Analog Church 06: Fellowship is Generous

Acts chapter 2, verses 42 through 47.

Acts 2:42–47

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 proceeds to all as any had need.

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people.

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

This is the word of the Lord.

Please be seated.

Good morning.

Welcome to Church this morning.

My name is James Rathman.

I'm the lead pastor here at Redemption Church Denver.

Thanks for joining us this morning.

We are in the midst of our series called Analog Church.

We're going through the first four chapters of the Book of Acts, and we're looking at how the church in its earliest moment is like an analogy, an analog for how we can be the church today.

How can we, as the church today, us gathered together, live with that same sort of day one clarity that the early church had?

What would that look like and what would that mean for us?

And so far we've seen Jesus ascend to the right hand of the Father.

He sends his Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

And what that looked like was tongues of fire coming down onto the apostles and those that were gathered with them, and they began proclaiming the mighty works of God so that anyone in any language that was present was able to understand it.

So we see this incredible unity happen.

And in the midst of that sort of confusing situation, Peter stands up and he gives a sermon.

We spent the last two weeks looking at that sermon.

And Peter explains that what was happening at Pentecost is explained by both the Old Testament and that this has been predicted, it was prophesied beforehand in the Old Testament, that the Christ would come and that he would pour out his spirit onto the church.

And that that would be a transformational power, equipping us to be witnesses to this new reality, that Christ is king, and his kingdom is coming, and it's going to rule in all creation.

And secondly, that it this Christ was Jesus, who the people he's preaching to knew.

Likely they were just six weeks before gathered together chanting, crucify him, crucify him, about that very Jesus.

And so Peter explains all this in his sermon, and he's saying, see, we're all prophesying now, because this Jesus, who you crucified, God made both Lord and Christ, and he ascended to the throne, poured out his spirit, and he's making a church.

And this deep conviction falls on the hearts of the people who hear Peter's message, because they know that the one who is Lord and Christ is the one that they were earlier chanting, crucify him, crucify him.

It's this dramatic twist where they see that this most important person is the one that they had turned their lives against.

We talked about how that's something we can share in when we see that.

This morning, what happens then is what Peter offers is they say, Well, what should we do when they're filled with this deep conviction?

And Peter says, What you do is you repent and you put your faith in that same Christ you crucified.

Because by his blood we can receive the forgiveness of our sins.

This same Christ who we crucified, he isn't in heaven now exalted to pour out his vengeance on us, but our turning on him was the very means he used to accomplish our salvation.

The story's incredible.

I wish we could all hear it again for the first time, uh, because it's really a good story.

Um, but what happens is they repent, and 3,000 people repent and are baptized that day.

3,000 people all of a sudden saying, That Jesus, he's Lord in Christ.

He's the Lord of my life.

I know, I've experienced his spirit in this undeniable sort of way.

3,000 people is a lot.

3,000 people is a it's a town, it's like a it's a small city, it's a village, it a big village, small city, big village.

Uh and they gather together and what forms is this whole new type of culture.

It's a new community with new distinctives.

And those new distinctives are what we're going to be looking at today.

What happens when a group of people get the gospel?

How does that understanding of the gospel translate into the type of community that they make?

What does that community look like?

And that's what we're looking at today.

Uh so before we jump in, uh, would you mind praying with me so that we can be guided by the Spirit through this text?

Father, I pray that you would attend this time.

I pray that by your spirit you would apply this text to our hearts.

And Lord, I ask that with this picture of the glory of your early church, you would inspire us.

Lord, would this early church be a city on a hill to us that we look up at and say, look, look at this incredible thing that can be accomplished by God's Spirit.

And Lord, would you give us just hope against hope that that we might uh become a church like that?

Truly become a church like that.

Lord, I lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So uh I I really love Aaron Sorkin.

Does anybody know who that is?

West Wing.

West Wing, yeah, exactly.

So he wrote uh The West Wing, he wrote uh Social Network, he wrote Few Good Men.

You can't handle the truth.

He wrote uh uh was there another?

Newsroom.

Newsroom, yeah, exactly.

So here's the thing.

Uh I love Aaron Sorkin, I unabashedly love Aaron Sorkin.

I love every show and movie that he makes.

Uh if Aaron Sorkin wrote it, I'm gonna go watch it, and I'm going to listen to the smartest, most attractive people in the world talk very, very, very fast back and forth with one another while they walk through halls of a building.

And because that's all Aaron Sorkin movies and shows are.

Uh it now here's the thing.

It's I loved the show Newsroom, and this is it was this it was kind of a tiny show, it was on HBO.

Um and uh it's not cool to like the show newsroom.

So, for example, here's a uh review of the show from the Huffington Post.

Uh everything about it is overblown or undercooked to the point of being laughable.

That was the description.

And uh I I l I love it though.

I love that show.

And the reason that it's so laughable is because um, well, uh think of it like this.

I did any of you watch House of Cards?

You shouldn't watch that show, we're Christians.

So of course you watch House of Cards.

And uh House of Card uh uh the West Wing that Aaron Forkin wrote, it's like the exact opposite of House of Cards.

So House of Cards is this political drama where everyone is trying to uh just like garner their own power and there's a lot of intrigue and it's like Macbeth.

Um but uh the West Wing is where everyone is the most selfless person you've ever met.

And they are all so genuine in their beliefs, and they it paints this, it's like the it's like high fantasy.

It's like uh Lord of the Rings or something, it's like this high fantasy story of the West Wing of the White House where everyone is just working so hard for the good of the American people.

It's uh it's a fantasy, um, of course, but uh it but it's it's amazing.

And and I think why we find his shows in newsrooms the same.

It's like this news organization where everybody just wants to convey the truth to their viewers because that's the only hope of democracy, and it doesn't matter if our show's ratings go down, we're just gonna try and tell the truth, and there's no such organization.

Um but uh Aaron Sorkin writes these fantasies with these characters that that have these clear ideals, and then then they try and express those ideals out into the world.

And so they are they're idealists.

And I think that that's why he often gets such bad reviews.

That's why, because when we see idealists working together, it looks like they're it's overblown or it's undercooked.

This is just laughable.

That's not what life is like.

Life isn't like a group of people gathered together, you know, they're bantering back and forth to try and get the best idea, to pass the best policy in the White House, to make the best news story.

We don't see communities that are really like that.

And so when we depict communities like that, it's like that's laughable.

This is it's kind of honestly, it's kind of corny.

It's cheesy.

It it's not like uh, you know, it's not like something like House of Cards, where it's like, yeah, this is gritty.

We use terms like gritty and real.

But for Aaron Sorkin, it's corny and cheesy.

Uh I I love his shows.

Because when I watch them, I say, that's a team that I would love to be a part of.

I I want to be a part of that team of idealists that are working hard together towards this good end, towards something that that seems to really matter in the world.

I want to be a part of a team like that.

And if it's cheesy, if it's corny, who cares?

All be cheesy and corny.

That seems worth it to me.

To be cheesy and corny, to see this good thing, this good community working towards another better good in the world.

He shows her preachy, which I obviously don't have a problem with.

They're uh uh they're you know, they're just sometimes they're they're just cheesy.

Uh when we look at the depiction of the church this morning, and we see they're overwhelmed with this joy and generosity, and they're constantly gathering together and they're sharing food together, and it no one had any need among them because the rich were going and selling their possessions to give to the poor as any had need.

When we look at that type of a community, what we start doing when we read passages like that is we start saying, yeah, that was great for back then.

I'm sure that type of exciting moment could have happened back then, perhaps, but really in the real world now, that's just cheesy and it's corny and it can't happen.

That can't actually take place.

What we need is something that's more gritty, more real, and so we we we immediately get so frightened of the implications of their generosity, of their giving, that the first thing we do is like, yeah, but uh we should still own land, because if they could sell land, that meant they owned land, and and so we can still be owners, just like we are now, and everything can stay exactly the same as it is now, and this is fine for the church in the 21st century.

Instead, what if we what if we like it dialed down our cynicism just a little bit for a moment this morning?

Dial down your cynicism just a little bit.

Look at just what it was.

Look at what the church was and see what if what if that really happened?

What if I could be a part of a community like that?

What if I belong to a group of people that moved with this incredible generosity and openness with each other?

To see good things happen in the world.

What would my life feel like if that could really happen, if this wasn't a fantasy?

Dial back your cynicism a little bit this morning, because we're gonna have to in order to see the text as it is.

Without just thinking, well, this is just too good to experience.

What we're gonna look at is Acts 2.42.

Now, this verse is basically the outline of the rest of the paragraph.

In it uh Luke gives this clear description of what was happening in the church, and that'll become the outline of our sermon.

So he says in Acts 2.42, and they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and the prayers.

So they become Christians, they receive the Holy Spirit, and immediately what forms amongst them?

They devote themselves to one, to the teaching of the apostles.

And secondly, they devote themselves to the fellowship, they become devoted to each other.

And then they become devoted to the Lord's Supper.

They become part of this fellowship, is they become devoted to sharing meals together.

And then part of what they become devoted to is they become devoted together to prayer.

So there's four things that we're gonna look at.

Their devotion to teaching, to the fellowship, to the Lord's Supper, and to prayer.

So, first of all, devoted to the apostles' teaching.

So the apostles' teaching, which is what we were just given an example of, as we saw in Peter's sermon over the last two weeks, they become devoted to understanding this gospel, this new gospel that they had just heard and received.

They had this incredible spiritual experience.

And I mean spiritual literally, like they had an experience of the Holy Spirit falling on them.

They're seeing this incredible act take place, but it doesn't make them anti-intellectual.

They don't start to worship those types of experiences.

What they're driven to is an understanding of what has taken place in the apostles' teaching.

They're saying something happened that's crazy and outlandish and outlandish and incredible.

Uh we're gonna devote ourselves to being able to understand this and grasp the depths of this story.

And the second thing that we see in that is they're devoted not just to teaching generally, or not just to uh the uh prophecy of the Holy Spirit that was being brought through everyone, but uniquely to the apostles' teaching.

The apostles is this group of people that had been selected by Jesus to bear witness to his name, and it's them who become responsible for the penning of the New Testament.

And so by being devoted to particularly the apostles' teaching, what they're being devoted to is the authoritative word of God.

We have that same thing.

We have the apostles' teaching.

It's it's sitting in your phone right now.

You know, it's it's on your nightstand.

We have the apostles' teaching in the Bible.

And look at look at what happens in the apostles' teaching.

It says, this is the next verse, verse 243.

It says, and awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

See, they're devoted to the apostles' teaching, these wonders and signs that are confirming the authority of the apostles' teaching.

What does it lead to in get this?

This isn't a vague communal experience.

This is something that's happening in every soul.

They're filled with awe.

They're filled with awe and wonder at the as they look at at the teaching that they're receiving from the apostles, just as we can be filled with awe and wonder as we look and we behold the scriptures.

When you read your Bible, are you filled with awe?

What is awe?

It's a tough thing to define.

I know what awe is until you ask me what it is, and then I have no idea.

That's a quote from St.

Augustine.

The quote is about time.

I just switched it for awe.

It's the same sort of thing.

And when we try and pin down something like awe, we know what it is when we just say it, but when we try and really describe it, it's tough to describe.

Let's try and put some meat on it.

You know, we we gather around in stadiums to watch football games.

Um they always say, like, don't use football analogies in church, because a lot of people don't like football, but I've discovered that's not really the case in our church.

Um what happens when we're filled with awe?

We're filled with awe when when we see something that is so beyond our abilities.

And we're filled with awe when when a moment is created where there's there's it seems like the outcome is is inevitable.

And then there's this amazing turn towards victory.

We're filled with awe when the margins for success are really thin and there's moments left on the clock.

Uh Tim Tebow, who became famous as backup quarterback of the Jets, uh also, a lot of people don't know this, played football in college.

And he played for the University of Florida, and at that time my sister was attending the University of Florida.

And uh we went to this one game uh where they were playing Tennessee, and we were the we were sitting in one end zone, and they were on they were on a drive.

The gators with Tebow at the helm were on a drive uh in at the opposite end in another end zone, and uh it's third down, and uh Tebow backs up and we just see like the ball just fly into the air.

And it's like, oh man, something bad happened.

This isn't that's not gonna work.

And then we see the other side of the stadium just erupt in this applause, and like slowly the applause makes its way around, and we're like, something good must have happened.

And so we're cheering for the cheering, hoping that they were right about their cheering.

And uh later we like watching the replays and stuff on the screen.

Uh it Tebow was like like he backed up, and instead of playing football like normal, he just starts to play basketball and he jumps up and he just makes like a jump shot into the end zone and somebody catches it and they score a touchdown.

That was amazing.

Jump shot pass, you can YouTube it, it's incredible.

That caused awe.

And it caused awe because the the means of success the the margins for success were so thin at that point.

And the the the success came in this incredibly unlikely way.

And it fills us with awe when we see events like that.

When if you're reading the Bible and you aren't filled with awe, you're reading it wrong.

And here's probably how you're reading it.

You're reading it and you're sifting through, and you're you're kind of sifting it through this filter.

And you're hoping that like a couple of verses get stuck, that you can just make your life verse.

And it's like you're shaking it through, and it's like, the Lord's loving kindness towards me is really the best ever.

I'm gonna keep that one.

Um, and what you're missing is that, and those are good, right?

But there's what you're missing is like the Israelites are running for their lives, carrying all of the Egyptian stuff, and then they they're following Moses, and then the the sea is in front of them.

And so what's gonna happen?

And then all of a sudden, God's like, I'm gonna just part the sea.

And then he parts the sea, and they walk through on dry land, and the Egyptians are coming behind them, you know, in real time, and while the Egyptians are like, all right, I guess let's go that way too, and then God closes the ocean back in on them, and they're covered up.

The margins of success were so thin, so unlikely.

And yet God performs this event that we'd never seen before.

Nothing like that had ever happened in history before.

And it should fill us with awe and wonder at these events in this story.

You know, what else causes awe?

There's love when it's finally realized and when it finally happens.

Look at the movies that you watch.

You know, you've never seen a romantic comedy that doesn't end with running to the airport.

Because what causes awe is when the margins for success are so thin.

So they they have to be almost leaving in order for us to experience it.

And they run to the airport, and it's just a girl standing in front of a guy telling her that she loves him.

It's Notting Hill, is the reference if you're looking for it.

It's the best romantic comedy.

And um they connect.

But if the margins for success weren't that thin, there wouldn't be that awe.

But you don't you see this is what we see in the gospel?

This is that same picture.

They're filled with awe at what they just witnessed because they're seeing, like, wait a minute, the man we killed who was just a man to us.

And more than that, he was our enemy.

We made him our enemy.

He is Lord in Christ.

By his blood I'm saved.

The margins for success so that I might ever make it to God were so thin, and he chased after us and laid down his own life that by his blood we might be rescued and saved?

They're full of awe and wonder.

Are you seeing the story?

Do you hear the gospel?

Do you see that your life is a thread hanging over the pits of hell?

You're suspended by a promise of God, a promise that Jesus' blood worked to cover your sin.

Has that affected you?

Do you have awe because of that?

Are you amazed by the suspension of what you're hanging over and that you're held by the promise of God, that He would take on the punishment of your sin for you?

This is the story we're in.

And they discover it in this incredible way.

And granted, the way that they discover it is amazing.

Right?

The early churches experience, the Pentecost event, it's so present to them that you expect this type of intense reaction, this type of intense awe to form in the community.

But where does it come from?

It came from their devotion to the apostles' teaching.

We have that same thing.

We have that same thing to create this awe that captivates our hearts.

What the awe produces is fellowship.

That's the next part in the verse.

We'll go back to Acts 2.42.

We're just going to keep circling back to this verse.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship.

That's the next thing.

And what I want to show is that the awe is what produces the fellowship.

Where there's not fellowship, there's a lack of awe in the gospel or towards the gospel.

Now, why is that?

Why is it that awe is what makes fellowship?

It's because fellowship comes from two people not looking at each other, but looking at something outside of them and agreeing about it.

And the intensity of that agreement about this outside thing is what forms the intensity of the bond between the two people.

C.S.

Lewis, in a very long quote, I'm gonna read the whole thing, uh, in his book, The Four Love, says this.

I've referenced this quote several times, um, and probably will a lot more, uh, because it's such a helpful principle.

He describes this as friendship.

Uh, another great quote from C.S.

Lewis about friendship.

Sorry, I'm stalling, and you're already reading.

I'll just wait.

Another great quote about friendship with C.S.

Lewis is he says it's probably responsible for about half of all the happiness in the world.

I think that's true.

He says, friendship arises out of mere companionship, when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share, and which till that moment each believed to be his own unique treasure or burden.

The typical expression of opening friendship would be like, would be something like, what?

You two?

I thought I was the only one.

We can imagine that among those early hunters and warriors, single individuals, one in a century, one in a thousand years, saw what others did not.

Saw that the deer was beautiful as well as edible, that hunting was fun.

That's why like no one's here this morning.

As that hunting was fun as well as necessary, dreamed that his gods might be not only powerful but holy.

But as long as each of these percipient persons dies without finding a kindred soul, nothing, I suspect, will come of it.

Art or sport or spiritual religion will not be born.

It is when two such persons discover one another.

When, whether with immense difficulties and semi-articulate fumblings, or with what would seem to us amazing in elliptical speed, they share their vision, it is then that friendship is born.

And instantly they stand together in an immense solitude, alone together.

Do you see the picture that he describes?

Friendship is born, it's discovered.

When this mutual interest is discovered, he when the hunter says, you know, I think the deer is delicious and also beautiful.

And the other one says, I think they're beautiful too.

And all of a sudden there's this friendship there.

And when it's imagine the heights of that when what you're seeing is the gospel.

When what you're seeing is the greatest revelation that God has made of himself to humanity.

Not to overstate things, but that sounds pretty good.

The greatest revelation that God has made of himself to humanity is demonstrated in this, that Christ died for us, that we might be saved, that the margins of success for humanity were so thin, but the hero came.

And at the perfect moment, he gave himself that we might be freed.

Gaze into this gospel with awe.

Speak about it, share the experiences of it in your life with each other, and you'll know what you'll discover?

Friends.

In that you'll find I can have friends.

Friends that are bound by this incredible commonness, a commonness that transcends all of the other things that I felt like I needed to have in common with someone.

Now I find that there's something beneath those.

There's something that makes all of those other common things seem trivial.

And so your lives start to become shared with one another.

You need to track this.

It starts with the awe.

And it's the awe that produces the friendship.

Look at what happens.

In verses 2, 44 to 45, it says, 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.

I jumped ahead.

But I'm gonna revisit this quote after that verse.

Sound good, Elliot?

Cool.

So all who believe were gathered together and had all things in common.

They're selling their possessions and belongings, distributing as any had need.

Look at this generosity that takes place.

In their commonness, they start to fill each other's needs.

And the filling of their needs, the metric that they're using isn't, okay, we're gonna apportion it and everybody gets, you know, an equal amount from this offering.

No, the person who needed the most got the most.

They gave in such a way where it was just if you have need, look, I see you.

And I see your need.

And I see this commonness that we share, that we are, we were both recently, by no faults of our own, adopted by God, which means we're family now.

So your need is my need.

And so I'm just gonna take care of it.

And people were doing these incredibly sacrificial things.

They were looking at their own possessions.

Think of your own possessions.

Look at them.

They were thinking, I'll just get rid of them.

I'll just sell them.

Then I won't have those.

And then my my new family member, I'll just cover their need.

Because look at what we have in common.

We have this thing in common that is so important, and beyond that, it is uh the very thing that we have in common is a gift.

It's an offer of free grace that we did nothing to receive, and our wonder at that is inspiring this generosity.

If we look at the word, the early word at verse 42, the word for fellowship, it's the word koinonia.

Um and I don't know Greek, so I'm gonna bring on stage someone who does.

His name is John Stott, and I'm gonna read his quote.

He says, Koinonia from koinos, which means common, koinonia, the word for fellowship, bears witness to the common life of the church in two senses.

First, sense number one of koinonia, it expresses what we share in together.

This is God Himself.

For our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ, and there is the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

Thus, koinonia is a Trinitarian experience.

It is our common share in God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Look at the first understanding of fellowship.

It is that we all share in common this fellowship with God.

What is the good news?

It's that our sin no longer keeps us from God, but it has been removed from us as far as the East is from the West, so that we can come to God freely as we are now.

And with that, we have this immediate fellowship with God.

That's something that we share as a community and as individuals.

We share this fellowship with God.

Second, the second point of koinania.

But secondly, koinonia also expresses that we share out together, that we give as well what we give as well as what we receive.

Koinonia is the word Paul used for the collection he was organizing among the Greek churches.

And koinonokos, koinonikos is the Greek word for generous.

What does fellowship mean?

Fellowship means generous.

It means we have this awe.

And in order to truly express that awe amongst our community, we must be generous.

I want you to see that these distinctives of this gospel-shaped community, they aren't nice things that they sort of added on, but they all flow from this shared experience of and understanding of the gospel.

And that when there is that shared experience of and understanding of the gospel, this necessarily is the type of community that forms, which means it's a good diagnostic.

If this type of community isn't forming, then we can go back upstream and we can say we don't get the gospel.

We don't understand it.

We haven't heard and understood the grace of God in truth.

Because when we hear and understand the grace of God in truth, it bears fruit and it multiplies.

That's a necessary implication of understanding the gospel.

Another as we see here is that it creates a fellowship.

And that fellowship is marked by generosity.

Generosity of heart, generosity of time, which means you have and you build in time for one another, generosity of money, which means you look at your finances and you assess the needs of the community that you are part of, and you and you give.

You share out and you receive.

This is what fellowship means.

It's literally what the word means.

Fellowship is generosity.

John Chrysostom is this very old preacher, like the second century, which was a good one.

He describes this type of community.

He says this was an angelic Commonwealth.

Not to call anything of theirs their own.

Forthwith, that's a term they use in the second century, the root of evils was cut out, none reproached, none envied, none grudged, no pride, no contempt was there.

The poor man knew no shame, the rich no haughtiness.

That's a type of community that the gospel creates because it's grounded in generosity.

The next thing fellowship does is eat.

It's where we are now.

If we continue on, if we continue on, it says, and day by day, in verse 46, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts.

It seems uh it seems just like a fact of humanity that in order to have fellowship, we have to eat together.

I don't know how to get around that in Scripture.

I I think it's really there.

Like in order to have fellowship with each other, we have to, we have to eat together.

We have to share a meal together.

We have to sit down at the same table as equals and eat together.

And they do this.

It was so important that they that Luke actually records it as like a thing they did.

And what I think he's also referring to is the actual institution of the Lord's Supper, which we perform every Sunday.

And you need to look at these rhythms that they had.

This community became part of the normal rhythms of their life, so that they would gather formally and informally.

They would take the Lord's Supper on formal occasions, in institutional ways, like we do when we gather large on Sunday mornings.

We come together, just as they would go gather in the temple.

We come together and we have a formal rhythm in our lives to reinforce this fellowship that we're a part of, or better yet, to express this fellowship that we're a part of.

And they gather informally.

They gather just in each other's homes throughout the week, eating informal meals that are like the Lord's Supper because of the heart that they bring to them.

Listen to the way it describes their meals.

They were breaking bread in their homes.

They received their food with glad and generous hearts.

What if our meals looked like that?

This is what a gospel-shaped church looks like.

This is what people who are in awe of Christ look like.

When you go into their homes, you're eating food and you're in a company of people that are receiving their meals with glad and generous hearts.

Gladness, happiness, joy.

These are the markers and hearts of generosity because we understand so deeply this fellowship and commonness that we have with one another.

This picture is so good.

It's better than the West Wing.

This picture is so good.

If they made a show like this, we would call it cheesy and we would call it corny.

Look at how happy they are every time they gather together.

Nobody's that happy.

Look at what life really is.

If we looked at what life really is, there would never be that type of gladness and generosity.

It's just cheesy.

And we'd write bad reviews about it, and we'd talk about how dumb it is and how it's a bad show, but we'd what we'd watch it every Thursday.

Because we just want to feel a part of something like that.

We want to sit down with people who are glad and generous.

This is the community that the gospel creates.

The next thing that this does, so we see their formal rhythms and their informal rhythms.

Look, we're our our church, we're trying to be kind of a knockoff, right?

I mean, we gather together like this on Sunday mornings, and then we're trying to, we're launching these redemption groups where you gather in each other's homes.

This is this was not like our idea.

These formal and informal rhythms of fellowship in your lives.

Next, they're devoted to the prayers.

Again, 242, keep tracking through, devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, the fellowship, breaking of bread, and the prayers.

In verse 47, we see what their prayers, the shape of them.

They are praising God.

Their prayers are full of this praise of the one who they see has rescued them.

They gather together to pray and praise, enjoying the immediate fellowship that they can have with the Lord.

And we see also in this verse that they were having favor with all people, which means even those outside of them.

Which means that these gatherings, they were not closed, but they were open.

Because the joy that they were experiencing them, experiencing in them was something that they desired to bring other people into.

And that's normal.

When you're in awe of something, you're looking for other people to share it with.

And rarely is that number ever satisfied.

It's never quenched.

When I discovered that the McDonald's app gave out free fries every Friday, I don't think there was a person I knew that I didn't tell that to.

That's what life is like.

When we see something amazing, we share it.

And we want other people to be brought into it.

So the Lord added their numbers, day by day, those who are being saved.

You see, the community was the outreach.

We often pit those terms against each other.

You're either doing community or you're doing outreach.

The community, the love gathered together, the awe of who Christ is that forms this community.

That's what does the outreach.

When you see something like that, when a community is functioning like that, and people come into it, then they're able to see what the glory of God can look like in tangible ways.

So where are we?

This morning.

Are we this type of community?

Can we be?

Is this the type of community you'd want to be a part of if you could?

If you knew of a community like this, would you try and join?

Would you surround yourself with that type of people?

With glad and generous hearts?

Sharing your whole lives together.

I get that's nerve-wracking.

In order to do that, you're gonna have to reach down and find a depth of generosity with your time.

And that can happen with an awe of who Christ is.

Would you want your kids to grow up in a place like that?

You know, throughout the whole Old Testament, God is forming for Himself a community.

He's building, He's picking a people for his own possession, and he chooses this one nation, the Israelites, and he gives them all these instructions.

And when we read them, we're like, oh my gosh, this is so heavy-handed.

But then when you really look, it's like, well, half of these are just festivals and celebrations.

That doesn't seem too bad.

It's a lot of days off if you're an Israelite.

And when you read through these festivals and celebrations, you see, oh, this is pointing towards a community that's just like the one we see spontaneously happen in the book of Acts.

One of the things that was written into law in Leviticus 25 and Deuteronomy 15 is this idea that every 50 years there's a year of jubilee.

And the year of Jubilee meant that all your debts were paid, and that any who had need, they would be covered.

And that we would all once again stand as equals before the Lord.

That was in the law, that was commanded to happen every 50 years in Israel.

That was a part of their economic structure.

It never happened.

They never did it.

I think we've seen a lot of churches like that.

This is a part of our DNA as a church.

This is built in.

When we have day one clarity, we look like this fellowship of people that are generously committed to each other.

Alright, you ready for things to get real?

I've titled the section Transparency.

Right now, Redemption Church Denver has$25,000 in the bank.

We have no debt.

Cool.

We have$25,000.

Our monthly need to exist, to turn the lights on, and for Zach and I to keep showing up, hopefully without much of a pay cut, is$37,000.

So look, I I'm no accountant.

But here's what I want you to know of where we are as a church.

We're paycheck to paycheck.

We're month to month.

And here's why that doesn't make me nervous.

The early church had no floor to stand on.

There was no backlog of cash that they moved with.

They spontaneously started and filled the need.

Giving has been considerably down throughout the course of the transition.

And look, I get it.

It's been complicated and confusing.

But we've made it.

We've transitioned.

And right now, I think God, at this early stage in our church, our new church, Redemption Church Denver, I think God brings us into these moments of radical dependence in our early stages.

So that when we understand the church we are, the church we're a part of, in order for it to exist, in order for this fellowship to happen, we just need to look at each other and say, this is going to move on our generosity together.

If we weren't financially backed up like this, sort of backed up into a corner like this, we wouldn't have this opportunity of a moment like this to say, you know what, right now, us together, we're gonna lay the foundation for our church.

We're going to give generously.

Now, look, I planned out these sermon series at like this time last year.

And we separated the bank accounts and got all of our money in order and realized, oh, we've got we've got less than a month's worth of need on hand.

That happened Monday.

So this wasn't like some grand scheme of like I'm gonna preach X2, the end of it, where there's this big spiel on generosity.

That was just providence.

But we need to hear that call.

I want you to know.

We need to know exactly where we are because this is us.

Right now, 90% of our giving is done by 10 families.

Excuse me, 12.

90% of our giving is done by 12 families.

Zach and I are two of them.

That sucks.

It's called letting it simmer.

And here's the deal.

Look, we haven't done much teaching on giving.

And this is not a condemnation.

Okay?

Please, please, please don't hear it that way.

And this is not a, like, when I say I'm not nervous, I really mean it.

I trust what God's doing here.

I trust that we'll cash flow.

But you need to know where we really are.

And there's only one way that that happens, and that's by us contributing, by us being generous.

And to be honest, it makes me nervous and it ramps up the pressure.

And I want you to know how I want to attack this so that we can lay a foundation for our church to continue to thrive and exist.

I want to do my best to pray for and inspire a sense of awe at the apostles' teaching.

Because that's where it starts.

That's where our generosity and our fellowship, that's where it all flows from.

It flows from this look at Christ and seeing this awe and wonder, and then seeing this image of what type of community we could be a part of.

That's our hope for now.

So our target is$42,000 a month.

That's up there.

That's L2's old run rate.

So we're just transitioning over our expenses from L2.

And our big hairy audacious goal, which is a term I learned this week as it was delivered as an acronym, and I was like, what's a bag?

Is 50K a month.

And here's why.

We're done sustaining.

We're just done sustaining as a church.

It's time to look at the gospel and look at our city.

And to bring the gospel into our city, to bring others to share in on this wonder.

Look at what we have, this incredible treasure.

It's time to share it.

So I hope you can hear our heart in this.

I'm going to end with a last quote from our friend John Stott.

He says, There's no need for us to wait as the 120 had to wait for the Spirit to come.

For the Holy Spirit did come on the day of Pentecost and has never left his church.

Our responsibility is to humble ourselves before his sovereign authority, to determine not to quench him, but to allow him his freedom.

For then our churches will again manifest those marks of the Spirit's presence, which many young people are especially looking for, namely biblical teaching, loving fellowship, living worship, and an ongoing, outgoing evangelism.

Do you want to be a part of a community like that?

It's right in front of our faces.

We can do this.

By his spirit.

Let's follow him, not quench him.

Okay, I'll take one question.

Is the breaking of bread in verses 42 through 47 viewed as the Lord's Supper because of the term, because of that term in Luke's gospel, or for some other reason?

It's because of that term in Luke's gospel.

Luke uses that as sort of a technical term.

Whew, that was a softball.

So, yeah, that's the reason that it's viewed as the Lord's Supper.

Luke uses that technically.

Okay.

Gather in your minds this image of the church that we've seen.

Dial down your cityism, crank up your hope.

Don't you want to be a part of that?

Let's do it.

I want to be a part of that.

I want my son to grow up in a church like that.

All right, let's pray.

Father, I pray that we might be filled with a knowledge of your will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.

That we might walk in a manner that's worthy of you, that's fully pleasing to you.

Father, that we might bear fruit in every good work, and that we might increase in the intimate knowledge of you.

Father, would you produce in us an awe of your glory in Christ in the gospel?

God, would that awe lead to a fellowship?

Would it become a part of the rhythms of our lives?

We would praise you in our prayers.

Lord, we are your people.

Let us not quench your spirit, but let us follow your spirit into who you're calling us to be.

Father, we trust you in this.

Lift this up in Jesus' name.

Amen.