Can I tell you something?

And Christ the Redeemer, Marietta, we'd be here all day long.

We'd be here all day long.

Day after day, I see people in this church literally meeting the needs of their brothers and sisters in this community.

Why?

Not because they're demanded to, not because they're being forced to, but because a heart has been changed by the power of the gospel through the Holy Spirit.

And we begin to meet needs not out of obligation, but because in this passage right here, as they begin selling property and possessions, it's not them doing this under being compelled by someone to go and do this.

What it is, is we're seeing a change of heart from this is mine, closed-fisted mentality to yes, I'm the steward of this, but as anyone has need, I'm willing to let it go.

And it happens every single day in this place.

It's a beautiful picture of a change of heart brought about by the Holy Spirit.

Last thing I want you to see, we'll be done today.

We're going, well, I told you we're going fast.

Had to go fast.

I want you to see a heart transformed by the gospel.

You thought I got second point wrong.

Do you realize I'm trying to make a point by having all the points be the same?

A heart transformed by the gospel?

Yeah.

You're used to three points and a poem around here, aren't you?

Shook it up today.

Gotcha.

You know?

You're still gonna leave and be like, I can't remember what he said.

Look at verse 46 and 47.

It says, day by day, continuing with one mind, in the temple, breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart.

I love this verse right here.

Because it's a beautiful painted picture of the first church and the things that they were devoted to.

The very things that we talked about in verse 42, those pillars that they're building as they go along in the first church, they're building these things up.

And then in verse 46, we see that day by day, what's the next word?

Continuing.

There's the word again.

Continuing.

We continue on in what the Holy Spirit is doing in these people.

They're continuing on in the fact that they've been changed by the gospel.

They're continuing on in that.

How often are they continuing?

Look at verse 46.

Day by day.

Every single day they are devoted with one mind in the temple, breaking bread from house to house.

They're taking meals with what?

Gladness and sincerity of heart.

Can I tell y'all something?

It's the last part right there that stings a little bit, right?

They're doing all this.

They're doing all of these things.

We're literally building the first church right here before our eyes because of a change in heart by the gospel.

And the Bible says they're doing it with what?

Gladness and sincerity of heart.

What are the two things that elude us the most most of the time as we continue on in our day-to-day lives?

As we continue on in years and years and years of a marriage, of being a part of a church, of being part of all these things.

What is it that we start to lose over the years and years and years if we're not careful?

Gladness.

Sincerity of heart.

Loving something so much, being a part of that community so much that it literally brings about a sense of gladness.

It causes our hearts to be sincere in the things that we do.

Not because we're under compulsion of somebody making us do it, but because the Holy Spirit has changed us.

Because He's changed us.

That's what brings about the gladness.

That's what brings about the sincerity of heart.

And again, we're so far removed from this that it's so easy for us to just let gladness go, to let sincerity of heart go and say, Well, if you don't agree with me, then too bad.

But here's the beauty of that.

Don't miss this.

Look at verse 47.

It says, praising God and having favor with all people.

Uh-oh.

Because having favor with all people, what does that mean?

That means that you just have to accept everything that they throw at you, right?

That's not at all what's happening here.

I love this.

You ready?

I love this.

Look at verse 47.

It says, praising God and having favor.

That word favor is translated in the Greek as codus.

Do you know what codus is?

157 times in the New Testament, out of 157 times, 131 times.

Do you know what it's translated as?

Grace.

Grace.

It's translated as grace.

It doesn't say that we're finding favor with people because we accept every single wind of change that comes along and we break away from the pillars that we've built.

What it says, it says, as it comes, we meet it with grace.

And we don't allow it to shake the foundation that we're built on.

But we look it in the eye and say, But we've been changed.

A heart by the Holy Spirit has been changed through the gospel.

And it's given us the ability not to find favor with people because we accept every single thing that comes down the line, but to find favor with people because of the grace.

The very same grace poured out on us.

You can find community anywhere.

You can go to any club, you can go to any place.

You can find community anywhere.

That's what we invite you.

We thank you for your word.

We thank you for the power of your word for having the grace and pouring it out on us.

We thank you that we're not simply a community built, built on shared experience, Father, but that we are a community built by change in heart through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Father, I pray that this word would be all of you, none of me, that you would change hearts and lives today.

And as we take communion, you would call people under yourself.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.