Our text this morning comes from the book of Acts. We're making our way through Luke's second book. That is the book of the Acts of the Apostles, or the continuing acts of the Lord Jesus Christ, through the power of his Spirit, done through his apostles, but that's a longer name we're going to be looking at chapter two. I'm going to begin in verse 40 and read to the end of the chapter before we read God's word, it's appropriate for us to seek the Lord and ask for the power of the Spirit to open up our eyes and our hearts, lest we are wasting our time. If, unless the Spirit works in our hearts now and opens up our ears and our eyes, we might as well just go home. We need the power of God's Spirit to show us our Lord Jesus Christ, that we might be reconciled to the Father. So let's pray for that father. We are reminded that we are dead in our sins and our trespasses, and there is nothing we can do to save ourselves. And so Lord, we pray that by the power of your Spirit, you would enliven our hearts, that you would help us to see our beloved Lord, Jesus Christ, that we might, as we just confess, put our faith in Him, that we might be reconciled to the Father, that we might know our sins are fully and free and freely forgiven in Christ and Lord, as we turn to your word, Lord, You have given us means by which you are pleased to grow us in by the power of your Spirit, I pray that You, Lord that you will help us to utilize these means to grow us, to make us more like Christ, to rest more upon Him, Lord, that You would beautify us, make us a ready and waiting Bride, ready to receive the bridegroom, by which at any moment he might arrive. Lord, prepare us for that day. And as we wait, help us to be faithful. And it's in Jesus's name we pray. Amen.
People of God, hear God's word for us this morning from the book of Acts, chapter two, beginning in verse 40, 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 they were added that day, about 3000 souls, and they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship to the breaking of the bread and the prayers. And all 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've 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. He who has ears let him hear the Word of God. Please be seated. Imagine it's your birthday, and you get to open a birthday present, and when you tear off the wrapping paper, you find a box, and it's a beautiful box, because it's a box that has a beautiful picture of the Lego Millennium Falcon on it from Star Wars. And then you open up that box, but what you find inside that box is not the Lego Millennium Falcon. You find 7500 pieces of little Lego bricks. Now what would you do if you then, just in your excitement and in your impatience, just discarded the instructions that are in that box that contain a step by step instruction of where every single block goes, what would be the result, as you are trying to recreate that picture with all those box what will end up happening is you will spend a millennium on a failure. There you go. There's your pun. Now you it might, you might make something else. You might make something else fun. But if you're trying to build. The Falcon, you're going to need the instructions to be able to complete that in many ways, this is how people look at the church and how to build the church.
Sometimes we can see a beautiful picture in our mind of what the church should look like, a church we can see in our mind that is resting on Christ, a church that loves the Lord, their God with all of their heart, soul, mind and strength, and a church that loves one another as they would love themselves. And it's a beautiful picture, isn't it? But how do we get there? Well, our text today not only has that beautiful picture, but it also has given us detailed instructions that we need to follow in order to get there, and it begins with the word of God, and if we don't follow God's word here that's given to us, we might make something we might make something entertaining. We might make some kind of social club.
We might make a manner of other things, but we won't be making the church, because in order to do that, we need to follow the instructions that God gives to us. And so what I want us to see here are the three things we'll look at. We'll see the means of that God gives to grow his church. We'll see the Christian life then lived out, and then we'll also then see the fruit of that life. Before we get into that I just want to give a little bit of a summary of where we are in Acts that has led to this point. The Holy Spirit, if you recall, has been poured out.
The floodgates have been opened up, and the spirit now has gone out, not only to Jerusalem, but is now starting to go out through all the world. The Abrahamic promise is coming true. Remember, God's promise to Abraham. Abraham, through you, the nations will be blessed. And it's happening. And this text and is and what we find here in Acts, and right before it is just a testament to the faithfulness of our God.
Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Pontius, Egypt, creating even Rome, are being brought in to the body of Christ. And we see Babel turning into the body of Christ. And what is it that is uniting them all together? Is it their culture? Is it their languages? No, it is the gospel.
It is the Lord Jesus, Christ.
And how does God bring this about that the nations are coming together. Peter has stood up, and what has Peter done when he has stood up, he then plays a musical piece for them that people are moved by. He actually decides he's creating a entertaining youth program that everyone is going to just want their kids to be a part of.
Peter stands up and he pushes the coffee cart around, hoping that people will see his generosity and kindness, waiting for people to ask him about the hope that he has is that what Peter does, no Peter with the power of The Spirit, spirit filled, what does he do?
Proclaims Christ. He opens up the scriptures to them. He proclaims Christ, and he calls them to repentance and faith.
Peter doesn't make his sermon about interesting stories or events, neither does Peter stand up and just say, God loves all of all of you here, and he has a wonderful plan for your life.
That's not what Peter's sermon contained. In fact, Peter said, you have a problem. You're guilty. You have rejected God because you have rejected his Christ. You despised him, you rejected him. You crucified Him to the cross, and the stain of His blood is on your hands, and you cannot wipe it off. It's impossible for man to clean his hands from sin. But What can wash away your sins?
You know this, amen, Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What is impossible with man is possible with God, found in his Christ, your salvation has come. And we're told that they are cut to the heart, and they say, What must we do to be saved? And Peter tells them to repent, to be baptized, to put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. And we're told then that 300 are added to that number.
3000 I'm sorry, are added to that number in Jerusalem, this is a time of the Great Feast of the Feast of Weeks. Remember, they're celebrating. A great harvest of the first fruits of the harvest and Jerusalem that has probably over 100,000 people in it, 300 or three 3000 are saved. It's still a minority, but a remnant. God is still calling and bringing to his himself. In verse 41 and also 47 we see that people are being added to the church, verse 47 and the Lord added to the number day by day those who are being saved. And I point that out to emphasize here, even as we get into our text, this is the work of the Lord. This is the work of His Spirit. It doesn't say that they were making decisions for the Lord that day, it is the Lord who is drawing people in through the power of his Spirit, through the means of the preached word. We have the active work of God's spirit here, also too, even for us and in our culture too, it's it's important to remember here that Jesus didn't just when he left deposit grace into his church and then leave us to operate on our own. That's the teaching of Roman Catholicism. What we see here is that Jesus has given us the only Vicar of Christ on earth to dispense His grace. And who is the only Vicar of Christ here on Earth? It's the Holy Spirit, and that's what we see.
The Spirit, then, is doing the work of Christ, and what does the spirit use to dispense that grace? Well, that's our first point in verse 42 and they devoted themselves to the apostles, teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of the bread and the prayers. What we see here is the word the sacraments, fellowship and prayers. You know, I went online and I asked chat GPT, what we should do in order to grow our church. I figured he would know, right. Well, here's what I was told. He said, I need to create a welcoming environment engage the community and use various marketing and outreach strategies. That was it. But what you find, what is absent from that is what is at the very heart of God's word. I think chatgpt gives us the wisdom of the world. But what we find, the wisdom of God, that is foolishness to the world, is right here in our text, the word the sacraments, prayer and Christian Fellowship, it's so easy for us, like chat GBT, to be devoted to other things, and for us as a church to want those things to go that way, to make that even our focus, because we think that's what people really want. It's easy for us to to have our hearts divided and be drawn to these other things. And you know what? That's the sad story of the people of Israel, rather than listening to the Word of God, drawn to what the world has, they have a king, you know we should have let's get a guide King, because God isn't enough. And let that not be our story. And when we do see it as our story, let us be quick to repent and turn back to the Word of God and rest holy in what we find here in our text. And let's start with the word of God in verse 40, we are also told and with many other words, he bore witness and continued to exhort them. I mentioned that too because last week we looked at Peter's sermon, and it only took about five minutes to read Peter's sermon. And you think, Well, Dan, Shouldn't that be your model for about the length of time of sermons. Well, I just want to point out to you here, he bore many other words, and he went a lot longer. Okay, that was a summary, just a portion of the sermon. So no, he proclaimed more. Proclaimed longer. The apostles doctrine that we're told in verse 42 is really the Bible, the scriptures that what we see here that they are a Bible, studying church. They are in the word. They are listening to the apostles as the words proclaimed to them. The principle means that God uses to grow his church is the word preached. This is what we confess in the Westminster, larger catechism as well. In Question, 155 it says the Spirit of God, right? That's where we are. Remember, this is the Spirit of God doing His work.
But what's the Spirit of God going to use? What. Is the primary means that the Spirit of God is going to use to draw people in to grow the church.
What is it the Spirit of God makes the reading, but especially the preaching of the Word, an effectual means of enlightening, convincing and humbling sinners, of driving them out of themselves and drawing them unto Christ, and of conforming them to his image, and some doing them to his will, of strengthening them against temptations and corruptions, of building them up in grace and establishing their hearts and holiness and comfort through faith unto salvation also, if you would just look at verse 41 who are the ones who are baptized and who are the ones who are the souls that are being added to the roles of the church, what does it say? Does it say the ones who just really love the warm fellowship? Does it say those who really love the programs and love the music?
It's no. It says those who received the word of God were added. God builds His church through the preaching. This is what also what Paul tells us in First Corinthians, chapter one, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe for Jews demand signs, and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. If we as a church, begin to say in any form or function, we do not need the word in a deep way, we will then become a church that is easily taken captive by cultural trends and superficial trends.
If we say that we're a church and we really don't, doctrine isn't that important, our church will then grow to be morally indistinguishable from anything in the world. If we're not a church that's rooted in the scriptures, again, we might make an entertaining social club, but we will not be building the church. The first instruction to getting to what the picture looks like on the box that beautiful picture of the church is a church that's devoted to the Word of God, and in verse 43 and all came upon every soul.
And many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles, this reverence, this fear, came upon them. The miracles are done to attest to the doctrine of the apostles of what they were preaching. The Miracles were accompanying them to show the authenticity that they are apostles, these messengers of God. It's not just some guy who's standing up that their teaching is authoritative and it led them to reverence and worship. But you've also remember, too, what were they doing right before the Spirit of God came upon them in Acts. For 10 days, they were devoted to this well, their text also reminds us is prayer. They were praying. They were a praying church, and remembering that a praying prayer is the breath of the church. It's the life of the church. As I love that quote from John Calvin. I think I've said it many, many times, but prayer is the chief exercise of our faith. If you and I aren't praying, if we're not praying corporately and together, we're drying up, prayer is again, I mentioned it last week that at the start of the power train, prayer leads to the Spirit, and the Spirit leads us to our Lord Jesus Christ and His Word. And that leads to great power, if you're in the word, but we're not seeking God in prayer through the power of His Spirit. The saying is that you will just dry up. We can't have the word apart from prayer. They go together. We'll just dry up in our theology and knowing stuff and not be rich in the Spirit. But also, too, if you're just seeking the Lord apart from his word, the saying then is you will blow up. You'll just start to do strange and unbiblical things, but prayer and Scripture together. The saying says that's how you grow up. We need prayer to understand the word of God and how it applies to our lives.
I. Are, they are praying. They are praising God. They are praising God for the salvation that they have, that the life that God has given to them, for their forgiveness of sins, praying for the advancement of the kingdom, praying for their loved ones. We also, third see that the breaking of bread, that there's an article in front of that, and I think it's, it's, there are two things happening here. This is a hint to the Lord's Supper, that the sacraments, that is, the sensible signs, the sensible signs that represent and sealed to us and apply to us the benefits of Christ, that we have baptism and the Lord's Supper, but they're also just having meals together, fellowshipping together. They're not just coming to something as consumers. They're living life together. They're living their life out together. And that's really the second point. Is not only growing, but what does it look now like to then live it out, to live together. They're fellowshipping with one another.
That this church is becoming a living church. It's not just people in isolation. People aren't then saved, and they just are going to their rooms to just pray alone and read the Bible alone. There's aren't solitary Christians here. They immediately begin to live together, to fellowship with one another, together and have life together. They have lots of things not in common. They're from all different nations and and countries, but they are united with one accord. And it isn't just board games that is uniting them, if only that would have been it. But what is that that's uniting them together? It is Christ. That's what unites them. And when we see each other, even here this morning, it should remind us of what unites us together. That is Christ. We can look at each other, and we can see the various gifts that God has given to each of us, and you can be reminded of Christ together, that there are people I can look at in our congregation, and I can be reminded of Christ and His patience with me. There are people I can look at in our congregation, and I can see and be reminded of Christ's hospitality, and has welcomed me in and loving me. There are people in our congregation to that when I seek remind me of God's grace, and that's what's uniting us together as the Lord Jesus Christ, and seeing Jesus in one another, and even sometimes being reminded when we see one another. God forgave me, and I need to forgive, and I need to be patient, and I need to be gracious, because God has given that to me. And we are one body. They are encouraging one another, exhorting one another, caring for the problems of each other. Don't we want our church to look like this? It's a beautiful picture, a church that is living life together and that cares deeply for the needs of one another, and when we see Christ in His Word and when we see each other, it leads to our generosity and sharing and giving with one another. That's what we see happening in verse 44 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. The gospel has begun to set them free from besetting sins. It was transforming them. And what is the one of the great sins that Jesus so often talked about, the love of money. The money isn't dividing their hearts anymore.
They know they cannot love both God and money. So what am I going to choose God. I'm going to let my goods go. It's freeing them not to live for stuff anymore, but to live for God.
They're generous. They're not hoarding things. They're saying, I don't need this. What do you need? And we're going to take care of our poor. We're going to take care of our widows, the goods that they had they saw as instruments for ministering to one another, and they are giving voluntarily. Some people will use this as a text to say that we should have communism. But no, they're giving freely because they wanted to give.
They love to express their gratitude, and they thought that one of the best ways they could do that is by giving. And that's true. And we even in the Old Testament, we see that that principle of the tithe, and I think that's a helpful principle. They're not all giving the same amount, either.
They're we're all called. Be generous, but also what this is expressing to us too, is the need to be able to express our needs. Well, how do they know what other people needed? Well, someone had to see it, or they had to express it. And I think we also need to be a community like that as well, to be authentic, not in what we have to give, but authentic in what we need. I need help, not only financially. I need help with my kids. I need help with my greed and my covetousness. I need help with my anger. I need help we are a needy community. We say that, but we need to be transparent in that, so we can help and serve one another as well. And I think that's what they're doing here. That's how the needs are able to be met.
Because people were willing to say, I need help, and someone else says, I will help you.
That's what we do as a church, not only spiritually but physical. Means we'll take care of that in verse 46 this response, and day after day, attending to the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they receive their food with glad and generous hearts, Praising God and having favor with all the people and the Lord added to the number day by day, those who were being saved. Now, why were they in the temple?
Right? I mean, this is the New Testament. Well, just keep in mind this is a transitional period between the Old Testament and New Testament. But do keep in mind the curtain has been torn. Right? The they are the new temple. The Holy Spirit has come down and not upon the temple has come down upon them.
They are the new temple. But I think it's important, I think, to maybe note too, that they're not only going to the temple to fellowship or even to worship.
They are not only growing in grace, but they are growing in their witness. That's why they're going to the temple as well. They're going to the temple that they might tell others, don't put your trust in the types and shadows, don't put your trust in those sacrifices.
Don't put your trust in the beauty of the temple. Because you know what? It was all pointing to Jesus, and He has come. He's lived and he has died. He has risen from the dead and ascended and put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. And when they're kicked out, they gather in each other's home, and they are continuing in their fellowship. And what's the attitude pictured here? I love it. It's thankfulness and joy.
We see such a joyful group. We see this word gladness and joy and thankfulness, because when you remember who Jesus is, truly, when you reflect on your Lord and Savior, when you reflect on your salvation, the day just seems brighter. The food just tastes better. When you remember that all of your sins are forgiven, all of them, and you can't help but smile and sing. It brings great joy to remember Christ, and that's what we see here. There is they have so much joy because they are fellowshipping and pointing each other to Christ and resting in Christ, in the spirit and in the Word of God, and in prayer, Lord, let us taste the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts that we too might be glad, that we might be generous, that we might remember that the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want. I don't need anything else. I have Christ. If the Father has given us His Son, how much more will he freely give us all things? That's what Paul tells us. I have Jesus, and there's actually only one thing more that I need.
You know what that is? More Jesus. More Jesus. Give me more of it. Give me more of the word spirit, that I might know my Lord, that give me more prayer that I might be in, not only in union with my Lord, but in communion with Him, through prayer and through the sacraments and through the fellowship of believers. Give me more Jesus. That's what I need.
That's what the Spirit does. The Spirit points us to Christ.
That's the work of the Spirit in his church. Now, the favor that they have with people God is adding to their number people.
Or being moved by the word of God. But oppression is coming.
Persecution is coming. Their favor with people will fall, and we'll see that shortly in Acts chapter seven, where we will see others who are cut to the word, cut to the heart by the word of God, but they will not respond in repentance and faith. There are some who will respond, as we see in Acts, when the word is cut to your heart by gnashing of teeth and hatred, and in Acts chapter seven, they they, too are cut to the heart, and they put Stephen to death. And those are your two responses this morning to the work of God's Spirit through the power of His Word, by prayer and the sacrament and the fellowship of God, that you would be cut to the heart and that you will either repent or internally, you might gnash your teeth and walk away Bay Haven. Isn't this a beautiful picture? Do we not long for this picture to be our church here? Well, how do we get there again? It's a reminder.
This is not our Church. This is not my church. This is not your church. This is the Lord's church. This is not a social club. So let us worship and do the things that we see that God tells us that are being reflected and told here. So what is it that we should do? The word of God, prayer, sacraments and the fellowship of believers that we might then come together to live our lives in fellowship with much generosity and love and care for one another, and to do it with gladness and joy, making Christ then known to all.
And as we do that well, as we do what we see pictured here in our text, may the Lord be pleased to add to his church here one block at a time. So let us pray that the Lord would work through us in that way. Let's pray, Father, we do see a beautiful picture of your church here, and we long for that. And Lord, the things that prevent us from getting there is ourselves. Our sin, our selfishness, our pride, our insisting on our rights, our love of money, our love of the world. And Lord, we confess these things to you, and I pray that by the power of your Spirit, you will help us to put these things to death, that we might see Jesus more clearly, that we might embrace Christ more fully and work your spirit within us through the power of your word and prayer, your sacraments and Christian Fellowship, that we would be a beautiful bride, Lord, let us be a church that is faithful to what you have called us to do.
Let us not entrust ourselves to the wisdom of this world. Let us not ask what's just going to drive and bring people in these days and entertain them. Let us do what you've called us to do, and rest in that. And rest in our Lord Jesus Christ. It's in Jesus's name we pray. Amen.