Walking Together // Pastor Bobby

We are continuing in what we've titled the Gatherings priorities.

And somebody asked me a couple of weeks ago about they were visiting,

they were here on vacation,

I guess.

And they asked me about the way we do the messages or the way I do the

messages and plan and prepare and that sort of thing.

And I was.

I just told them,

I said,

well, right now we're kind of doing some several weeks in the priorities

of the gathering.

Well, what's important.

What's important to us?

What's important to me as an individual,

to you as an individual?

What is it that God has sort of given for us to hold as important to hold

as priorities in our lives?

And so we've kind of focused on the two great commandments,

as Jesus said in the Gospels,

as well as what we see in Deuteronomy.

And it's love God with all your heart and soul and mind and love your

neighbor as yourself.

And those kind of form the first two priorities of the gathering.

And so we spent two weeks on loving God,

and we spent two weeks on living Jesus,

which is going out and loving others and loving each other.

Anybody know what the title of today's message is?

Walking Together.

Because that's the third priority is that we're walking together.

And so it's interesting that this particular message of walking together,

which can actually kind of be summed up in the word unity,

sort of falls on the Sunday when there's a great deal of disunity around

us, wouldn't you say?

So I'm going to say something that I always say on this Sunday.

I have been accused of not saying.

I've been accused of encouraging one way or the other,

and I never do that.

I do just say,

pray and vote.

Christians, I believe we are called to pray and vote.

I've never advocated one way or the other,

but I do believe God expects us to have a part in the community and the

society and culture we live in.

So praying Bor.

In Acts,

Acts 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2,

46 and 47.

And these will not be the only verses I read to you,

but they are all that I gave.

Rick, up in the balcony.

It's not a balcony.

Up in the sample,

it says this every day.

They devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple and broke bread

from house to house,

and they ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts,

praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.

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

All right,

so this is a historical account.

The book of Acts is.

A lot of folks will say it's called the Acts of the Apostles.

I tend to believe it's the act of God and how he developed the body of

Christ, the congregation of believers.

And so let's pray as we break into this thing.

All right,

God, we praise you,

we thank you.

We just want to give you glory this morning.

Thank you that you've loved us and cared for us and God,

that we can indeed sing and praise you.

Because we have salvation in Christ alone.

It's by the shed blood of your son,

Jesus, and Jesus,

that you died on the cross.

You gave yourself as a sacrifice for us.

And so God,

indeed God,

your wrath was satisfied in that.

And so,

God, we just stand this morning or sit this morning,

or gather this morning just to be able to praise you and worship you.

And yet,

God, we do indeed want to hold those things important which are important

to you.

We pray it in Jesus name.

Amen. Alrighty,

so I found this little instruction in the appendix of the Bible.

Anybody pick up on that?

Okay, there's no appendix to the Bible,

but here you go.

It says,

believers together.

When believers meet together,

it's called a church.

Once you can afford it,

you name a pastor.

When you get enough money,

you build a building.

And it needs to look like this.

It needs to be pointed.

It needs to have one great big room with all the chairs aligned in rows.

You got to meet once on Sunday morning and once on Sunday evening.

And just for fun,

on Wednesdays,

too. Y'all didn't have this in the appendix of your Bible?

I'm just curious.

You gotta start small groups,

and in some contexts,

you have to call it Sunday school.

Once you get to 150 people,

you need to call an associate pastor.

Once you get bigger than your building,

you gotta build a bigger building.

And this is the biblical plan,

right? Did God say that's what we're supposed to do?

No. So when we go back and look at the Book of Acts,

what we're seeing is not an instructional message.

It's the account of what God accomplished when God's people were doing

what God's people do.

And so the first couple of chapters of Acts are really,

really important to us to understand that as Christ was resurrected and

asce ascended into heaven,

the body of Christ began to act like the body of Christ.

They began to hold in priority the things that were important as the

apostles walked with Jesus.

And so I want to share with you a couple things.

That passage of verses 46 and 47 is sort of a summation at the end of

chapter two,

which Just kind of tells you,

and this is what was going on.

This is what was happening.

This is what we were doing.

And you need to just know that this is how God was working in our midst.

But if you flip back to,

hang on a minute,

gotta lick my fingers because this paper's thin.

If you think back Acts chapter one,

and we look at verse 12.

After the Ascension,

after Jesus left the apostles on the mountain,

he says,

then they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives,

which is near Jerusalem,

a Sabbath day's journey away,

which means they're only allowed to walk so many steps on a Sabbath day,

or else it's work.

When they arrived,

they went to the room upstairs where they were staying.

Peter, John,

James, Andrew,

Philip, Thomas,

Bartholomew, Matthew,

James the son of Alphaeus,

Simon the Zealot,

and Judas the son of James.

Now listen to this.

They all were continually united in prayer,

along with the women,

including Mary,

the mother of Jesus and his brothers.

And then listen to this,

verse 15.

In those days,

Pastor Peter,

no, just Peter,

stood up among the brothers and sisters.

The number of people who were together was about 120.

And said,

Brothers and sisters,

it was necessary that the scripture be fulfilled.

I'm going to stop right there.

That's mid sentence.

But here's what I want you to realize is that once Christ had ascended,

his followers had to take the next step.

They had to do something.

I mean,

there was a lot of.

Between the crucifixion and the resurrection,

there was a lot of just discouragement and,

oh, woe is us.

What are we going to do now?

We thought Jesus was the it and all that sort of thing.

And now they killed him and they buried him and what are we going to do?

And then he rose from the dead and he started showing up.

And Corinthians even tells us that he appeared over 500 people in the

resurrection.

And so there were firsthand accounts of Jesus resurrection.

And so God's people started saying,

we need to tell people what Jesus taught us.

We need to tell people what God has accomplished through his Son,

Jesus, the Christ.

Now, here's what's funny to me and why I started out with the appendix,

okay? It's interesting over the years that I've been in ministry and over

the years of my life,

and to just stop and consider what.

And I'm going to use the word church.

Get ready.

Y'all don't hear me use it often.

What churches make important,

right? The kind of things that they're willing to,

you know,

the hill to die on.

Sort of thing,

you know,

I mean,

I've heard the jokes about,

you know,

fighting over carpet.

I never did do that myself,

but I've heard the kind of things about,

you know,

having arguments over the way you decorate or the way you do anything,

the way you dress,

those kind of things.

And then years ago,

and I came through college and seminary in the 80s,

you know,

there was a study that I was a part of that was called the Worship Wars.

And it was all over music.

It was all about music.

And it was this whole big thing going into the Worship Wars.

And I was like,

excuse me.

You know,

really? I mean.

And then you had those people that wanted to advocate that,

you know,

because Jesus sang to a piano and organ,

we need to.

Okay, thank you.

I'm glad you caught up with me.

I appreciate that.

But you see,

my point is that there are some things,

historically speaking,

if we look at the account of the body of Christ,

that we recognize as being very important.

Now, the first one was this thing that it says.

It says,

when they gathered in that upper room,

what did they do?

It says they were continually united.

There's the unity thing in prayer.

They were agreeing together in prayer.

It wasn't any of that praying against somebody kind of thing,

right?

And it says.

Tells everybody that was there.

Certainly the apostles were there,

but then the women who were following Jesus were there.

Mary, Jesus,

mom was there.

All his brothers were there.

As you start to read through Acts,

you start to see the outworking of how God was working in individual

lives, which allowed for.

I am really loud.

Chris, can you back me up?

No, I'm going to break some little light bulbs here in a minute.

All right.

But as individuals were surrendered to God,

at work in their lives and following Jesus,

they came together to meet together.

And these apostles coming down from the Mount of Olives and going into

that upper room,

what did they do?

They were continually united in prayer together.

Why? What were they doing?

They were trying to figure out,

okay, what now,

God? What do we do next?

God, where are we supposed to go?

Jesus led us all these three years and excuse me.

And now we don't have a leader.

And then it says in verse 15,

then Peter and I always,

okay, Peter stood up among them.

He said,

look, Scripture had to be fulfilled.

The Christ had to suffer,

right? So let's see what they're devoted to.

Going back to verses 46 and 47 of chapter two,

because this is,

again, like I said,

this is kind of the summary every day,

right?

Every first day or every Sunday,

Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple,

man. The body of Christ came together every single day.

Now, logistically speaking,

guess what?

It would be tough for us to do this every day of the week,

right? But what it's saying is they came together in the temple as a

fellowship.

It doesn't give us,

you know what?

There's no printed bulletin from those meetings,

okay? It doesn't get there and say,

yes, Peter stood up and welcomed everyone.

And they sang Amazing Grace right after that,

you know,

and then they did a whoo.

And everybody greeted each other.

That's not in there.

But what it does say is they met together.

You see,

God's people,

the body of Christ,

the congregation of believers.

They were devoted to meeting together.

They were devoted to coming together as a group,

as a people,

as a congregation.

Every day,

they devoted.

Now, how often do you use the word devoted?

It's not a common word,

is it?

I'm devoted.

You know,

it kind of goes along with loyal,

doesn't it?

You know,

those kind of words?

What are we devoted to?

What are the kind of things that we invest ourselves in?

Well, God's people were meeting together,

though. I look at it,

and I was like,

did they ring a bell,

right?

Did they say,

okay, look,

today we're going to meet together at nine,

but tomorrow,

because we've got,

you know,

traffic duty,

we're going to meet at 10:30.

You know,

we don't have a clue.

We just only know that they were meeting together,

meeting together,

meeting together.

They were devoted to meeting together.

And so that really kind of flies in the face of Christians in our day and

time that go,

oh, you don't have to go to church to be a Christian.

And truthfully,

you don't.

But if you are a follower of Christ and you are devoted and surrendered

to his will,

then the body of Christ will come together.

We will meet together.

We'll be devoted to coming together.

Because guess what?

Look across the room and go,

oh, hey,

I haven't seen you since this time last week,

right? You see?

So they were devoted to meet again.

I want to back up just a minute and look at chapter two,

verse 42,

because it says this.

They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching.

How about that?

See, that's another little summary verse of what was happening when they

were meeting together.

Verse 42.

They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching.

What were the apostles teaching?

The apostles were teaching the kingdom of God because that's what Jesus

had taught them,

you see.

So when all the people would gather in the temple courtyard,

because there were Gentiles in the mix too,

right? When they all gathered in the courtyard,

the apostles were teaching,

and they were teaching what Jesus taught.

And Jesus,

it says in the beginning of the Gospel of Mark,

says Jesus went about teaching the kingdom of God or the kingdom of

heaven. So see,

Jesus taught God's kingdom.

The apostles were teaching what Jesus taught.

And so they were all teaching about the kingdom of God.

How do we be the kingdom of God?

How do we be in the kingdom of God?

How are we a part of God's kingdom?

So they were devoting themselves to the apostles teaching,

but it goes on,

it says to the fellowship.

So not only were they devoted to hearing the teaching and receiving the

teaching that the apostles were offering,

they were devoted to the unity,

the coming together of the body of Christ.

They were devoted to each other.

See, we've made.

And I'm guiltier than any of you are,

actually, because I've been in ministry 40 something years now.

But the truth is we've turned worship and the practice of our faith into

a spectator sport.

I mean,

y'all could just as easily be watching Clemson lose.

Anyway, sorry,

I'm a little wounded this morning.

But anyway,

well, you know,

we sit in rows and we kind of watch kind of thing,

you know,

And I remember years ago when there was a church down in Atlanta area did

a great big Christmas show.

And I think the budget that they put on for this Christmas show was $4

million.

And great big church buses would roll in to see this great big church's

big, big Christmas show.

And the pastor,

I was in a conference with the pastor at the time,

and he said,

he walked out into the parking lot and he was walking up and down the

rows of the buses and he said,

it dawned on me,

we invest $4 million in tons of time and energy to entertain Christians.

And he shut it down.

Now, there were some people getting saved as a result of it.

There were people hearing the gospel as a result of it.

But by and large,

the effort was an entertainment.

Right?

So why do we gather?

Are we devoted to the meetings?

Yeah, you're here.

Yeah, you showed up on the day that you rolled back the clocks.

And some showed up early this morning.

But I won't mention her name,

you see,

and that's kind of the idea,

is that we want to be devoted to what is important to God.

When we gather in this room,

is it important to God that we pray?

Absolutely, man.

We need to be talking to God as we gather.

We need to be talking to God when our eyes are open when we're sitting up

or standing up,

we need to be praising God when we sing together.

You know,

there was a song years and years ago called the Audience of One that all

of our songs are really sung to God,

right? So let me finish verse 42 to the fellowship and to the breaking of

bread and to prayer.

So it gives us four things in verse 42 that it says,

not instructionally that they did,

but reporting as to what was happening when they got together.

You see,

so we can take it as instruction.

Yes, we should be being taught and teaching.

We should be doing those things.

We should be devoted to one another in the fellowship and loving each

other. That fellowship is a koinonia word that's bearing one another's

burden. You see,

we should be doing those things.

We should be breaking bread.

You know,

it's always funny to me to talk to different churches or go to different

churches that eat because they all claim to eat the best.

Do you know that every church I've ever been in,

oh, we know how to eat.

And I go,

yeah, that's obvious.

I should not say things like that.

But I generally do.

But you see my point.

You know,

fellowship meals,

I think they're important.

They're disarming,

they break down barriers.

They let us get acquainted around.

You know,

it's like I did the.

He ain't in here now.

But anyway,

I did the.

I got to hang out with the senior adults Friday for the luncheon.

And as I was fixing my plate,

right, fixing my plate,

they had this grabber for the salad.

It was a thing.

It was like a scissor grabber thing.

And so I reached down and grabbed a big old thing of the salad,

and I was going to put it on my plate,

and I looked up and noticed there was a camera pointed at me.

So I went.

And they got it on.

They got it on a picture.

So we'll probably see that one day,

but it's okay.

But you see,

my point is meeting together around food is a good thing.

Breaking bread together.

And then it says prayer.

And then we get to the end of the chapter where we're looking at verses

46 and 47.

It says every day.

There again is the everyday.

They devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple.

They broke bread from house to house.

Now, there are those that will say that as the body of Christ got

together, they celebrated what they had participated with Jesus in as

communion, the Lord's Supper,

Some traditions call it Eucharist and all kind of different things.

But the idea was is that it's a time for the body of Christ to remember

that Jesus died in our place.

Right? That's what it signifies,

that's what it represents,

is that Jesus died on the cross in our place.

And so when they would get together,

I've always tried to figure this out.

I wonder if when they got together in the temple and were doing the

Lord's Supper kind of thing,

if they passed out little styrofoam wafers,

I don't think they did right.

I think in the fellowship together,

somebody, one leader,

maybe Peter,

stood up and broke a piece of bread.

And he said,

folks, let's stop and let's remember that Christ died for us,

that Jesus gave his life and this bread represents his body.

Take a piece of it,

Eat and remember.

And then they passed cups around.

And if it was a hundred and something of them that were gathering or

thousands by the end of chapter two and three that were gathering and

they were breaking bread together,

does that breaking bread together mean that they were just simply

celebrating the Lord's Supper?

Because some have interpreted it that way that,

that breaking bread means they got together and what they did was just

practice the Lord's Supper.

Well, I put.

The second point of the messages is that they were devoted to food.

They were devoted to meeting together,

and they were devoted to food.

Because if you take the construction of the sentence when it says every

day, they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple and broke

bread from house to house.

Now it doesn't say they broke bread in the temple,

does it?

It says they broke bread from house to house.

So who's serving today?

Right? No,

I'm just kidding.

You see,

here's the point.

They were community,

okay? That's the point of this.

They were community.

They were sharing their lives together,

right? They were coming together as the body.

They were going out from the temple as the body.

They were sitting down around the table and eating together.

They were remembering Christ's death together.

They were devoted to this idea of community.

Now I said devoted to food because guess what?

They were taking their meals together.

Because that's what it says.

It says right here,

they ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts.

Now some translations say they ate their meals with joyful and sincere

hearts. So we know this is not just the Lord's Supper.

They were sit down.

Dinnertime.

Here we go,

ya'll. You see?

So I think that's a great argument for dinner on the grounds.

I don't know.

But they were joyful and sincere.

So joyful.

We, I Talked about that Friday with the senior adults.

We want to be.

We want to be the example of joy to a world that misses out on it so

much, you know,

we want people to look at us and go,

man, you folks are just happy,

you know?

Who was it?

Janice was the one asked me Friday.

She said,

bobby, she said,

why do we woo?

Well, I preached a message up in Maryland years and years and years ago

about God loving a cheerful giver.

And so we got ready to take the offer.

And I said,

all right,

let me hear you be cheerful about giving and everybody in the car.

Whoo. So after that,

every time I'd say,

okay, guys,

it's offering time.

They'd all woo.

Well, I just liked it so much,

I decided we're going to do it all the time.

That's going to be amen in gathering speak,

okay? But the idea of being joyful,

we want folks as they walk in here to recognize that we have joy not

because of what's going on in the world,

not because of anything we might have accumulated in our lives,

but we have joy because we have Jesus,

okay? That's why we have joy and we're sincere about it.

This is not just,

you know,

a membership card we stick in our pocket.

We are devoted to what God has done on our behalf in Jesus Christ.

And then it goes on to say in verse,

still in the same verse,

praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.

I think that's kind of crucial in the whole thing.

They were praising God.

What does praising God accomplish?

Anybody know?

Anybody want to hazard?

Raise your hand and tell me what you think.

And always,

you know,

and I used to do this when I was a youth pastor.

If you're wrong,

I'll tell you what does praising God accomplish The chief purpose of man

created for God's glory.

Is that what you're getting at?

Okay, I thought maybe you found that in Appendix B.

I didn't know.

Okay. No,

just kidding.

Oh, is that right?

All right,

so what does praising God accomplish?

Praising God is the chief purpose of man.

We were created for God's glory.

All right,

what else?

Any other ideas?

Recognition of what?

Recognizing and acknowledging God.

Right. Okay.

Say again,

Beth? I'm sorry.

That's right.

If you feel low,

your best prescription is to praise God.

See? So when you go to the Psalms.

Because Psalms is a book of praise,

right?

It's the songs of God's people in the Old Testament.

It's a book of praise songs.

And so what did they do when they were praising God?

They praised Because God is God and we aren't.

They praise God for His glory.

They praised his glory.

They praised him because he is great.

They praise him because he's wise.

They praise him because he's powerful.

They praise him because he's merciful and faithful.

They praise him because he saves.

They praise him because he provides for us.

So everything about our lives needs to result in an attitude,

a posture,

the activity,

activity of praising Him.

So is your life an act of praise?

Because God's people in Acts,

chapter two,

verses 46 and 47,

and actually chapter one and the beginning of chapter two is the fact

that they came together in prayer,

in unity,

in fellowship,

and praising God.

That's what they did.

So when I looked at all this,

I was like,

wow. And I didn't add walking together,

y'all. Loving God and living Jesus were the two priorities of the

gathering for 10 years.

And then five years ago,

they decided we need to do walking Together because we were starting to

encourage and incorporate more small group ministries and getting

together and getting together in different settings and that sort of

thing.

I was like,

all right,

fine. So why do we praise God?

Because if we don't,

rocks will.

Okay, just so you know,

if we don't.

Man, wouldn't you hate to be so negligent in praising God that you're

walking down the street,

all of a sudden the rock goes,

whoo?

I mean,

that would be bad news right there.

First of all,

I'd have a heart attack.

But anyhow,

folks, coming together as the body of Christ,

walking together as the body of Christ,

meeting together as the body of Christ,

praying together as the body of Christ,

eating together as the body of Christ.

Coming together in community and fellowship is a priority of God's,

and He wants us to do it.

As a matter of fact,

I think he enjoys our doing it.

Now, there's some words I'm going to throw out at you.

You ready?

Meeting together and walking together as the body of Christ requires

surrender. Some of the harshest words that I've spoken from this pulpit

are that it ain't about you.

You know that.

I know I'm not supposed to use ain't teachers,

but I did.

It's not about us.

It's about surrender.

It's about submission to God and His leadership in our lives.

It's about obedience.

And all three of those words actually are in direct opposition to the

word selfishness,

which is where a lot of people get caught.

Well, what about me?

And then y'all know me well enough to know,

and I Go.

What about you?

Thank you very much,

folks.

Loving God.

This is an act of worship living.

Jesus is loving those around us.

Coming together as the body of Christ in unity.

I mean,

I go back and we'll talk about the folks in the New Testament who say,

guess what a house divided against itself can't stand.

We see that all around us right now.

Gathering, folks.

I shared with the senior adults Friday,

you know what?

Gathering is a happy place.

Come be happy with us,

okay?

Come be happy because God's blessed us and we're going to praise him for

it. All right?

See this morning,

if you don't know Jesus,

we want you to know Jesus because that's where it all starts.

You have a relationship with God because Jesus died on the cross and

provided it.

If you don't know him,

we want you to know him.

I'd love to introduce you to him and there are others in the room that

would love to introduce you to him.

And then we get to enjoy what it means to be the family of God together.

Right?

We got brothers and sisters.

You know,

somebody in this room is your sister,

somebody in this room is your brother.

And there might not be blood relatives,

but we are connected because God is our heavenly father.

Alrighty. If you don't know Jesus,

let us tell you about him.

If you want to be a part of what God is doing here at the gathering,

just come down and ask.

We will tell you how to do the membership thing and all that sort of

stuff. People have been asking me that again lately.

I will tell you that given the weather situation,

we probably won't baptize you in the ocean at this point,

just so you know.

All right,

let's pray together.

And the band is going to come up and we are going to sing and you do what

God is telling you to do.

All right,

God we praise you and thank you again that God,

you do have some things that are important to you.

And God we see in scripture reported historically,

acts is not necessarily instructional though we can receive instruction

from it by seeing how you blessed your people in those days.

And every day people were being added to their numbers who were being

saved. God,

we want people to know Jesus.

We want people to be excited about knowing Jesus.

We want to be excited about being the body of Christ.

So God,

we ask your blessing today and ask you to just speak to folks hearts and

let them respond to you,

not me.

We pray it in Jesus name.

Amen.