The New Community

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The last few weeks we have embarked on a journey touring through the great book of Acts.  We looked at this incredible event at Pentecost where the promised Spirit invades the Church to empower and equip the Church to revolutionize this world through the gospel of Jesus Christ.  After Pentecost, Peter delivers the Gospel by preaching of Christ’s life, His death, His resurrection, His exaltation as He sits at the right hand of God as Lord of all creation and King of His people.  Peter preaches the offer of salvation for all who would lay down their agenda (repent) and believe in Jesus Christ.  Two gifts are promised to those who trust in Christ by faith: the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Spirit.  As, Peter preaches to a large group the church grows in one message from 120 to 3,120.  For the next 250 years, the Gospel swept the most powerful empire in the world and turned it upside down without war, without political power, without economic strength or social status.  One of the questions we’ve been asking as we look at this explosion is why?  Why did the church have such a different impact in their day?  We’ve noted that the reason was that the Spirit came in great power to a waiting people who realized that the world was never going to be the same.  They expected more of the Spirit than we do.  They experienced more of the power of the Gospel than we are.  And it isn’t because they were closer to the events of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.  This would assume that with time the Spirit loses energy and gets tired.  It’s because their view of the world and what these events meant were seen as comprehensive in scope and not compartmentalized into a nice neat box to open when they felt a spiritual urge.    They were cut to the heart.  Look again at Acts 2:37-39 from last week, Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself."  For them, everything had changed and they no longer saw their lives for themselves, but for God and for this world.  The idea of a comfortable little privatized faith was simply absent from the Church because the view of Pentecost and of Jesus’ Lordship and reign had a cosmic impact.  Nathan Cole describes the experience this way, "My hearing [the good news of Jesus] gave me a heart wound. By God's blessing, my old foundation was broken up, and I saw that my righteousness would not save me."  As we think about the early church, we realize that (Big Idea) Revolutionary MOVEMENTS begin in the HEART.  Acts is the historical document the shows us what happened during the early formation of the church so that we might look back and ask ourselves if we carry the same vital signs as the early Church.   So, since this is such a great litmus test for you and me to examine our own lives and church, we are looking for signs of their life to see if those same signs are in ours. 

In our passage today, we see the results of these new Christians who were cut to the heart and in that incision were given new life and formed a new community.   The question we have to ask ourselves when we look at a passage like this is simple but profound, “how do we know the new life is here?”  “How do we know we’ve really been cut to the heart?” This passage is filled with signs of life through which we could easily preach seven weeks as we break them down. I don’t want to do that though; I want to put them all together since they’re meant to be together.  I want us to see them as inseparable.  So, what are the vital signs of a revolutionary church?  Look with me at Acts 2:40-47, And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.  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.

The first vital sign is RELENTLESS EVANGELISM.  The early church didn’t shy away from calling people to turn from their godless ways to a new and living way through Jesus Christ.    They were called to repent and be baptized to publically acknowledge their faith in Jesus.  The result was people coming to faith by the thousands as they received the witness of the disciples and responded to the call to faith.  Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1:18, For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

The second vital sign is THEOLOGICAL DEPTH.   The early church trained and educated it’s members.  This doctrine was eaten up by the early church.  They studied it, submitted to it, meditated upon it, and couldn’t get enough of it.  They met everyday to dive deeper and deeper. You couldn’t keep them away and you didn’t have to talk them into to going to a Bible study.  You didn’t need to lay a guilt trip on them because they were deeply devoted to the Apostles’ doctrine, the Scriptures.  C.S. Lewis puts the need for theological depth pretty bluntly, “God is no fonder of intellectual slackers than of any other slackers. If you are thinking of becoming a Christian, I warn you [that] you are embarking on something which is going to take the whole of you, brains and all.”

The third vital sign is INTIMATE RELATIONSHIPS.  The early church gathered together constantly.  They couldn’t stay away from each other.  They experienced relationships of mutual support and fellowship.  They gathered in both small group and large group meetings.   Eugene Peterson describes the need for these relationships this way, “Love cannot exist in isolation: away from others, love bloats into pride. Grace cannot be received privately: cut off from others, it is perverted into greed. Hope cannot develop in solitude: separated from the community, it goes to seed in the form of fantasies. No gift, no virtue can develop and remain healthy apart from the community of faith. ‘Outside the church there is no salvation’ is not ecclesiastical arrogance but spiritual common sense, confirmed in everyday experience”.

 

The fourth vital sign is PREVALENT DISCIPLINES.  When the church gathered, they practiced the ordinances of baptism, the Lord’s Supper and prayer constantly.  We see that those who came to faith were baptized in verse 41.  This was the norm in the early church.  Also, we see in verse 42, the key indicator of this being a discipline is the word “the” before the “breaking of bread.”  They also spent much time in prayer which occurred, in both homes and large public gatherings. 

 

The fifth vital sign is SACRIFICIAL GIVING.  The early church practiced radical stewardship, economic sharing, and “benevolence” ministry at least within the community.  People got practical financial and material help for their needs.  Ambrose (theologian and church leader, 4th century) wrote: "There is your brother, naked and crying! And you stand confused over the choice of an attractive floor covering."

 

The sixth vital sign is JOYOUS WORSHIP.  There was a genuine spirit of joy and praise which permeated every meeting at every level.  Their hearts were overflowing from all that they were seeing the Lord do and all that He had done in their lives.  This inward joy spilled out into a corporate worship that was captivating.  Peter in his first letter describes the reason behind this kind of worship, But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

 

The seventh and final vital sign is RAPID MULTIPLICATION.  The early church was evangelistically effective in the extreme, with new conversions everyday.  These conversions were not seen individualistically, but when a person was saved they were “added to their number.”  They were incorporated into deep relationships to the church body, not just to the Lord. There have been at least sixty thousand churches planted in the United States alone in the last two decades.  It is clear that the healthiest churches are the churches that are reproducing.  Through his research in his book Viral Churches, Ed Stetzer concludes that “simple, small replicable units are how the kingdom is best advanced.”

 

We shouldn’t be getting together simply because we like to get together because we have some spiritual stuff in common, but because we have to join together with others who see this same beauty in Jesus and we can express it together and complete our joy as a new community in Christ.  (Big Idea) Revolutionary MOVEMENTS begin in the HEART.  Where is your heart today?  When you think through the vital signs of the church, are they true of you?  If they are not true of you, how can they be true of us?  We should all be cut to the heart when we look at the spiritual fervor of the early church and we should cry out to God, “What shall we do?”  His response, “repent and believe.”  God wants to do abundantly more than what we can ask of imagine in this community, but we must allow Him to work in and through our hearts so that the result will be from Him and not from us.  If we want to see a revolution for Jesus Christ in Jefferson County and beyond, we must start at here; in our hearts, in our homes, in our church!