Acts - Week 4 (2:40-47)

This is ERC Sundays, the messages at Emmaus Rd.

Church in DeWitt, Iowa. ERC is a Church of people

striving to grow in Jesus and make him known to others through

our faith, words and actions. Find out more about our church

at emmausrdonline.org. Here's this week's message well.

Friends, there's a lot to think about on any given Sunday, but

in particular as I think about like seniors, I'll tell you

what, there are times in our lives and there are seasons that

probably as we look back, seem ideal.

And I, I'll be honest with our seniors in our, in our

upperclassmen, like, I don't know how your senior year

totally went for you, but man, I, I really look back and I say

that was an ideal time in my life.

I know it wasn't perfect. I can understand that, but I,

it's very hard for me. It's very difficult for me to

remember anything being awfully terrible.

In fact, I, I tend to only remember the good things about

that time and again, whether it was when you're in high school

or college or, I don't know, when you first got married or

you have a kid or whatever that looks like for you.

I'm sure as you look back, you have something in your head and

you're like, you know what? That was a really ideal time in

my life. And so if you've had that, I'm

glad and I hope that as you sit now in faith and with your

family and friends and whatever that looks like for you, I hope

that maybe even we can see some level of ideal right here in and

amongst us as we as we praise Jesus together.

I hope that's true for you. I feel it, I do.

And it's not just because I work here.

I love being in this community. It's fantastic.

It's I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Now, I would tell you that I don't think anybody has maybe

shown visually what ideal looks like better than Norman

Rockwell. Now, as a former like multi year

art teacher in public schools, I tend to think in art often

times. And so again, when I was

thinking about like this kind of ideal thing, like man, does it

get better than showing that than Norman Rockwell.

So Norman Rockwell, if you don't know him, he was most famous for

working and doing the this Saturday Evening Post.

That magazine existed for a long time and he typically did the

covers for those, But he didn't just do that.

He gosh, he worked on all sorts of things.

But I do think like he's so well encompasses like the, the sense

of like Americana and ideal of a time frame.

And so if, if you grew up kind of in that era, if you grew up

with, oh, gosh, the shows like Father Knows Best and Lassie and

gosh, what's another one I had? I had another.

Oh yeah, Leave it to Beaver. If you know what those shows

are, then you probably know who Norman Rockwell is.

But, and if you don't know what those shows are, go Google.

I'm like, I, I don't think you'll be mad at me for watching

a couple episodes. I don't, I don't think you will.

But go go check them out. They're they're fun.

But he didn't just paint everyday life.

He also did images of faith, and even in his images of faith, if

we look at these closely, we're like that looks ideal, and it

feels like it's from this bygone era that we can no longer

achieve. It feels like it's something

that it's just this kind of perfect iteration of what we

think faith is supposed to look like, right?

And some of us still kind of hold some of these, maybe not

these specific images, but we hold images like this in our

head. And this is what the church is

supposed to be like, right? It's supposed to be calm.

You know, it's all these things. Well, here's the thing.

This morning, we're going to get to the end of Acts chapter 2 and

Acts 2 · chapter mention

we're going to see the very first iteration of the Christian

Church. And as we read that it should

draw some some thoughts of man that seems really ideal.

That seems like too good be true almost.

And so I want to make the argument today that it is ideal

and from a human perspective and it's still achievable.

I believe that I wouldn't be standing up here if I didn't

think that was true. It is ideal, but it's still

achievable. And so I, I want to look at kind

of these, these thoughts in three different ways this

morning. Just if you're a note taker, I

know not all of you are, but some of you are.

And plus, this will just help you kind of keep up with like

my, my thought process so we don't get lost.

But we're going to understand this, that God's faithful church

is saved from a crooked generation.

And we'll get into what that means in a minute, and we're

going to see the marks of God's faithful church.

And then finally, we're going to see the results of God's

faithful church. OK, now I'm going to use that

word church a lot. And some of you here, when I say

church, you think of a building. That's not true at all.

The church is never a building. The church is a people.

The church is God's people wherever they are.

And so just as you hear me say that word, I hope you understand

that I'm talking about a people group, not a building.

So let's read from Acts chapter 2, and let's see this kind of

Acts 2 · chapter mention

idealistic church in action. By the way, this is at the end

of Peter's sermon that we heard last week.

And with them many other words, he bore witness.

And he continued to exhort them, saying, save yourselves from

this crooked generation. Those who received His word were

baptized, and they were added that day about 3000 souls.

And they devoted themselves to the apostles, teaching, to the

fellowship, and to the breaking of bread.

And prayers and awe came upon every soul.

And many wonders and signs were being done through the Apostles.

And all who believed were together, and they had all

things in common. And they were selling their

possessions and belongings, and distributing all the proceeds to

any who had need. And day by day, attending the

temple together, and breaking bread in their homes, they

receive their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God

and having favor with all of the people.

And the Lord added to their number day by day, those who

were being saved. Here ends the reading of God's

Word. I don't normally, I don't always

do this. And some of you are like, Oh my

gosh, there's Greek on the screen again.

And some of you say you do that too often.

And other people are like, no, that's kind of interesting.

I need more of that. Well, this happens to be one of

the days where I'm going to give you a Greek lesson.

So here's what this looks like. This word is pronounced scolios,

which means crooked. That's the word that we get

crooked at the beginning of that text and the the definition of

it is being morally bent or twisted.

Now that word scolios, does that sound familiar to you When we

think of something like somebody say it very good.

See you learned Greek. Congratulations.

Good job. I will give you an A today.

Good work. Well, one of the things that we

see in in in any given culture that gets crooked or it gets

twisted is this this sense of selfishness.

It's real. It's real in every generation.

It was real in a generation that we see this ideal church where,

you know, they're selling all these things and they're giving

everything away and just to make sure everybody was OK, they were

doing all those things. So it sounds unselfish, but that

absolutely existed in their culture.

It's always existed in every culture, and it certainly exists

today. My friends, my seniors, I'll

talk to you specifically, but this is still for us all.

I sometimes as I see young people going out into the wide

world, I sometimes get afraid for them.

Here's why. Because we have an entire

culture, an entire philosophy of me first.

That's where we've come to in in large parts of our culture

today. It's it's a very me first kind

of place that we live in. And I actually came across this

article on delightfulminds.com this week and

delightfulminds.com, if you don't know, I don't recommend

it, but I'm talking about it. It what it is, is it's a website

for like mental health and like self help and all that kind of

good stuff, right? But coming out of one of their

articles, this is what I saw the quote.

Excuse me to conclude everything, We shouldn't live

for others and we should live only for ourselves.

It's not reasonable to spend your precious time that you will

never get back. You shouldn't give someone an

extra second of your life with your time, if you know what I

mean. Make your time on earth as

pleasurable as possible for yourself, right?

OK, this is the wisdom of the world.

It's out there. This, I'm telling you, this is

a, excuse me, this is a mental health website.

And this website is telling you, as a lot of our culture is

telling you, that if you want to be healthy, if you want to be

happy, if you want to have any amount of joy or pleasure in

your life, you better live for you.

Don't you dare give anybody any of your time or effort.

I got to tell you, friends, when I read stuff like this and it's

so pervasive in our culture, it breaks my heart.

I'm not being dramatic. It really does.

And I think this philosophy that we have out there, it's, it's a

big part of the reason why statistically we know that about

70% of our high schoolers, when they leave high school and they

leave home, 70% of them also leave the church, 70%.

That's a remarkably high number. Why?

Well, part of it is we live in a me first culture and that just

does not vibe with what the Bible says.

Not at all. It's it's, it's, it's clearly

opposed to it. And so here's the thing.

I could go on and on. And quite frankly, in our Bible

study on Thursday, I, I think we spent like 35 minutes talking

about all the ways that our generation is crooked and

twisted and, and we could go on and on and about that stuff.

But here's the thing, number one, I know that complaining

about those things won't actually get anything done.

It really won't. And #2 I think we were made for

a time such as this. We were made for this moment in

cultural history. We were.

Here's what I mean. Let's look at one more Norman

Rockwell painting, then I'll put the art teacher away, I promise.

But here we have again, he paints these idealistic pictures

and we have this grandmother in this child praying man.

Look at the people. They're intrigued by that.

There's something, there's something intriguing about

faith, isn't there? There's something that draws

people into that because you know what?

That you know what faith does? It puts us in a place where our

priorities are no longer about us.

And I don't care what the culture says about me first and

whatever, man, there's something dwelling deep inside of us that

wants to live, that wants to love well and serve.

We're built that way. That's how God designed us.

We find our greatest joy and our greatest fulfillment when we

serve and when we treat others maybe better than they deserve.

OK, so here's the thing. Let's get, let's make this a

little bit more applicable. When we refuse to bend and twist

ourselves to the culture, we are going to look different than the

culture. And and that might be scary for

you because quite frankly, standing out for middle

schoolers in particular, if that's really scary.

But even as adults, we don't always like that.

It freaks us out. We don't really want to be

noticed like that. But man, our faith, it does set

us apart. If you're a Christian and you

believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead and you believe

that you are fully forgiven, so you no longer walk in shame, you

no longer have to have fear of of eternal repercussions, man,

you're going to live free. And that is awfully, awfully

appealing. And when we show that freedom,

when we show that joy beyond our circumstances, which the gospel

provides for us, man, that is awfully attractive to the

outside world, even the outside world, quite frankly, that says

I don't really want anything to do with religion.

Well, man, I'll tell you what, in a lot of ways, I don't want

anything to do with religion either.

I really want something to do with like, a meaningful

relationship. That's what I want and that's

what God wants for us. He wants us in a meaningful

relationship, not just a bunch of people following the rules

for the sake of following the rules.

That's not helpful. That's not helpful to any of us.

And so, man, we get to be as we live out our faith in public, as

you see fit to do that, Excuse me, we get to be the hands and

feet of Jesus. And that's an incredible thing.

That's an incredible thing to get to represent this, this man

who who died for everybody who died for his enemies who said

father, forgive them. They don't know what they're

doing. When we get to be like that man,

we are really the church. We're really doing something

then we're going to we're going to change culture along with us.

And I know that sounds like a big job, but it is entirely

possible. I see it in and among us.

I watch it all the time. Maybe you guys don't see it the

way I do because I'm always kind of watching those things, but I

see it and it's it's remarkable and it's beautiful and it

changes lives and it brings people into faith.

And so I want to tell you that I absolutely believe that we can

be the church that God intended us to be.

I really think that. Now let's get into the text

tells us that there's four marks of what this church looks like.

There's four marks of what God says.

This is what I want you to be. This is how I want you to

worship. These are the people that I'm

going to call my own. So let's look at the four marks.

They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, to the

fellowship, to breaking bread and prayers.

OK, four things, right? I'll go through these as quickly

as possible. I will tell you, I think each

one of these things deserves their own Sunday, but we don't

have time for all that. So we're going to go through

these pretty quick. First and foremost, what we call

the Apostolic teaching. OK, what is that?

That's God's word, that's God's true and authentic word given to

the apostles, right? Jesus hands them the keys to the

Kingdom and then he gives them the Holy Spirit.

And they go on to teach about the life of Jesus.

And they go on to not just teach a set of moral standards that we

have to live by, but they go on to tell the truth about what it

looks like to live in real freedom, to really have

something deep, a deep connection to this eternal and

infinite God. And it's remarkable.

And so if gosh, seniors, again, I keep on addressing you, but

it, it fits if you're leaving and, and, and I hope if you're

leaving, hopefully you're going to be doing what we call some

church shopping, OK, And maybe some of you are here because you

were doing some church shopping and you landed here and that's

great. I love that for us, right?

But here's the thing, if you're doing some church shopping and

the word of God, it is not preached and not as it sits

without twisting it to try and fit into our narrow little

cultural moment, man, if God's word isn't present in that way,

if it's not authentically spoken, please run.

Please run for the hills. Because you're not in a church,

then you're in. You're in a club of people there

to make themselves feel good. That's not helpful for you.

And I'll tell you what, guys, we have had people leave our

community here at ERC because we refuse to twist and bend the

word of God to fit our cultural moment.

And that hurts. I hate seeing people leave, I

really do. But at the same time, we should

never apologize for what God's word says.

Never. And I'll be really honest with

you, man, I don't care who you are.

I, I mean that I don't care if it, if it's my mother or, or my,

or my brother or my kids. We don't change God's word to

fit our agenda. We will never do that.

Because the second we do that, the second we twist that at all

to, to make sure that we're making everybody happy and

making everybody comfortable, we've lost ourselves and we're

no longer the church. We're just a club of people,

right? That's never do that.

So that's the first mark of the of God's real church, God's

faithful churches that his word is present and we don't we don't

bend that at all. We just let it be what it is.

Second thing is fellowship. Now some of you remember who are

here that this place used to be called DeWitt Lutheran

fellowship. That's what Emmaus Row Church

used to be called back in the day.

Right now, I'll tell you what, that word fellowship, when I

came to this place, however many years ago, I didn't even really

get that what that word meant. I was like, that's kind of

antiquated and weird. I don't go hang out with my

friends and be like, oh, I had a great fellowship time.

Like like who does that? I was not raised on Beaver

Cleaver, so I don't, you know, I don't speak that way.

But here's the thing. Here's what I came to learn.

I came to learn that the real biblical idea of fellowship,

it's more than just a basic friendship.

It's it's what we see in the early church.

It's where we see that people are putting themselves, are

putting others above themselves, and they're willing to do, and

it sounds a little cliche, but they're willing to do life with

other people in a way that might cost them something.

And quite frankly, I'll tell you what real fellowship, which is

what the church is supposed to do, it is going to cost you

something sometimes it's going to cost you your time, your,

your skills, it, it might even cost you some of your money.

Are we OK with that? I, I hope we are, because that's

what real fellowship is. And, and so I'll say one more

thing about this. We are, we are a busy church and

that's awesome. You know, you can, you can come

on a Sunday morning, you can bring your kids on a Wednesday,

you can attend Mezcal Mondays with the ladies, You can, you

can attend men's nights on Thursdays, all these things.

But we don't do these things just to stay busy or be try and

be the cool church in town. We do these things because we

know that deep fellowship happens in real life.

It happens in real time. It happens when we expose those

things that are are going great so we can rejoice together.

And it happens when we get to know people well enough.

And we're and we're in a community so we can let our

guard down and we can say, you know, life is really hard right

now and I need somebody to walk with me.

I need somebody to bear burdens with me.

My friends, we have to have fellowship.

It's so important. So I mean God bless you if you

come on, you know, you come once every once every while on a

Sunday and you're like, hey, that music's good and all great

awesome. I'm glad you're here.

I really mean that. But man, you might be missing

out on maybe one of the most important parts of faith, which

is this. It's us together.

I mean, why else would all of us gather in a room to hear

somebody like me ramble on? Because we need this fellowship.

We need the word of God, and we need to do that together.

Let me say something and then I'll kind of wrap up this point.

Faith is deeply personal, but it was never meant to be private.

Faith is deeply personal, but it was never meant to be private.

Do you know what I mean by that? God does not want our faith out

on an island somewhere. We are not called to be monks

living away from society. No, we are called to do this

thing called life and faith together.

And that's what fellowship is. And Lord help us, we need it

every single day #3 the third mark of the church, breaking

bread. This is, this is just kind of a

way, this is how the early church may be described.

Communion, communion, right? So I mean, I don't need to spend

a lot of time on this, but this is the body and blood of Jesus

Christ given to us for the forgiveness of our sins.

One of the marks of the church is that we do come together as a

community. We confess individually and as a

community that we've fallen short, but we also see in real

time that God gave his body and his blood for us.

So there's a unique dynamic there, which we would call law

and gospel. But what it is, is I'm so bad,

I'm such a moral failure, and I do need me, that I needed Jesus

to die for me. That's the law.

And it's true. That's how badly we all fail.

But we don't stay there because in communion we remember that

God loved us so deeply that He was willing to die for us.

That's an amazing dynamic, and I hope you live on the second-half

of that. I hope you live in freedom and

enjoy knowing that your God loves you so much.

No matter what you've done, no matter what you're carrying

around. He loves you so much that He

gave you His Son. Finally, the the 4th mark of

God's real faithful Church is prayer.

Kristen highlighted that we have a space to pray together, and

that's important. That's vital.

Prayers are our connection to God.

It, it, it links us in such a way that we cannot possibly even

fully comprehend or understand, but it, it, it breaks the wall

to heaven. That's what prayer does for us.

And so God hears those things. He loves you.

Please, please don't miss that. Please don't miss that.

God's church needs to pray. There's power in prayer.

It's amazing what it can do. I have, I have more stories than

I have than I have time to share.

But let me, let me at least give you this.

Some of you are like, yeah, sometimes I pray on my own and I

do this thing in a couple of our Bible studies.

And now some of you will never show up because it's going to

sound really scary, but I just open up the floor.

Anybody who wants to pray, please do that.

You know why people won't do that?

Give you 2 reasons. Number one, we think we have to

have all the right words when we pray, we think thou Lord die,

blah blah blah. And it's like no, please don't

do that. Don't do that.

It's insincere. Unless you grow up in England in

like the 1300s, please don't do that.

Speak to God, give him your heart.

Here's the second reason why praying out loud with people is

really hard, because it does expose our heart.

That's what prayer does. Whether you close your eyes or

whatever you do, when you pray, inevitably as you are speaking

to God, your heart will be exposed.

And that can be a really scary thing.

I know it can. But then again, when we have

fellowship, it's OK to do it. It's OK to do that as we go

through the hard things together.

Those are the four marks of the church.

And So what are the results of that?

Let's come to kind of our conclusion.

What are the results of that? We see it.

They received their food with glad and generous hearts.

They were praising God. They had favor with all the

people and the Lord added to their number day by day.

These are the results. These are not the actions that

we have to take to be like, oh, we're good Christians.

No, these are the results of being in and part of the church.

These are the results of faith. And it's and it's magical.

And I mean magical in the best way because other people see

that, like what we talked about at the beginning, other people

see that and they go, wow, what do they have that I don't?

What is that? And that's my story a little bit

too. When I came here, I didn't even

want to come here. I've told you that before.

I was dragged here by my friends and my wife.

God bless you. But man, it was different and it

is different. I watched as Pastor Jason Lang

invited me to his house. And not being a Christian, not

being a person of faith, it was just like, Oh my gosh, I got to

go to this guy's house for dinner.

This is going to be the worst. It's going to be so boring.

I'm sure he's going to talk my ear off about Jesus and like,

I'm going to have to put on like I'm going to have to be well

behaved. But he was just a regular guy

who handed me a beer and said, hey, you want to come Outback

and grill with me? He was just authentic.

And that's what we're called to be.

We're just called to be people, broken people, saved by grace.

And here's the thing, we we get to be his church.

We get to be God's church. It's not a have to.

We get to be God's church. We get to be God's church

because Jesus Christ, he gave his body and his blood as a

sacrifice that we might be in unity with God.

We get to be his church because Jesus lost favor.

Think about that, Christians, sometimes in society, we gain

favor when we're living this life the right way, when we're

being authentic, when we're being real, when we're being

vulnerable, when we're being generous and, and we find favor

in society by doing that. But why?

Jesus lost favor not only with man, but on the cross.

Jesus Christ lost favor with God.

God turned his back on him. Why?

So that you and I can find favor with God, so that you and I can

be fully forgiven. So that we as a people to live

in freedom. That's such a gift.

So friends, let me close with this thought.

I know seniors, you've got a big day.

It's exciting. I'll get you on your way.

Let me close with this thought. We see an idealistic church in

this text and sometimes we think, man, I don't.

That sounds like a fairy tale. I don't think we could ever be

that. I just disagree.

I disagree. I think we need to dream big.

I think we need to ask God for big things because we serve and

love a big God and he is capable and He is able and he wants to

do it. He wants that for us.

He wants a community life that changes our culture.

He wants a community life that shows people what's really

possible, what's really possible beyond selfishness, what's

really possible beyond me. First, He wants us to be His

church. He wants us to be His people.

And Lord willing, we can do it. Gosh, you know what I don't

want? I don't want to spend the next

20 years working, living and talking to people who are who

are OK with just OK. I really don't.

And I'm not saying that's where we are today, but I'm saying I

want to push. I want to push in an amazing way

that will change our individual lives, and Lord willing, it will

change our community. Friends, I hope you want that

too, because that's what God wants for us, and that's what He

will do in and through us as we look and put our faith in Him.

Amen. Let's pray.

Our Father in heaven, it is so good to be in your presence and

it's so good to be a part of your church.

Lord, I the way you've built your church through sinful

people, it's amazing to me. It's amazing that you bring all

these strangers together with this one thing in common, the

blood of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of our sins.

Lord, I don't want any other community but that one because

that community changes lives and I know because you've changed my

life through that community and through that word.

So Father, continue to do your best work in and through US.

Lord, we pray for big things. Lord, I want to ask you to add

to us, to multiply us as you see fit, as we share the marks of

your church. Help us to do that with faith.

Help us to do that with joy. Lord, help us to do that with

open hearts that are forgiving and accepting.

Move in and amongst us for our good.

In your glory we pray all these things in Jesus name, Amen.

Thanks for listening to ERC Sundays.

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