Being the Church ( pt 2) Liturgy & Love on Fire

would invite the rest of us to take our Bible and go to Acts, chapter two.

I shared some preliminary comments last Sunday about how grateful I am to the elders of Redeemer Church for inviting me, tasking me, commissioning me to serve you in this two month teaching series, that I've had the privilege to make a deposit among you, and that is the series of making much of Jesus joining God's unstoppable mission for the church.

And it's hard to believe that here we are at that last installment of that sermon series and I am again wanting you to know how grateful I am to have been given this stewardship to teach through this series with you.

It is the heart of the elders of this church, it is the heart of the Bayseed leadership team, it is the heart of the founding pastoral team of Redeemer Church of San Jose, to be what Jesus has called us to be and to do what Jesus has called us to do.

And the good news we find in our deep biblical conviction concerning the sufficiency of scriptures is that we don't have to guess how to do it, we don't have to come up with it, we don't have to fake it till we make it.

God's word shows us who we are, what we're called to do and how we're called to do it until Jesus returns and makes all things new.

And so, as we're bringing this series in for a landing, we have been considering this is the second of two parts how the church in the book of Acts provides for us a unique vantage point of what it looks like to be the church and to do what the church has been called and commissioned by Jesus to do.

And so I would direct your attention this morning to our text today, acts, chapter two, and I'll be reading verses 42 through 47.

We wanna continue in this two part message on being the church.

Love and liturgy on fire.

Let us hear the word of God.

And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the 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.

And that is God's word.

May he add his blessing to his reading and preaching of the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit, amen.

What does it look like to be a church that joins God's unstoppable mission of making much of Jesus in the harvest field of the Bay Area?

We've been asking that question in a very contextualized way because, although the answer to this question applies to the church globally, we are considering this specifically where God has placed us, where God has sent us, where God is moving us to join God's mission.

And so last week I began to suggest that we look no further than the book of Acts.

In the book of Acts, jesus gives us his vision for being the church in between the time of his ascension and return, and he encapsulates that vision.

We looked at this last week in Acts, chapter one, verse eight.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

Jesus tells us here's who you are, here's what you're called to do and here's how you can do it, and what we see taking place in the book of Acts is what it looked like for the first century Christians to execute this vision for being the church.

In essence, they were called and commissioned by Jesus and this was our big idea for last week.

The church is called to be a spirit-empowered, gospel-saturated community of love on mission, and that's what we see.

We see a spirit-empowered, gospel-saturated community of love on mission.

And as we turn through the pages of the book of Acts, it's important to note that what we see is not meant to serve as a monument for us to venerate, but rather a model for us to imitate.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the Bayseed leadership team, which includes the three elders of Redeemer Church of Fremont we, got away on a planning and prayer retreat.

So we hopped on a train and we went down to San Luis Obispo and spent a couple of days planning and praying, trying to get our minds and hearts connected to one another and to the Lord about his plans for our church planting vision here in the Bay Area.

And the first day we got there we actually got there on September 11th, 9-11.

And it just so happens we were walking to the place we were gonna eat.

That night we walked by a fire station and right next to that fire station was a monument, a monument to commemorate the events of 9-11.

And people were coming and they were looking at the monument.

You can tell people were sobered by their moment there at the monument.

Why?

Because monuments typically remind us of difficult things in the past that we don't wanna forget, because there's lessons to learn from those difficulties.

That's a monument and that's not what we have in the book of Acts.

We don't have a monument of a church that was persecuted and went through difficult times and we're supposed to look back and go, wow, they persevered and they pushed through.

And let us remember that.

No, no, no.

The book of Acts does not provide for us a monument that we step back and venerate.

The book of Acts provides for us a model that we might look at in wonder and joy and hope and say that's what we want to be, that's how we are to act, like the church in Acts, because they are seeking to live out Christ's vision for the church.

So in the book of Acts we are presented with a model of what it looks like to be the church as Christ envisioned, until he returns and makes all things new, and I suggested last Lord's Day that in my summary of what we see is what I believe we see is love and liturgy on fire.

We see love.

We see a church that is deeply aware that they are loved by Jesus, and this love that Jesus has for them overwhelms them.

They saw Him with their own eyes, they heard Him with their own ears.

They saw Him live, they saw Him serve, they saw Him die on the cross.

They saw Him rise from the dead.

They stay.

They heard His final words, before he was caught up into the heavens and said don't worry, I'm going, but I will return, but in the meantime I will send the Spirit to be your helper.

They saw all of that and what did it do?

It compelled their hearts, it grabbed their hearts and this love that Jesus had for them moved them to love God back, love one another and love the world in His name.

We see love, but we also see liturgy, that kind of love that's directed back to God, that kind of love that's extended to the church, that kind of love that goes beyond the walls of the church, out into the city, into the community.

It doesn't happen by accident.

It must be intentional.

That's what we see in the book of Acts is how they ordered and structured their lives, with a liturgy, if you will, of how to go about living these devoted lives of love to God, to one another and to the world.

So we see liturgy, we see order, but we also see fire.

What makes all of this possible is not just raw human commitment to get it done.

What we see is the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus will go away in the clouds, as I said a moment ago.

Even though he's leaving, he won't leave them alone.

He promised them in John that he would send another helper and on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit of God comes, fills them, empowers them and then sends them out to be the church until he returns.

So, putting all of this together, the book of Acts shows us that being the church looks like love and liturgy on fire and, my friends, it is our model.

We don't look to big churches in the bay or we don't look to big churches in the Midwest, and we don't look even back to churches that that got really big and multiplied and were successful and say, okay, I want to be like that church, that.

That's not our model.

We have things to learn from other churches, but here is our inscripturated model.

Let's look at them and be like them.

It's our model for being what Jesus wants us to be, and what he wants us to be is a spirit empowered, gospel saturated community of love on mission.

So today, what I want to do is help us consider how the church in Jerusalem models not only the heart of the church, not only the love of the church, but the liturgy of the church.

What does it look like to intentionally and liturgically don't be afraid of that word to intentionally and liturgically organize their lives together in a way that's conducive to being a spirit empowered, gospel saturated community of love on mission?

And so we see in the church of Jerusalem a beautiful picture of how to orient our lives, how to organize even our schedules, to be committed to certain kinds of activities and priorities that enable us very practically to be the church.

So that's the big idea for us today being a spirit empowered, gospel saturated community of love on mission necessitates liturgical intentionality.

So what I want to give you today may be the most amount of points I've ever had in a sermon in my entire life Nine liturgical necessities for being the church.

You say nine, and I do have a plain the catch late this afternoon because I'm going to a conference about church planting Nine liturgical necessities for being the church.

Now, listen, like I said last week, each one of these, each one of these categories could demand and should deserve their own in-depth attention.

But here's what I'm trying to do for you in the series is create categories and then we will have them filled out as we go, because church I'm telling you this, your leaders, they mean this, this is what they want to be, this is what they want to be.

So here are the nine, ahead of time, and I'm not even really going to say a lot about all of them.

I really want to press into just a handful.

But here are the nine liturgical necessities for being the church as is presented in the model of the Jerusalem church.

First, radical devotion they devoted themselves.

Second, deep learning they went deep into the apostles teaching.

Shared life.

They were committed to the fellowship.

Gospel remembrance this is the breaking of the bread, the Lord's supper.

Vertical communion that's the prayers.

God awareness all came upon every soul.

Generous hospitality they broke bread in their homes.

Parish engagement they had favor with all the people.

And divine expectations.

The Lord added to their number, day by day, those who are being saved.

So let's talk about some of these.

First, radical devotion everything this church did together was driven and motivated by a deliberate, daily devotion to Jesus, everything.

What was the engine that drove this church?

Not success, not multiplication, not growth, not being famous, not being seen or heard or heralded as successful.

The engine that drove this church to be what they were called to be was Jesus.

The word devoted they devoted themselves means to continue to do something with intense effort and dedication.

In other words, they were all in Before we even consider the various rhythms and activities.

They were devoted to teaching, prayer, fellowship, breaking of bread, etc.

It's important to highlight that their devotion was, first and foremost, not to a liturgy, not to activities, but to Christ Himself.

They were doing these things.

They were devoted to doing these things because they were devoted to Jesus.

The grammar of the word devoted indicates that this devotion to Jesus and His vision was a deliberate decision.

It's passive, in other words, they devoted themselves.

It was an act of worship.

No one was making them, no one was forcing them.

You didn't become devoted by any other means, by devoting yourself.

It's a heart posture, and maybe a heart posture that could be described maybe by the words of Isaiah in Isaiah, chapter 6, here am I Send me, or a song that we sing here I am all of me, all for you.

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

So here's the point.

The radical devotion that characterizes the life rhythms of the church in the book of Acts was a deliberate decision.

It was a choice.

No doubt it was empowered by the Spirit of God.

No doubt that it was by grace and grace alone.

No doubt it took the prior work of God in the heart of these men and women to want to want this and at the end of the day, the Spirit of God, the grace of God, enabled these men and women to say we're all in.

This kind of devoted life doesn't happen by accident.

The kind of what it takes to be the church is a deliberate decision to be all in with Christ and his mission.

So the grammar of the word devoted also indicates that this deliberate decision to be devoted to Jesus and his vision for the church is ongoing and repetitious in nature.

In other words, this means that the devotion to Jesus was no one time decision.

There was a daily choice.

Today I'm devoted to Jesus and his church.

Each day, these disciples will wake up and offer their lives up to Jesus in daily surrender.

Lord, today, I'm yours.

In fact, there's kind of a day to dayness about this church.

In fact, we see that language over and over again, day by day, day by day, day by day.

In other words, this was something that they went to bed, they woke up in the morning and they gave themselves to it again.

They went to bed, they woke up in the morning, they gave themselves to it again.

It was a day by dayness to this devotion.

And that's good news for you, that's good news for me, because I'll tell you why.

Every day I don't have it.

Some days I'm all in, some days I'm not, or am I the only one?

And the good news about this devotion that our devotion to Jesus in no way is based upon, or Jesus, rather devotion to us, is not based upon whether we are all in on one day or another.

The good news of the gospel is, whether it's a good day or a bad day, an all in day or I might be kind of a slide away kind of day, jesus is devoted to us and it is Jesus' daily, eternal, nonstop devotion to his church that enables our devotion to him.

Ultimately, our devotion to Christ is sustained by Christ's devotion to us, and it's from this unending stream of Christ's mercy to us, on good days and bad days, devoted days, not so devoted days.

It's that mercy that constantly comes to us, that moves us to renew our surrender and say by the mercies of God, I present myself a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to you today.

So, redeemer Church, being the church that Jesus calls us to be, begins with daily devotion to being who Jesus wants us to be and doing what Jesus wants us to do.

And the good news is, when we struggle, when we're faithless, he remains faithful because our devotion to him is driven by his devotion to us.

So that's the first mark, the first liturgical rhythm.

It begins with a daily ritual.

If you will, we don't all have to say it the same way, we don't have to use the same words in private, but in some form, in some way, if we're going to be the church that Jesus wants us to be, we must devote ourselves to Jesus and his cause, day by day.

Second, deep learning I'll go a little into this one too.

They devoted themselves, and now we see some particular activities that this devotion to Jesus resulted in, first, the apostles' teaching.

You may recall that when Jesus gave the Great Commission, he said Matthew 28, verse 20, teach them to observe everything I commanded.

Matthew 28:20

Make disciples of the nations, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit, and teach them to observe everything I commanded.

And so if the church is called to teach what Christ taught, then that also means that the church is called to learn what Christ taught, and that's what the apostles are doing.

They're teaching what Jesus taught and the church is devoted to learning it.

They're eating it up.

Their devotion to Jesus naturally led to devotion to learning more about Jesus.

You might be thinking well, if we had teachers like the apostles, then we would be devoted to that kind of learning too.

I mean, if we had Peter, james and John, we couldn't get enough, but we got Ian, bob, ricky and Royce.

You might be thinking we're getting ripped off here, okay, but are we?

You see, what the church was getting in verbal form is what we possess today in written form.

What started off as the oral teaching of the apostles was eventually captured and preserved by the Spirit of God's leading, and we call it the New Testament.

We get what they got because we teach what the apostles taught.

Glenn and I have been talking very regularly about one of our mutual heroes in the faith, charles Spurgeon, and one particular Sunday Charles Spurgeon's grandfather had Charles in to preach at his church and Charles was late.

I guess when you're Charles Spurgeon, I guess you can be late if you have to be.

And so the grandfather got up and he was about to preach the sermon.

But then Charles walked into the auditorium and said, oh, my grandson's here.

And so Charles walks up, charles Spurgeon walks up to the platform and before he takes over to preach, his grandfather says to the congregation he may preach the gospel better, but he does not preach a better gospel.

In other words, the grandfather was saying Charles is a uniquely gifted preacher, but guess what?

His source material?

That's as good as it gets and everyone needs to preach that.

It's the gospel.

He could preach the gospel better because he was a dynamic, winsome, powerful communicator.

But that doesn't make the gospel better.

The gospel is good, no matter what the apostolic teaching.

So you may not have Peter, james and John and Paul.

You may have those who've been set apart, who are gifted, called and qualified to teach the word of God and shepherd the church.

But let me tell you something Peter, james and John may have preached the gospel better, but they didn't preach a better gospel.

It's the same gospel we preach.

The Holy Spirit inspired these men and others like them to write down the events of the gospel.

That's what we have in Matthew, mark, luke and John.

The explanation, application of the gospel.

That's in the epistles.

That's Romans through Jude.

The consummation of the gospel.

That's what we have in the book of Revelation.

See, these early disciples heard and learned the gospel through the oral teaching of the apostles, and today we hear and learn the gospel through the Holy Spirit-empowered preaching and teaching of the whole Bible.

So not just a New Testament, mind you.

One of the most beautiful features of the New Testament is how it teaches us to read the Old Testament as it points to Christ.

All of the Bible points us to Jesus.

The point is this the church on fire is not only devoted to Jesus himself.

The church on fire is devoted to the teaching of Jesus.

They can't get enough of God's word, and so they were committed to deep learning how the Bible, from cover to cover, reveals the unfolding story of God's fulfillment of his redemptive plan through the life, death, resurrection and consummation of Jesus Christ.

So if we're going to be the church that Jesus has called us to be, then the teaching moment, the preaching moment, not just from your leaders, but the teaching moment that happens as believers in the church share the word of God with one another, must be a key liturgical feature of our life.

We read the word, we sing the word, we pray the word, we learn the word, we share the word.

Why?

Because the word is the word of Christ.

Later on, in Colossians, Paul would say let the word of Christ dwell in you richly and then teach one another.

And so the church on fire, the church as Jesus has called it and commissioned it to be, must be committed to deep learning.

Third, shared life.

I'll go into this one too.

I promise you.

There are ones I won't go deep into.

It would be impossible for me to preach this whole sermon if we did Shared life.

This is the commitment to the fellowship.

So they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship.

The fellowship the word fellowship is the Greek word koinonia.

It's probably one of the most popular Greek words that kind of get dropped around regularly in the church.

Whether you know Greek or not, it's where we get our English word community.

For those of you who are new to Christianity or to Bible study, the New Testament was originally written in Greek.

Interestingly enough, a certain kind of Greek called koin Greek, the word koin means common, and so the New Testament was written in the common written language that everyone shared, regardless of their ethnicity, regardless of their social status, regardless of what region they were from.

The koin Greek was the common language.

It was the language of the newspaper, if you will, so everyone could read it, everyone could understand it.

It was the common language.

Koin is the root word for koinonia, this word that we translate fellowship.

To have fellowship is to share something in common.

To have fellowship is to share something in common with someone, and that thing that you have in common draws you into relationship with one another and you begin to center your life and your experiences together based upon that thing that you hold in common.

That's fellowship.

It's the community of relationships that's created because you share something deeply in common together.

On Thursday night, this past Thursday night, over 70,000 people gathered together in Levi's stadium.

Why?

Because the majority of them shared something significant in common.

Devotion to the 49ers.

Now, let me just tell you, as an outsider, this is nothing compared to devotion to Philadelphia Eagles fans from my beloved hometown of Philadelphia.

But they are passionate.

They're all wearing the same clothes, basically same colors.

They all cheer at the same time.

Basically, something has brought them together, something has drawn them to speak a certain language and to act a certain way and to even look a certain way.

Why?

What is the thing they share in common?

Their devotion to the Niners.

Well, here in the book of Acts, you have 3,000 people gathered together in large groups and small groups.

Because they held something in common.

What was it?

The devotion to Jesus.

And because of the shared devotion to Jesus this is important it resulted in a shared devotion to one another.

Their common, shared devotion to Jesus resulted naturally and we would also argue from other passages, it resulted theologically from their shared devotion to Christ.

Their devotion to one another was the consequence of their devotion to Jesus.

And so here lies one of the main features of the Christian church.

Why many churches refer to themselves as a fellowship, it's because their devotion to Jesus led to a devotion to take responsibility for one another.

They were devoted to the fellowship because they were devoted to Jesus.

And this is an important note and we don't have time to really go into the deep end on this today.

But you know there are people out there and maybe you've said this and I'm not trying to make you feel uncomfortable, but be uncomfortable.

You shouldn't say what I'm about to say I love Jesus, but I don't like the church.

If you said that to someone in the first century, I wouldn't be surprised if they would have responded to you like Eniga Montoya did to Fazzini and the Princess Bride.

I don't think you mean what you think you mean, right.

You can't say that.

You can't say I love Jesus, I'm devoted to Jesus, but I'm not devoted to the church, because both theologically and practically, one leads to the other.

There's an inseparable connection between Jesus and his body, jesus and his bride, jesus and his family, jesus and his church, jesus and his flock.

Devotion to Jesus naturally leads to participation in and devotion to the church.

So devotion to Christian fellowship necessarily follows devotion to Christ.

So what does it look like for these Christians to be devoted not only to Jesus but to one another?

Well, two things are really glaring.

Let me just point them out to you.

It looked like first, gathering regularly and then, second, giving sacrificially.

They gathered regularly Look at verse 44.

All who believed were together and had all things in common.

In other words, they regularly spent time together.

They gathered Verse 46 tells us how often, day by day, in the temple together.

They got together regularly and shared life in larger formal gatherings at the temple.

And then we see in the second half of verse 46 that they did this in their homes.

So in large groups and in small groups.

They experienced the shared life together because the devotion to Jesus led to a devotion to one another, a commitment to share life, a commitment to share everything with one another.

And that leads to the second feature of this devotion to fellowship not just gathering regularly but giving sacrificially.

Look at verse 45.

And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

This fellowship cared a lot about caring for one another and their view of care was not narrow.

They didn't just share verses with each other, they shared everything with each other, so much so that they were willing to give their resources, sell their property, give their possessions, not because there was just some like.

This wasn't like a communist society where everyone just gives everything to a common pot and then it gets redistributed out to everybody.

No, it wasn't that.

This is not a political statement.

This is a compassionate statement.

If someone in the community needed something and I had it, I'd share it.

That's how they lived.

You need it, I got it.

You can have some of it Food, money, possessions, whatever it was.

And if people had extra, rather than hoarding the extra for themselves, I'd say here, take the extra, others can benefit from it.

This is how they lived.

Why?

Because they recognized that their devotion to Jesus leads to a devotion to take care of one another.

And if I had time, I'd go deeper into this and draw your attention to how this was nothing more than an extension of Jesus' second great commandment to love your neighbor as yourself.

We all naturally take care of ourselves.

There are exceptions, but we all naturally take care of ourselves.

And what Jesus says how do you know how to love people?

How do you know how to care for people?

We'll take care of them the way you care for yourself.

And so this is what they're doing.

This kind of devotion to fellowship starts by believing that everything you have, everything you possess, is not just for you, it's to be shared, and so there's this beautiful sharing community.

And let me just tell you this this when you look at the non-Christian historians writing about what they were witnessing in the Christian community, this is what they write about.

This is what they write about.

They take care of each other, they feed each other, they help each other when they're sick, they share spaces in their homes together.

Whatever was required, they would share it because they were committed to the shared life.

And this is what Jesus was talking about in John 1335.

By this will all people know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.

Francis Schaefer, who was a phenomenal apologist and Christian philosopher.

He wrote in a little book called the Mark of a Christian.

He said the great and final apologetic for the gospel is the love Christians have for one another, the way we take care of each other.

It says to a watching world we take care of each other like this because Jesus is taking care of us.

It says something about the gospel.

So, a church on fire, a church that's seeking to live out Jesus' vision, for the church is committed to this kind of shared life and fellowship.

And there's gospel remembrance, the breaking of bread, there's vertical communion.

That's the prayers that God awareness and all came upon every soul.

Let me just package these three together as the church came together and shared life together, both in large groups and small groups.

Every time they got together they wanted to make it crystal clear that the only reason why they were together, the only reason why they were committed to one another, is because Jesus gave himself for them.

And so, as they're breaking the bread and as they're drinking their cup, they're being reminded that the entire reality of their existence as a church is based upon the accomplishments of the life, death and resurrection direction of Jesus.

And they never want to forget that, they never want to get over that Jesus is who drives them, jesus who's created them and Jesus is the one who keeps them going.

So they keep remembering it.

In a few moments we're gonna do this.

We're gonna break the bread, we're gonna drink the cup.

Why?

Because we want to remind ourselves that this that's happening here is because of Jesus.

And then we commune with God.

I love the way when Ricky leads us through the liturgy.

He often says that we are entering into a conversation with God together.

So this whole vertical communion element of their liturgical life was they prayed directly to God.

They didn't just talk about Him, they talked to Him.

They adored Him and praised Him and celebrated Him.

They confessed their sins to Him.

They petitioned and interceded before Him.

There was this dynamic two-way relationship between the church and God.

He was there.

That's the God awareness.

As they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship and to the breaking of bread into the prayers, all came upon every soul.

I think that first and foremost in the text reflects back to what they were experiencing together through those liturgical rhythms, as they learn God's word together, as they prayed together, as they experienced the Lord's table together, as they fellowship together.

All came upon every soul.

In other words, they were aware that God was there in their midst.

Even though they could not see Jesus with their eyeballs any longer, he ascended, they could sense His presence in their very souls because the Holy Spirit was there.

Then there's this generous hospitality, breaking bread in their homes.

They received their food with glad and generous hearts.

Let me talk about this a little bit.

The members of this church did not primarily use their homes as places to retreat.

They didn't primarily see their private spaces as places to get away from the world, rather spaces to invite the world into it that they might meet Jesus.

So they were committed to generous hospitality.

They believed that there was a redemptive connection between the Lord's table and their dining room table, that the Lord's table in their collective worship space had a connection to their dining room table in their personal space.

And in both those spaces they encountered Christ's gracious presence.

And where did they learn this?

They learned this from Jesus himself.

You've heard it preached here.

Before you go through the gospel of Luke, you see Jesus either coming from or going to another person's house to share a meal.

We got this view of this little skinny emaciated Jesus.

Well, in the gospel of Luke he's always eating.

The gospel of Jesus, the kingdom of God, advanced in the gospels and advanced in the book of Acts from table to table to table.

And so we should see our living spaces.

It's not just personal spaces.

We should see our living spaces as outposts for the kingdom of God, and our kitchen tables or our dining room tables, or our little side table in our little studio apartments or the room that we're renting, those little spaces become places not just for us to take care of ourselves, but spaces for us to care for one another as the church and introduce people to Jesus.

And we're told that in their homes, as they sat around their tables, there was this what I call gospel intentionality.

They're intentionally drawing each other's attention to the activity of God.

They're eating their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God.

If they're sitting at this table praising God, then guess what they're talking about around that table the activity of God.

They're seeing God at work day by day, and so when they come down to eat their daily meals, what are they doing?

They're talking about it.

What have you seen God do?

What have you seen God do?

What are you seeing God do?

Praise God, praise God, praise God.

This is part of their rhythm.

So, day by day, they're watching God give them what they need.

Day by day, they're receiving God's grace through the word, prayer, fellowship and the Lord's supper.

Day by day, they're watching God work wonders.

Day by day, they're experiencing God's presence.

Day by day, they're seeing people begin to follow Jesus.

Day by day, they're having their ordinary needs met as they share with one another in the everyday stuff of life.

And for all these reasons and so many more, they are praising God and so they use their dining room tables to talk about the ordinary activity of God in their daily lives, just as we use the Lord's table to talk about the most significant act in all of human history, so here at the Lord's table we talk about the most important, most vital, the most defining act in all of human history the living, dying and rising of Jesus.

And at our dining room tables what do we find the church doing?

We talk about how that's working itself out in their daily, day by day lives.

And so they're showing hospitality, celebrating God in the ordinary stuff of life.

Eight parish engagement and I wanna use this as an opportunity to encourage you to direct your attention to the last two discipleship classes that Pastor Bob taught as he talked about the significance of parish ministry.

But we see in here an encapsulation of the results of parish ministry in this phrase favor with all the people.

We're told in verse 47 that the church had favor with all the people.

The word favor means to have an attitude of acceptance.

So all the people in this context is a designation for those who were in the city.

All the people of the city of Jerusalem that were aware of what was going on in the church of Jerusalem were glad they were there.

They had favor.

So to have favor with all the people means this that the people in the church of Jerusalem were engaged relationally with the people in the city of Jerusalem, in other words, the church of Jerusalem.

Although they had a lot going on, although they were committed to a devoted life to one another and to Jesus, it did not result in isolationism.

In fact, it was the opposite.

It resulted in invitationism Come and be a part of this.

And that's why, in these homes, many of these people in the city found their way to the kitchen tables of the members of the church in Jerusalem, which eventually added to them being added to the church.

So when the church is being the church in the parish, in their place, you won't just find the church saying that they love the people of the city.

You will find the city saying we love that this church is here.

That's what we want.

And it was in this context of parish engagement that the people in the city who were outside the church, day by day, were being added to the church.

That's the final point divine expectations.

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

This is more of a liturgical attitude than a liturgical activity.

It's an attitude of faith.

An attitude of faith that says that God is going to grow and bless his church.

An attitude of faith that says, if God is the one who's behind this, if this is God's vision, if this is God's plan, then we have promises attached to what Jesus has planned to do.

I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

So within the church, there were divine expectations that God was doing this stuff day by day.

Do you have divine expectations for this church when you think about redeemer church?

Do you think more about human limitations or divine expectations?

When the church is being the church, when we embrace Christ's vision for being a spirit-empowered, gospel-saturated community of love on mission, when we structure our lives together around the beautiful liturgy of radical devotion, deep learning, shared life, gospel remembrance, vertical communion, god awareness, generous hospitality and parish engagement, then we should have divine expectations.

We should expect the Lord to add to His church, day by day, those who are being saved.

We should expect the Lord to enable us to gather the harvest.

We should expect the Lord to bless it, no matter how big or how small or how seemingly human, insignificant a particular congregation may be to the human eye or to the human accounting by human metrics.

When we are doing the Lord's work in the Lord's way church, we should expect the Lord's blessing, not because we are magnificent missionaries, but because Jesus is a spectacular Savior.

We don't add to the church, the Lord adds to the church.

The ones he is saving.

I love that word saved.

We used to use it a lot in the church.

I'm saved.

Are you saved?

I love that language and I love to recapture it because it points us to the most amazing and regular activity of Jesus Christ, our Savior.

Jesus saves.

If you're a Christian here today, you can say the following.

You can say I am saved that you once were under the judgment of God because of your sin, deserving to be separated from Him for all eternity because of your many sins.

But God, in His mercy, sent Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to do for you what you could not do for yourself, and he died in your place, absorbing the wrath of God on your behalf.

That you might be saved from the wrath of God.

If you are a Christian this morning, then you are saved, amen.

But you're not just saved, past tense.

If you are a Christian, you are in the process of being saved from the power of sin.

Our temptations are regular, our inclinations to evil are daily, but God, in His mercy, has placed His Spirit in us and is helping us conquer the power of sin by faith in Jesus, who ever lives above to make intercession for us.

And even though the flesh urges us to sin, jesus in heaven, our victorious Lord, has sent His Spirit to enable us to overcome temptation that we might be who he's called us to be.

If you are a Christian, right now, you are being saved, amen.

Oh.

And one day, my friends, we will be saved from sin's presence, where our time in this broken, fallen world will be over and we will be reunited in the presence of God, awaiting the day when Jesus returns and makes all things new, and in His presence there will be absolutely no capacity to ever sin again.

You will be forever saved.

Save from sin's penalty, being saved from sin's power, and one day you will be saved from sin's presence.

All because Jesus saves.

That's what it means to be saved.

Maybe you need to be saved today If you've never put your faith and trust in the person and work of Christ alone will you become a Christian today.

But maybe you need to be saved in another way today.

Maybe, as a Christian, you need to be saved from low expectations of what God plans to do in and through His church.

Maybe you need to be saved today from low expectations of what Jesus plans to do in and through this church.

Redeemer, let's believe with renewed faith and wonder that when we are being what Jesus has envisioned us to be, then he will truly do, exceedingly abundantly above all, that we ask or think we are.

His church and His plan cannot be stopped.

Amen, let's pray God, thank you.

Thank you for showing us and telling us, thank you for the book of Acts, thank you for our model that we're not just about to step back and admire, but this model church has been given to us to aspire to, be what you made them to be and do what you enable them to do by your life-giving spirit.

And so help us as we deem a church here in the Tri-Cities and in St O'se and beyond, as we care for and influence and even plan other churches.

Help us to be a spirit-empowered, gospel-saturated community of love on mission, organizing our lives around these liturgical practices, trusting and expecting you to bless it until your Son returns and makes all things new.

In Jesus' name amen.