The Fellowship of Believers

Good morning.

This morning's text is from Acts 2, starting in verses 42.

And they devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the 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 had all things in common.

And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the property, the proceeds to all, as they 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.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

Thanks be to God.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

It's great to gather together with you all.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

And this morning we are moving into one of the most idyllic passages, I think, in the book of Acts, but it'll be a refrain that we see several times throughout.

But before we move into the text this morning, let's pray together.

Holy Father, we praise you that you know how to create a people out of us.

Lord, that you know how to unite us together so that we are your body, Lord, one people together.

We praise you for that, Father.

But Lord, we confess that we have a resistance to this as well.

Lord, we confess that we do not desire to come together, Lord, but we desire to remain isolated from one another.

Lord, we desire the safety of isolation more than we desire the unity of fellowship and the joy of being together in the light in you, Lord.

We pray that you would, by your Holy Spirit, knit us together in love, that we would aspire towards the fellowship that we see in the early church.

Lord, that you would create that among us, that we might be able to receive it with joy and gladness.

Father, I pray for the churches that are gathering together across the city, that even among churches we might have this unity, Lord.

We pray for Trinity, we pray for the Heights, we pray for Crown Hill, Lord, we pray for Covenant, we pray for Christ Pres Inglewood, Lord, we pray for Deer Creek, we pray for all these wonderful bodies of believers that are gathered together around your church around our city, Lord, just as we are this morning, to praise and honor you.

Lord, you are doing a mighty work, a glorious work.

We praise you for it and pray that you would bless us in our ability, that you would strengthen us in our ability to celebrate and receive the mighty work that you are doing.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

All right, so before we start right into the text this morning, uh I've been reminded, and I want to make a habit of this, uh, to the kids in the room.

I want to give you some words to listen out for.

So this is what the quiz is going to be at the end of our sermon this morning.

At the end of our sermon, I'm going to ask you what were the four things that the new believers were devoted to?

They devoted themselves to four things.

I'll give you the answer and you can listen out for it.

The four things that they were devoted to were the apostles' teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayers.

Four things.

Listen out for those four things.

All right.

Everybody's ears perked up?

Everybody ready to focus on this instead of hockey this morning?

This passage in Acts is an idyllic, an idyllic image.

It's beautiful.

They were they were all devoted, these new believers, this new body of believers, after the experience of Pentecost and after this mass conversion of 3,000 people at Peter's preaching of the gospel.

They don't uh stay separate.

They immediately start acting like a church.

They immediately start acting like a community of people.

And the way that it sounds is beautiful and glorious.

It's they they are devoted to the teaching and the fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayers.

Awe came upon every soul.

You know, imagine, look at all the souls in the room.

Imagine awe coming upon each one of our souls at the wonderful works that God is doing.

The apostles are doing mighty works of God.

All who believed had everything in common, so that people were even selling their possessions so that they could come back and share them with one another.

They immediately start acting like a family.

And they're going to the temple day by day, and they're celebrating and praising and worshiping God.

Even when they're back in their own homes, they're eating their food with glad and generous hearts.

And then people are becoming more and more members of them day by day.

More and more members are being added to the believing church.

This is a glorious and idyllic image.

It sounds wonderful and incredible.

And I know that when we hear it and we hear how wonderful and incredible it is, it doesn't just kind of sound a bit quaint.

A bit like, man, good for them.

I love that.

I love that for them.

I'm glad that they got to have an experience like that.

But uh our church experience is not going to be anything like that.

We're not going to have an experience like that.

I know, I know we're not.

We're not going to have an experience like that.

That's from another time.

It's from uh it's from a different world ago.

It's like when you see pictures of your parents standing in front of the Camaro they bought for$3,000.

They worked all summer.

And you look at that picture and it's like, good for good for you guys.

Good for them.

It's not the world that we inhabit.

It's not the world.

They're there, we it's a different thing.

If I they don't even make Camaros anymore.

When they bring back the Camaro, it'll probably be like an electric convertible.

No, electric SUV, electric convertible.

That wouldn't even be that bad.

It'd be like an electric SUV, and they'll put the Camaro name badge on it.

Woof.

All right.

That put me in a sour mood.

It's what they did to the Mustang, you know?

This is terrible.

These pony cars getting ruined.

That's not our story, right?

It's a different time, a different place.

It's a, it's a, these are that's not what it's gonna be like.

But but part of that, part of that, I think, is seeing it, seeing this ideal experience, part of saying that's not ours, that's not what our church is gonna be like.

It's partly, it's partly because we know deep down in our hearts, there's this part that we don't want to acknowledge, which is we don't want it.

We don't want that.

Because when we hear, they are look at how they're gathering together and worship, they're gathering together in one another's homes, they're they're celebrating and they're they're they're selling their own possessions to give to one another.

They have this incredible generosity towards one another.

We're we're also thinking, like, yeah, I don't want that.

I don't want to be a part of that.

It's honestly, it all sounds a bit claustrophobic.

Like this is a it's all very extroverted.

And it's a I would like some space from a community like that.

Like I would like, I wouldn't, I I'm already exhausted in my own life, and I don't think I really want to be a part of that sort of thing.

And so my hope for this morning is that we we look at the wonder of what's relayed to us here.

And instead of having those two uh impulses, the one is just a rejection of the ideal, saying that that's good for them, but I know we'll never be able to experience it.

I want to get rid of that of that.

And the other that looks at it and is not even able to receive it as an ideal, but looks at it and says, honestly, it's a bit culty and strange.

And I don't, I I it's it's a little, I need a little more differentiation from my friends than uh the type of ideal of community that's being described here.

I want to get rid of that impulse too.

This is, uh I know you know this, but this is a this is like a classic pummel text for a pastor.

A pastor comes upon text like this, and we have the opportunity, us pastors, to just pummel our churches with a text like this.

Because you can hear it already, it's it's like they were devoted to the apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to the prayers.

Come on, you guys.

How come you how could that must have been cool to be Peter with a church like that where everybody was acting like that, and then we can and then we pummel the we can pummel the church with it.

That's not my goal this morning.

I think this morning, after we look through it, you will see the wonders of these ideals are not far from us.

We are participating and experiencing it many of them already.

Many of these things are already here.

This is ordinary church, is what we're seeing here.

So I want us to see that.

But I want us to see it, to read it, and think that is beautiful.

That is glorious.

I do want that.

I want that type of fellowship amongst the Christian community that I'm a part of.

I want the this is an aspirational text, and it's meant to be, it's meant to inspire us to look at it and say, what beauty, what wonder of what was happening in the early church.

And I I want to train our affections to see it and say, that's beautiful.

I want to be a part of that.

I may have glimpses of it now, I want even more of it.

One way to see that is to see an alternative.

And he and I think the alternatives are glaring right now.

You know, we look at it and think it seems a little culty.

It seems like people are gonna come around and I they're just gonna be asking for my stuff.

Is that the is that what being a part of the church is gonna be like now?

I want a little more distance uh between this.

And but I I think one way to see this is if we if we reject the ideal that we're being shown in scripture, it's never just the plain rejection of an ideal, it's always the acceptance of some other ideal.

And there's another ideal that we are being offered.

Like if you if you are devoted to, if you think you're devoted to nothing in this life, your devotion will be co-opted from you.

It will be taken from you.

And I think that there's it's plain now, we wouldn't have known this, you know, six years ago, but it's plain now that the the ordinary trajectory of our culture is to disperse into total isolation.

Into it's like we're there, there is no culture there.

We're being fed things that are perfectly tailored to you as an individual, and it there's a type of freedom that's on offer, which you can experience alone in a prison cell.

And it the the the type of culture that we're headed towards, the the normal drift of culture is like a perpetual 2020.

It's all the freedom that was available to you in 2020, that perpetually.

And you'll opt into it and you'll like it, and you'll think it is an ideal, unless you see the ideal of true community that is shown to us in scripture.

Because the the drift that you will normally go on is like a it's it's an experience that our culture offers, which I want to call chronic pleasure.

It's just this chronic little drip of pleasure that you're able to experience with no community on your own, isolated in in your room, isolated from one another.

And it trains us as we receive this chronic pleasure to resent any encroachment upon it.

And the nature of fellowship is encroachment upon that chronic pleasure.

And so that's the the there when we see the alternative, it starts to shine a light on the glories of what we're actually seeing here and show exposed.

I felt exposed in my own heart this week as I've read the wonders of this sort of fellowship and recognize that my gut reaction to it was I don't know about all of that.

And that means that that my own affections can't even recognize something beautiful when I'm being shown it.

So that's my hope for this morning that we train our affections to that.

So look at let's look and see how beautiful this picture of the fellowship of the early church was.

In Acts 2, 42, it says And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

So the 3,000 converts from Pentecost were devoted to four things.

But the first thing I want to recognize is that they were devoted to them.

Devotion means there is intentionality to it, that they have committed to these four practices.

These are decisions that they have made, and they committed themselves together to these four practices.

This means these things were the teaching of the apostles, the fellowship, the breaking of the bread, and the prayers.

They were devoted to those things.

If we aren't devoted to something, then there is a counter-devotion that will just happen to us.

It is not devotion or no devotion.

It is devotion to what?

And if you don't intentionally devote yourself to what is being called of us here, what is being modeled for us here in the scriptures, then you will be devoted towards those things which promote isolation and despair.

It is a trick.

It is a trick.

There's a trick of pleasure that Satan desires to offer us, a trick of isolated pleasure.

This is so plain now.

We don't have to wonder if this is true at all.

This is it is so plain that these are the options before you.

The options before you are a prison of isolated pleasure or the fellowship of a body of Christians.

These are the options.

These are the options before you.

Now, the one is in what the f they both require devotion, but one is a trick.

The the the the drift, the disintegrating drift into just an experiences of pleasure on your own is a trick because it says that it's it doesn't require devotion.

On the front end, it feels like it requires nothing, but it's a trick because what it's hiding is it requires everything from you.

All of the most wonderful things about being a person, it requires of you.

Your relationships, your closeness, your ability to be generous, your ability to value something beyond your own pleasure.

It requires that of you.

But it's a trick.

But the Christian, the Christian devotion, there's no trick here.

I have nothing up my sleeve.

I'm telling you right at the outset that it requires you to die.

This is what it requires of you.

That you die to yourself.

You die to your chronic pleasure, and you embrace acute pain.

The acute pain of one another's personalities.

Have you ever experienced that?

You know, have you ever been around people and you start hearing them talk about stuff and you're and you're there too, and the the way that they are talking about things, you gotta listen to it.

Oh, you're just it's an acute death.

An acute death of there's no it is a it is an acute pain.

Oh, but that but on the other side of it, there's this wonder.

There's a glory there.

On the other side of that death, there's the the thing you've been waiting for, the real the real human connection, the de-centering of yourself from the world.

It's a it's a, you know, everything everything on my phone is per I love my phone.

It's all just perfectly made for me.

I love looking at it.

I can look at it, I think I've said it before.

I've been looking at that thing for 20 years.

I had no signs of stopping.

And it's because it's all perfectly made, it's all tailored for me.

None of you are tailored for me.

You know, there's things, there's places where we start to vibe and get along, and then after a little while, it's like, eh, I don't know.

I'm not tailored for any of you.

The longer you've been going here, the more you know that.

And so that means that that this is not, this is not we're we're not chronic pleasure to each other.

There's this acute pain, but there and there's that means there's a death in it.

It's like, oh, I'm I'm who am I perfect for?

You know, nobody, who are they perfect for?

Nobody, who are we all perfect for?

Then we all say together, each other! How can that be?

How could we be held together in something like that?

Well, well, we'll we'll see that here.

It's on the other side of devotion that you get to experience the glory of fellowship.

You have to be devoted to it because there has to be a push past the death, especially to our souls.

They have to be retrained to the experience of something you can't get quickly.

You have to be trained to experience things that are that isn't different from the drip of chronic pleasure, but has moments of acute pain.

All of your relationships, all of the fellowship that you have, if it is real, it will have moments of acute pain.

And then on the other side of that, there's a glory, because there's a death and then there's a resurrection of it.

There's something that goes beyond all of you, and all of your, all of the satisfaction that you might get from one another, the relational satisfaction you might get from one another.

That is the glory of being held together in Christ by his grace towards us, his forgiveness of sins towards us, the generosity that we've received from him, and then our desire to be generous towards one another.

And look at how different that is, because now that is a community of people that are looking to come together, not because of what they might receive from one another, but because they desire to be generous to each other in the way that Jesus was generous to them.

This is an incomprehensible form of humanity to our world now.

We can't even imagine that you would go into a group because of what you might give to that group, that you might participate in a fellowship because of how you might lay down your own desires for the building up of the fellowship.

This is incomprehensible.

It's otherworldly.

It's beyond strange to think of this.

If you were to go into a group and think I'm here for I if you were to tell someone like I'm I am participating in this group because of what I might contribute to it for its flourishing, not because of what I might get out of it, they would say, that doesn't sound healthy.

That doesn't sound healthy.

Honestly, it sounds a little enmeshed, a little codependent that you are with that group.

And you need to find some you need to find some distance from that and figure out what it is that you want before you get lost in the milieu of this group.

And they would drink their coffee, they would pay for it, and they would leave.

And so then you'd be sitting there going, oh, okay.

That's the situation as I imagine it.

What are they devoted to?

They are devoted to the apostles' teaching.

This is what the early church looks like.

They're devoted to the apostles' teaching.

That must be first.

They have to be devoted to the news that they just received that the apostles are bearing witness to.

Because here is the news the highest one, the one who most deserved to have the world arc towards his own glory and satisfaction.

Satisfaction and pleasure, laid down his life for the forgiveness of our sins, so that we, though we do not deserve it, might be raised up to eternal glory and fellowship with him.

That has to be the news that grounds the fellowship.

The news that grounds the fellowship is because of no fault of our own, because of nothing that we have done, we have been lavished with grace and mercy by Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ died for our sins.

He laid his life down in love for us.

What holds us together, what brings us together, what makes us brothers and sisters, it is only the work of Jesus Christ that must be first.

There is no fellowship without that as the grounding.

And that is the way that all true fellowship will manifest in a community, because the highest thing that we're looking towards is the one who laid his own life down for his friends.

So what will be the culture of that community where that's the highest thing they're looking towards?

It will be a culture of people who they admire, they aspire to lay down their lives for one another.

They are seeking to cultivate hearts that do not consider themselves above the rest, but instead consider their friends above themselves.

And that will be that's that's a new type of fellowship, a more glorious type of fellowship.

And that's what they're devoted to.

They want to gather around the apostles and hear their teachings.

They want to hear more and more.

Tell us more.

You were with Jesus.

You know, and we see that it is plain he is, God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom we killed.

What was he like?

And they would say, Well, have we told you the one about the night before he was crucified, what he did when he gathered all of us apostles together?

No, what was that like?

What did he do?

You're not going to believe this.

You know, he was reigning in the heavens now, but it was only uh what, six, seven weeks ago?

Your groans mean nothing to me.

That uh he was he rains in the heavens now, he was washing our feet.

He was washing our feet like a servant.

He got down and he washed our feet.

That's what he was like.

That's what he was like.

And they would they would sense the love that would well up in their hearts as they experienced that's what our God is like.

That's what our Lord is like.

That's the one we that and they would look at each other and they would remember back to Pentecost and they'd say things like, That's why I converted.

I knew he was like that.

I started to get a glimpse that that's what he was like.

That's what we're gonna be like.

That's what we're gonna be like for one another.

What did the Son of Man come to do?

Did the Son of Man come to be served?

Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to lay his life down as a ransom for many.

That's the apostle's teaching, and they were devoted to it.

We have to be devoted to it.

If you are not devoted to that teaching, you will be trained to think that there is some life on the other side of chronic pleasure.

And there's not.

There's death on the other side of it.

You know, when a body gets pulled when when all the parts of a body get pulled away from itself, it's called decomposition.

When a culture, everybody gets pulled into themselves in isolation from one another, it's the same thing.

How's a body made?

It looks at Christ.

The one who laid himself down on our behalf.

They're devoted to that.

They're devoted to the fellowship.

They do not forsake their own assembling together, as is the habit of some.

You know what missing church is?

It's a habit.

It's just a habit.

If you consistently miss church, it's just a habit.

You know what going to church is?

Just a habit.

It's just something you just kind of you do.

But in order to be devoted to that, you have to say, you'll have to utter these unthinkable phrases.

These incredi you'll have to say these saintly things that like only the only the highest, you know, the most saintly among us have ever said.

You'll have to say things to your friends like, I can't make it, I've got church.

You got the guts?

Say something like that to utter a phrase like this?

Ah, I can't make it.

I've got church.

I've got church.

I'm devoted to it.

I'm devoted to it.

They're devoted to the fellowship.

To the fellowship.

In Hebrews, that's same, it's sort of like the classic go-to-church passage.

And I I said I wouldn't do some pummeling, but I'll do a little pummeling.

I mean, you know.

Let us not forsake our own assembling together, as is the habit of some.

But let us consider how to stir one another up toward love and good works.

That's what we're here to do.

To be stirred up toward love and good works, to encourage one another towards how to love more deeply and how to do good works together.

We have to receive that from each other.

I think that there's a way of assessing your Christian life, which is like, I feel like I'm not being, I feel like I can't conjure this up from within myself in order to live the type of Christian life that I would like to live.

And you're thinking of that wrong.

This isn't something that you conjure up within yourself.

This is something that you conjure up in each other.

This is something that you don't consider how to stir yourself up toward this.

You consider how to stir one another up toward love and good works.

How to encourage each other, how to hear the acts of service, how to hear the laying yourself down for one another, how to hear the commitment that you see in one another, and how to encourage that in one another and say, that's great, that's lovely, I love that, I aspire to that.

We have to encourage that in one another.

So they're devoted to the apostles' teaching to the fellowship, the breaking of bread.

Now, it's not translated like this for us, but in Greek it says the breaking of the bread.

This is not just meals.

There will be just meals later on where it says the breaking of bread.

But this one is the breaking of the bread.

This is sacramental language.

They're devoted to the apostles' teaching, to gathering together, and to having the Lord's supper together.

They are taking the sacramental meal together, which binds them and nourishes them, so that they know that we are together.

We are the ones that fellowship at this table.

What are we nourishing on?

It is the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

The word that they are hearing, they are also experiencing in the sacrament.

And the Holy Spirit is attending both of those things to knit them together in love.

The breaking of the bread and the prayers.

This means that they are praying as the Lord taught them to pray.

And they are praying as the apostles are teaching them to pray.

They are praying these new types of prayers, which are prayers in the name of Jesus, for the things that Jesus taught them to pray for.

They are praying for his kingdom to come.

They are praying for Jesus' will to be done.

They are praying for disciples to be made of all nations.

They are praying for their own daily bread.

They are praying that they would be delivered from evil, they'd be delivered from temptation.

They're praying that their sins would be forgiven, and they are offering forgiveness to one another in their prayers.

So this is the glory that we see of the early church, devotion to the apostles' teaching, to fellowship, the breaking of the bread, and the prayers.

And you think, how could I participate in something so glorious and wonderful?

You guys, this is just church.

This is just church.

That's what they're doing.

That's what it is.

This is not far from you.

The apostles' teaching, what do we teach on?

We teach the word of God.

That's what's so great about the apostles.

They bear authoritative witness.

They write scripture.

You know, I don't do that, but I teach scripture.

I'm not an apostle.

But I'm an elder.

And I can stand up and teach authoritatively the word of God, and you can sit and hear it.

And you can be devoted to it.

Devoted, you can still be devoted to the apostle's teaching.

You can do it in a Bible study.

You're gathered together and you're looking at what John wrote, his teachings.

You're saying, This will be the ground of my life.

Devoted to the fellowship.

This is where we gather together.

We sing together.

We learn how to sing psalms together.

We learn how to sing loud and praise the Lord together.

We try and find each other throughout the week and get little glimpses of time and you shoot texts to one another and offer encouragement and pray for each other.

Devoted to the fellowship, the breaking of the bread.

We gather, we this is where you receive the sacrament.

There's nowhere else you can go but the church to receive the sacrament of our Lord, which he promises to nourish us by, which he promises that this is the way that we partake of his body and of his blood, that we might be nourished in our spirit, built up in him, united at a covenantal meal together.

And the prayers.

We pray together, we recite the Lord's prayer together.

Even our singing is a form of prayer.

As we sing the Psalms, the way that the Lord has taught us to pray, we offer those prayers back to him.

You guys, this is not far.

This is not far from you.

This is right here.

It's right here.

It's happening.

You're doing it right now.

See, it's not a pummel text.

This is a great job.

You're already doing it right now.

You wonder what it feels like, this glorious thing that you have uh heard about in the scriptures here in Acts.

It feels like it feels like this.

Acts 2, 43, and awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

Awe comes upon every soul.

Awe is downstream of devotion.

Awe is not something that that this type of awe, it doesn't just happen to you.

It's downstream of devotion.

We often get this, we often it think of this in the opposite way.

If I saw something awesome enough, I would be devoted to it.

But you see awesome things all the time.

And it just kind of wears off, you know?

It just goes away.

This type of awe, the awe of seeing what the Lord is doing in his church, seeing the present activity of the Lord in his body, the church, requires devotion.

Otherwise, you will not be strong enough to receive it.

You will be too weak to receive the glory.

And you will look at the wonderful, glorious things that are taking place within the church, and you will in your heart be repulsed by them.

You won't like them.

You won't want to participate in them.

Because it will just look like a bunch of people who are in your way.

And you will look at it and think, I don't want more of that.

I don't want more people in the way of chronic pleasure.

But if you're devoted, on the other side of that death, you get to experience the awe that comes upon every soul.

And what they bear witness to is the many wonders and signs that are being done by the apostles.

What we'll see throughout Acts is that what the apostles do is exactly what Jesus did.

Their ministry will look exactly like Jesus' ministry.

That's because they are there to bear witness to Jesus' ministry, to make manifest by the same Holy Spirit the ministry that Jesus had been doing during his earthly ministry.

And so we'll get to see that happen.

And what they they there are many signs and many wonders.

There are healings that are taking place through the apostles.

And but I want you to know, we we don't need signs and wonders in the way that they did.

We have the testimony of them.

It's written down.

We know that it happened.

But I'm telling you, they're happening.

They're happening in our church.

There are people being prayed for and healed in our church.

There are marriages that were dead and they're alive in our church.

There are people that are that are coming in because of like glimmers and intuitions of I need to return to Jesus.

And they are being made alive again.

But you don't just, you know how you start to see those.

You can't see those in a glimpse.

That awe and that wonder is on the other side of devotion.

There are friendships and relationships that have been that have been so on the limit of utter destruction where you think this could never happen again.

And then by forgiveness, there's there's a wonder of glory of brotherhood and sisterhood that's been restored.

Do you know how many places you get to see that?

I they you know, I my impression from the coffee shop conversations I overhear is that that never happens.

That never happens.

I see it all the time.

I get to hear stories like that all the time.

It's amazing.

We're surrounded by them.

And then we see their generosity in verses 44 through 45.

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.

This is the part that we wish wasn't there.

It all sounded so fun and singy and clappy.

And then now we gotta give each other our stuff.

Look at how reoriented they are towards one another.

Look, these are not strangers to each other.

They're not strangers to each other.

They're going to the temple.

They're going to their synagogues, and they're worshiping together like this.

It means they were often part of the same synagogue for a long time, but now they see the fulfillment of the old covenant in Jesus Christ and the establishment of the new covenant, and it's transformed them in such a way where they're no longer just the folks that attend the same synagogue together anymore.

They're family now.

They're brothers and sisters now.

And so their needs, because of what they have become in Christ, because of the generosity that they recognize has been poured out to them lavishly by Jesus Christ, they look at one another and they say, You need anything?

I've got you.

You need anything, I've got you.

Man, I see that in this church so much.

I see that in this church like crazy.

You know, there's a when you're a part of a family, that means you have a floor that you're not allowed to fall believe that you're not allowed to fall beneath.

It's implicit or it's or it's explicit.

But it's basically the case.

Like there's if you're a part of this family, it's like, look, we're not gonna leave you destitute on the street.

It's not gonna happen.

You look at the homeless crisis that's that's plaguing our nation, but uh particularly our city, you know, it's so so plain and obvious to look at.

It's certainly a family crisis.

What what what type of a culture could there be so many people that have that have nobody to help pull them up?

There's no family to call on that can help pull them up.

This is obviously a catastrophe of having no family.

And what this church immediately becomes is a is a family to one another.

Your problems are my problems.

There's a floor we will not let you fall beneath.

And if there's if there's needs, how can I give to it?

How can I be a part of it?

Those needs are my needs now.

The church's needs are not the church's needs.

They're my needs.

So if those needs are there, I'm going to give to them.

Look at how what what their conversion to Jesus Christ.

Look at how it opened up their even their sense of their own possessions, their sense of the future.

You know, they to give your possessions is to make a bet that these possessions are not the things that fundamentally take care of me, but Jesus Christ is the one who fundamentally takes care of me.

And so I know that I can give of the things that He has given to me to take care of others because He will take care of me later when I need it.

They're totally reoriented.

This is a total conversion.

This is so hard for us to imagine as a culture that deeply worships money.

Deeply worships money.

We find the confirmation of who we are.

We find the uh safety and security that might be provided for us.

For the church to show this sort of transformation to us, it's like personally offensive, you know, but it's flowing from this glorious generosity.

Notice this is not compulsory giving.

This is not given by compulsion.

It is a recognition of how their relationships had have been transformed.

You know, this is not like a like if if I were to, if this were like Bible is lit class at CU Boulder, then the communist professor would be like, C.

Jesus was a communist, and then they do that thing that communist professors always do, which is like, now obviously I don't believe this.

I don't believe this, but Jesus already thinks the things that I think way more than Christians even do.

So you should think this.

And of course, I don't believe anything that the Bible says, but uh, I'm going to use it against you, Christian.

And uh you have to now think what I think, even though I think that it's silly.

That's what you should you should know that that's always happening to you.

You have to know that that's always happening to you.

Now, I'm not a Christian, but what the Bible actually says, if Christians actually read it, you know, then they would think what I already think about this.

And they should think that we should all be communists.

Now that's plainly false, right?

Because there's no like voting to have the government take other people's money to redistribute it, is not generous.

That requires no heart of generosity.

I'm not even making a comment on whether that's right or wrong.

It could be prudent in particular situations, but it's not generous.

It has nothing to do with generosity, it's a completely different sport.

Requires no generosity of heart to give other people's money.

I'll do it all the time.

Sometimes, I'll give you an example of when I'm not generous.

Often I'll go to lunch with someone from the church.

The church has a, we have a taking people out to lunch in the church budget.

When I pay for that lunch with that credit card, I'm not being generous.

That's not me being generous.

This is the money the church has given to support this.

We think that you will think this is good.

And that it's good to be able to eat together and to fellowship together.

When I Take that money that you all have given to buy lunch for some of you and myself, it requires no generosity.

Don't say thanks.

I'm not covering anything.

I don't think I'm being generous.

It's not a, it's not a it's the same sort of thing, but this, that's why this cuts.

That's why this actually cuts.

Because it's freely giving of our stuff for the needs of one another.

We cannot fully participate in fellowship with one another without giving to the body that we are all a part of.

We cannot.

We cannot.

If we are separate in our uh finances, if we are withholding from the church our giving, our tithe, then we will not get to experience the fullness of the fellowship that we're a part of.

There's no way.

You can't you can't do both.

It just it's not it doesn't shake out in the numbers.

They were able to do this because their hearts of generosity were in sp were, they they had inspired within them this generosity towards one another.

And they looked at one another, they said, I love what's happening here, I love what we're a part of.

I want any needs that are in the room to be taken care of, and I want to bet on the future of this community that there will be glorious glories to come.

Our church gives wonderfully, by the way.

Wonderfully, our church gives.

So this is this is uh once again, these are these things are not far from you.

These things are not far from you.

We're getting to experience this.

And then it says, 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.

What they practiced in their church gathering, like we were shown at first, flowed into their own lives.

You know, it's sort of funny that it this is even in here.

They uh breaking bread in their homes is not news.

That's like eating food at home.

They ate food in their homes.

This is what is this is no big deal.

It's one of those where it's like Luke, yeah, we kind of figured.

They ate food in their homes.

But what he's what he's showing is this this glory of what they practiced here, their fellowship here.

It f it's what their homes became like.

Their ordinary meals were now images of these sacramental meals, where they were gathered together in one another's homes and they they shared meals together with glad and generous hearts.

Come in, come eat with us.

Let's celebrate what's still happening here.

But I want you to see, see how this is not far?

How this is not far from us?

This is not some, you know, this is not some inaccessible thing that you'll have to become Amish to be able to participate in, or this is this is just like having meals in your homes.

You can do this with your own family.

You can sit down with your family, and with glad and generous hearts, you can enjoy the food that the Lord has given to you.

And you can read from the scriptures, and in you can you can sing songs together, sing songs of praises in your own homes.

You can teach your kids the word, and you can you can have worship together in your own homes.

And you can have hearts that are glad and generous.

You can pray for people that you know are having difficult times.

You can reach out and see if there's a way that you can be there for them, a way that you can help and bless them.

These things are not far from us.

They're glorious and wonderful, but they're it's just Luke recorded just eating food in their own homes.

These are not far.

These are beautiful things.

They received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.

This is a beautiful thing.

I'm there it is.

This is so humane.

This picture of the church is so deeply ordinary and human.

For us, it is it is glaring and jarring because we have so many opportunities.

The ordinary drift of our culture is to be become these chronic pleasure slaves.

But what I want us to recognize, because we can paint such a glaring image of this, and in like I'm able to paint such a dystopian, hopefully terrifying image of what's available to us.

But notice, notice, this was newsworthy in the first century.

This was a glorious picture of human fellowship in the first century.

Such that if you were a first century Roman with all the trappings of a traditional culture, you know, all the supportive trappings of a traditional culture, they would still walk by and they would say, Do you see their generosity towards one another?

I had a friend of mine that's kind of, I don't know, maybe he's getting caught up in this thing, but I'm gonna go check it out.

I'm gonna go check it out.

And they would go and they would have a meal in their home, and they would see the meal, and they and they would say, Hey, do you need leftovers?

Take more.

And think of what a meal is.

Think of inviting someone to your home, what a meal is.

It's it's messes and it's it's cutting things, and it's the other kids coming over and making a mess of your home, breaking things, you know, and there's smells and and there's drinks and there's trash and there's spills, and there's cleaning up, there's cleaning up afterwards, there's you and your wife looking at each other doing dishes really late, and it's like, oh man, I'm so tired.

You know, there's all that stuff.

That's all it is.

That's the glory, that's the wonder of it all.

That's that's what it actually looks like.

It's what it actually looks like.

And in the first century, they would walk by and see that with gladness, and they would say, I want to be a part of something like that.

How much more now?

How much more shocking now, how much more wonderful now?

Do you see this is not far from us?

And what happens then in the first century, when they weren't even on the brink of some absurd technocratic dystopia, you know, which I've heard can happen.

Sometimes that's where the church is.

And still people are vortexed into this.

And so what happens?

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

They had generosity of spirit because they were bringing others into it.

Said, you've got to be a part of this.

You have to come experience this.

You have to come feel what fellowship feels like.

There's a resistance to it because we're dangerous.

Uh a group of people is the most dangerous thing that you can be a part of.

There's nothing riskier than this.

Your your algorithm will not hurt your feelings.

If it does, it'll do so in such a way where if it feels as good getting used, use me up.

But we, us, gather together here.

This is high stakes.

This is dangerous.

This is dangerous.

Your feelings will get hurt, there you'll get sinned against, there's pain, there's discomfort, there's awkwardness, there's strangeness, there's all the things of bringing a group of people together.

There's all sorts of reasons to not do it.

All sorts of reasons to not do it.

And people have been trained to maximize on those reasons.

Oh man.

But a group of people gathered together under the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, desiring to participate in that by laying down their own lives for one another.

It's the most, you should, you, you have to see them just eat dinner.

You've got to see them just eat dinner.

I talked to someone in our church who just just started attending, and they described why they started coming to our church.

They said, I walked in, there were tons of kids running around, and I looked at the parents, and they and they looked happy.

Come on.

Come on.

This is not far from you.

This is beautiful.

You know what they say about parenting on in your algorithm?

It's not it's like everybody's complaining and stuff.

It's like, yeah, we get it.

We're tired.

It's not that big of a deal to be tired.

They added to their number day by day those who are being saved.

One last point about this.

This is a beautiful picture of the early church.

They haven't been attacked from the outside yet.

But as they add more to their number, they're taking up more space.

And as they take up more space, they're offending the sensibilities of the culture that they inhabit more and more.

And when that happens, they will first be told to stop, then they'll be told to stop and beaten, and then they will be killed.

This is what will happen when they're added together.

But each time that they experience that, they experience that opposition, we get another refrain in the Acts that sounds exactly like this one.

This fellowship is the engine and it is the resilience of the church.

This is not some happy naivety.

This is how the church continues functioning against incredible opposition.

Look at what Jesus, at the generosity Jesus has given us.

And it now that you see it, don't you want to try it?

Let's try it.

What else are you gonna try?

You know what other options are there?

Let's try this.

It's an aspirational text.

It's a beautiful thing.

Let's look at it and see its beauty.

Holy Father, we praise you that you that you did not come and save us into isolation with you somehow, Lord, but you saved us into a body of believers.

Lord, it seems so evident how this speaks to our hearts now.

This longing to be a part of a community of people is so fundamental and so deeply human and obvious, but it but we've forgotten it.

And even in my own heart, Lord, I feel such resistance towards the proximity that we see in this text.

Lord, I it's it's nerve-wracking.

Father, I pray I repent of that, Lord, and I pray that we would repent of that together as a church, so that we might see that when you show us good things, that we would see that they are good and beautiful, and that we would seek to participate in.

Lord, Lord, we thank you for how much of this you have given to our church already.

And Lord, we pray for more.

We pray that more people would be brought in to experience this.

We lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.