Worshiping In the Local Community (Acts 2:42-47)
[Read Acts 2:42-47]
What happens when revival breaks forth? What happens when the Spirit of God is poured out on a group of people in powerful ways and people begin to repent and look to Jesus as their Savior?
The answer to these questions is twofold: Community and Mess. When revival begins to break forth community happens and when community begins to happen, messiness begins to naturally happen. That’s what we’re seeing in our passage—at least to some degree.
Our passage this morning is the direct outworking of Pentecost. Remember, the Spirit of God is poured out on the disciples in a powerful way so that the people in the streets begin to notice a commotion. They start to gather in order to figure out what’s happening. They begin to accuse the disciples of being drunk. So, Peter, filled with the Spirit, steps out to clear things up and preaches a sermon to them letting them know what is actually happening. The Spirit cuts the crowd to the heart so that they ask the question, “Brothers, what shall we do?” (Acts 2:37, NIV). Peter responds by saying, “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. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” (Acts 2:38–39, NIV). In response, three thousand people repented, believed in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins, and were baptized.
Then we come to our verse, which shows us the outworking of this type of revival. What happens when three thousand people repent of their sins and believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins? “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” (Acts 2:42, NIV). This is like their gut reaction to being saved. Now that they are forgiven people, filled with the Holy Spirit, they naturally find themselves devoting themselves to two things: the Word of God and Fellowship. So, to answer the question I asked at the beginning—“What happens when revival breaks forth?”—the answer is: People devote themselves to the Word of God and Fellowship.
Now, you might be saying to yourself, “Why do you keep on saying two things? I see four things in this passage? I also see breaking bread and prayer.” That’s a great question and insight. Here’s my short answer. The breaking of bread and prayers are describing the fellowship. So, it’s like Luke is writing, “They devoted themselves to the Word of God and to Fellowship…and that Fellowship looked like breaking bread and praying.” So at the core, Luke is telling us that this group of converted people devoted themselves to two things: The Word of God and Fellowship. Last week we spent the entire time talking about the importance of the Word of God, so I’m not going to talk about it much in this sermon. However, I do want to point out that our commitment to the Word of God is deeply connected to our commitment to Fellowship. These are not disconnected realities. As the people of God, we are called to be a people who are DEVOTED to BOTH of these things—devoted to the Word of God and devoted to Fellowship. This means that in our devotion to the Word of God we should also be in fellowship. It also means that in our devotion to Fellowship we should also have the Word of God. These are not interdependent things, but intertwined realities of the Body of Christ. We devoted ourselves to the Word of God and do so in fellowship with other believers—not in a cabin by ourselves. We devote ourselves to Fellowship with one another, but we don’t leave the Bible behind in that fellowship—our fellowship should actually be constantly seasoned with the Word of God.
This week, though, our focus is on Worshiping IN Community. To use the language of this morning’s passage, our focus is on being devoted to fellowship. So, I want to take a bit of time to look at what this fellowship looked like. As we look at this fellowship, I want to look at it through the lens of spiritual and physical needs. We can see that this group of people who were devoted to fellowship with one another, were devoted in such a way to meet the physical and spiritual needs of the other members.
In meeting their spiritual needs the passage says their fellowship was devoted “…to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” (Acts 2:42, NIV). The wording “breaking of bread” has two different connotations. First, it has the connotation of eating together. However, it also points to participating in the Lord’s Supper with one another. In this verse, I think it’s referring to the Lord’s Supper and in verse 46, I think it’s referring to eating together. So, their fellowship was seasoned with prayer and participating in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper—a meal that continually reminds them that they are a Body of forgiven people in the Lord.
Later in the passage it says, “Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts…” (Acts 2:46, NIV). So their devotion to fellowship not only had them praying with and for one another, and participating in the sacraments together, but it also had them gathering EVERY DAY in the temple courts. There’s a lot of discussion about why they gathered in the temple courts, but when we look at other portions of scripture we get a clue. They went to the temple to participate in the prayer meetings together. We see that happening in the next chapter. This leads us to another reason they went to the temple every day. Since some people want to accuse John Calvin of not believing in evangelism, I’ll let him tell us the other reason why they went to the temple: “We must note that they did frequent the temple for this cause, because there was more opportunity and occasion offered there to further the gospel” (132). We know they were preaching the gospel regularly during this time because the passage ends by saying, “And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:47, NIV). Yes, the Lord was the one turning hearts toward himself and causing the preaching of the gospel to bear fruit, but it was God working through the people regularly preaching the Gospel in the temple courts.
This passage also says this group of people devoted to fellowship were “…praising God…” (Acts 2:47, NIV). Again, they were praising God together as a group of people. They were stirring one another up to praise God. It wasn’t a bunch of individuals praising God separately in their homes, but a group of people praising God together and stirring one another up to praise God.
This group of people devoted to fellowship with one another—devoted to Worshiping IN Community—found themselves regularly praying with and for one another, regularly in God’s Word together, regularly praising God together, regularly participating in the sacraments together, and regularly sharing the gospel with the community together. Together they were meeting all of their spiritual needs.
They were also meeting each other’s physical needs. This passage says, “All the believers were together…” (Acts 2:44–45, NIV). They were together. As I wrote this I couldn’t help but think about how Red Green closed every one of his shows, “We’re all in this together.” Being devoted in fellowship means being together in every sense of the word. It means unity rather than division. It means hanging out with one another. It means supporting and encouraging one another. As we see in verse 46, it means that “They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts…” (Acts 2:46, NIV). It means all these things. To be devoted to fellowship—to be devoted to Worshiping IN Community—means that we must be TOGETHER.
The passage goes on to say, “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.” (Acts 2:44–45, NIV). They met each other’s needs. When they saw a need in their community they took action to meet that need—sometimes in very sacrificial ways. People were selling their stuff in order to meet the needs of people in their fellowship. This was self-sacrificial fellowship. It wasn’t about being in the fellowship asking “What do I get out of it?”, but being in the fellowship asking, “What can I offer? What can I give? How can I support?”
A book that I highly recommend everyone in this congregation to read is, Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It’s a short book, around 100 pages, but it speaks clearly and directly to the essence of Christian community. In that book he makes a statement that has stuck with me for years (Actually, he makes many statements that have stuck with me over the years). He says, “It is only when he is a burden that another person is really a brother and not merely an object to be manipulated” (100). What he’s getting at is that when people don’t really burden us, the relationship becomes about what we can get from them. That’s not true community. It is only when people burden us, and we allow ourselves to be burdened by them, that we begin to truly be in community with one another. If we never burden one another, our “community” is extremely shallow and hasn’t broken through into true fellowship. We must burden one another if we are to Worship IN Community.
It’s also important to mention something about the verbs in this passage. Every single verb in this passage has the sense that these things are happening continually. It’s hard to notice in our English translations, but the Greek is very obvious. You could add the word “continually” in front of every verb in this passage. They were “continually devoting themselves,” they were “continually together,” they were “continually selling their possessions,” they were “continually eating together,” they were “continually praying together,” they were “continually praising God,” etc.. The reason I point this out is because it helps us to understand that this is an everyday reality. A few weeks ago I pointed out that we are to Worship in every aspect of our lives—not just on Sundays. The same is true about Worshiping IN Community. This must be part of our everyday lives. We are called to be in community with one another “continually.” That doesn’t mean we don’t do anything with people outside of our church, but the sense is that we are regularly in fellowship with one another, meeting each other’s physical and spiritual needs. It doesn’t just happen on Sundays, but happens day to day throughout the week.
In laying out this picture of what it looks like to Worship IN Community, I also want to give a warning. This picture that Luke portrays us is beautiful isn’t it? We are naturally attracted to it because this is how God has created us to live. However, there is also a temptation for us to see this picture of Christian community, then look at our community and say, “We’re nothing like this! I’m part of a terrible community!” To this Bonhoeffer has some harsh words. He says, “He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial” (27). We must not love our idea of community more than the community itself. Isn’t it ironic that we can HATE the reality of our own community in the name of LOVING community. We can become so frustrated that our community doesn’t live up to our own standards—or even to God’s standards—that we actually begin to destroy the community rather than build it up.
It’s important for us to recognize that this is the community in which God has placed us and this is the community that God has put together in this place. Again, Bonhoeffer says, “If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian community in which we have been placed, even when there are no great experiences, no noticeable riches, but much weakness, difficulty, and little faith—and if, on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so miserable and so insignificant and does not at all live up to our expectations—then we hinder God from letting our community grow according to the measure and riches that are there for us all in Jesus Christ” (29).
Finally, this is the beginning and end of Worshiping IN Community—Jesus Christ. We are in community together because He saved us while we were still sinners and because He called us together into this Body and because He is shaping us to become more like Himself and because He us using other people in that process. That’s why Jesus is the beginning and end of our community. If we are going to be a church that Worships IN Community, we need to be a church that keeps our eyes on Jesus Christ. If we take our eyes off Jesus Christ, then we lose our community. Rather, let us continually look to Christ as redeemed sinners who are walking with other redeemed sinners looking out for their physical and spiritual needs by pointing them to Christ as He meets our needs and draws us to Himself. Let us be devoted to Christ; and because we are devoted to Christ, we are devoted to His Word and to the Fellowship of His people.