SPEAKER_00: The gospel does not merely save individuals.
SPEAKER_00: And if you are here this morning and you're not a Christian, you're like, man, what is the gospel first and foremost?
SPEAKER_00: We'll we'll get to that point.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, just hang in there.
SPEAKER_00: But but the point we are moving from is this that the gospel does not merely save what?
SPEAKER_00: Individuals.
SPEAKER_00: The good news that the church preaches is not about individualism.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, God uh created us uniquely so in our different expressions.
SPEAKER_00: We have creatives, we have uh people who who are type A's and all other types.
SPEAKER_00: But the point is, in that diversity, in that uniqueness you have, there's a sense in which God draws you out of perhaps the culture, perhaps you from your own sin, from all your own fallenness, and and God forms you into the likeness of his son Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And these beautiful, unique things about you are all the more expressed in a beautiful, redemptive way.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not talking about that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh your uniqueness is important.
SPEAKER_00: Your uniqueness cannot be dumbed down.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I mean, look at the people around you.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are wearing like, you know, cool stuff, some are wearing baggy jeans, some are in suits.
SPEAKER_00: That beauty of diversity is something we embrace.
SPEAKER_00: But then the salvation that God creates is that He creates a saving word to save individuals into a community.
SPEAKER_00: So the gospel does not merely save individuals, it creates a people.
SPEAKER_00: It it creates a new humanity.
SPEAKER_00: That's the idea of economia, this community, this fellowship that that has one thing in common.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel.
SPEAKER_00: That our story ends in eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Our story ends in fellowship with a triune God, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We share in that story.
SPEAKER_00: But I like I like uh I like I like pink pink polos, others like gray polos, others like shirts, others like cardigans, others, others like singing, others like drawing, others like uh spreadsheets, others hate spreadsheets.
SPEAKER_00: The uniqueness we have is beautiful, and we we need to celebrate that.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it is hot, we are sorting it out.
SPEAKER_00: Uh thank you, Sisi.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's that's the main thing I want us to move from: that the gospel does not merely save what individuals, but it creates a people.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in our city, specifically Joburg, we know how to gather people.
SPEAKER_00: You you it is very hard to to not figure that out.
SPEAKER_00: You you can look at your Instagram account, you probably have 300 people you don't know who follow you.
SPEAKER_00: Um it's not it's not so much, the headache is not so much about gathering people, but the headache is figuring out how to make those people belong.
SPEAKER_00: Not only to, in a sense of as a collective, but to each other.
SPEAKER_00: We actually gather people around hobbies, we we gather people around trends, we gather people around experiences.
SPEAKER_00: You you can fill the streets of Rosebank uh uh if there's a sneaker release.
SPEAKER_00: You you you'll have guys and ladies gathering around, waiting in line for a what?
SPEAKER_00: A sneaker.
SPEAKER_00: You you gather people around.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry to say this, uh uh timing is bad.
SPEAKER_00: You gather people around a Hyrux event.
SPEAKER_00: My Hyrux folks know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: You can fill a room with strangers and call it a party.
SPEAKER_00: That's Rosebank.
SPEAKER_00: You you can have a thousand followers and still nobody who actually knows your real name.
SPEAKER_00: You can be respected in your industry, surrounded by context, uh, a huge and large network, and still go home to a space where nobody knows you had a hard week.
SPEAKER_00: And perhaps even more important than finding where you belong is actually understanding who creates true, genuine, authentic belonging.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, the city has taught us how to perform well, how to, yes, network, how to project a sense of a net worth, a lifestyle.
SPEAKER_00: And then underneath all of that, friends, is is this ideal or idea of actually uh you projecting these these images, you call it a monthly dump, my October dump.
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you you project your ambition, you project your uh hustle, you project your your feeds with with different highlights, and all of these friends are projections of you saying, Man, I can gather people around myself, I can gather people around my ideas, around my hobbies, but at the same time, you are lonely.
SPEAKER_00: You have a lot of followers, but you are lonely.
SPEAKER_00: Your your fame, your followers, your success cannot fix that ache, that ache of loneliness, a loneliness that cannot be healed by actually killing it at work.
SPEAKER_00: Get home and you feel like a sense of man.
SPEAKER_00: So many, so much noise around me.
SPEAKER_00: But actually, no one knows how I really am.
SPEAKER_00: No one knows, no one knows me for me.
SPEAKER_00: No one knows my fears, my struggles.
SPEAKER_00: And Ephesians, what am I saying?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Ephesians as well, Ephesians 3, but Acts chapter 2, verse 42 to 47 paints a different picture, it gives us then a remedy for that.
SPEAKER_00: A community formed not by proximity to preferences, but by the spirit of the risen Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: A family created, as it were, by the gospel, a a people who actually are on this journey discovered slowly, imperfectly, so beautifully that they belong to one another because they first belonged to another.
SPEAKER_00: They belonged to Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And dare I say, friends, this this text in Acts chapter 2, verse 42 to 47, I'll keep saying Ephesians, just know I'm referring to Acts.
SPEAKER_00: My mind is still filled with Ephesians.
SPEAKER_00: But the point is that the text here in Acts chapter 2, verse 42 to 47 is gonna give us, as it were, a beautiful picture of the early church.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, this new unique humanity, this new, unique community formed by God.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: We we need to understand, friends, that this this community formed by God has a purpose, and we're gonna see the marks of why this community that was formed by God was created.
SPEAKER_00: And dare say to meet again the ache I've been referring to, the ache of that loneliness.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, the church did not create itself.
SPEAKER_00: I know some of you are like, yo, the church is so archaic.
SPEAKER_00: Man, in 2026, we're still talking about the church.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, the church has hurt me.
SPEAKER_00: The church is so toxic.
SPEAKER_00: I've got some church hurt.
SPEAKER_00: There's no hospital hurt, but anyway, I've got church hurt.
SPEAKER_00: I've got I've got church hurt, yes.
SPEAKER_00: But friends, I want to say that Jesus created the church.
SPEAKER_00: And again, we can ask questions about the church by typing in some keywords and finding the answer, or we can ask questions about the church by virtue of people's experiences who now release a podcast to say, This is what the church has done to me, this is what the church is, and then we run with those definitions.
SPEAKER_00: But actually, friends, the Bible, God Himself, who created the church, has something to say about this body he has created, has something to say about what the church is marked by.
SPEAKER_00: Like any other place you'll find uh pseudo sneakers, uh, we call them fonkongs.
SPEAKER_00: Pseudo sneakers, pseudo-clothing, we call it what phongs.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have a word for fonkong.
SPEAKER_00: We have these fake things that are manufactured and pose themselves as real, but until they test the until they are tested in the fires, in the streets, in the concrete, in the uh, as it were, the potholes of Jovek and it tears within a week, you you you never realize its authenticity until it is uh tested.
SPEAKER_00: The true church across history has been tested by fires.
SPEAKER_00: Historians say, uh, as Martin Luther would say, the the the seed or the blood of the church, the the seed of the church is the blood of its martyrs.
SPEAKER_00: That the church, friends, the genuine church is tested through fires, is tested by skeptics, it's tested throughout time, but we need to find out what is that church.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you're gonna uh define a church by its scandals, then you'll have a wrong perspective of what the church is.
SPEAKER_00: If you're gonna define a church by the individuals who hurt you, you're gonna have a wrong framework of what the church actually is.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Acts 2, 42 to 47 gives us a taste, a picture of what the true church is.
SPEAKER_00: Did I say, friends, the church as it was meant to be?
SPEAKER_00: Now, before we look at what the early church did, friends, we need to understand why it existed at all.
SPEAKER_00: The church did not create itself, as I said, Jesus created it.
SPEAKER_00: How?
SPEAKER_00: In his death on the cross, rising from the dead, ascending to the Father, and pouring out his Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: That's what uh the the context of this text is.
SPEAKER_00: So we're at the back end of something that happened.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 40 quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 2, verse 40.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a Bible again, raise your hand, someone will bring it to you.
SPEAKER_00: And with many other words, he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, Save yourselves from this crooked generation.
SPEAKER_00: The irony of that, that's like the the end, the conclusion of the sermon.
SPEAKER_00: Save yourselves from this crooked generation.
SPEAKER_00: Peter, the one who was not so brave, the coward who was scared away by the voice of a little girl, stood up on Pentecost.
SPEAKER_00: People prayed in uh tongues of fire, meaning different languages.
SPEAKER_00: The closalalia, different languages gathered around on Pentecost, going there to celebrate a Jewish thing, a Jewish festival, but God does something different to create a new humanity.
SPEAKER_00: A diverse closalalia, diverse languages gather together under one uh outpouring of the Holy Spirit, this new creation, this new humanity, this new people, the church is birth.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens there?
SPEAKER_00: Peter stands up in his bravery and preaches, preaches the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: He he even says, Man, you the the man you crucified, the man you you killed, he has risen again, he's conquered the grave.
SPEAKER_00: This man you crucified is the one who is here to save us.
SPEAKER_00: These men are not drunk, these men in fulfillment to the book of Joel are fulfilling what God had intended, what Jesus had instructed them to wait for.
SPEAKER_00: That the when the spirit has come upon you, you will be witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, the church has a purpose, a purpose driven by the Holy Spirit forming its people.
SPEAKER_00: When the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will be what?
SPEAKER_00: My witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: Now, friends, I want to give you a framework here to think about the book of Acts, not as a normative teaching.
SPEAKER_00: Meaning the book of Acts does not teach us normative principles.
SPEAKER_00: So, what am I saying?
SPEAKER_00: That outpouring happened in history once for all.
SPEAKER_00: It does not need to happen again.
SPEAKER_00: So we move as the church, as the people of God, with the confidence that we already have the Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: We're not waiting for an outpouring that has happened.
SPEAKER_00: So the book of Acts is a historical book that said, What initiated as a community of God was initiated by the waiting and outpouring of the Holy Spirit that no longer is um um um the spirit or the word I want to use anointing, the empowerment of God's spirit resignated to a select few individuals, a prophet, a priest, or a king in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: But all these offices are fulfilled in Christ Jesus, that's why we call him the Messiah, the anointed one, prophet, priest, and king.
SPEAKER_00: All of that office was now resignated to Jesus alone as the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: And post his resurrection, he says, wait in 10 days' time, the Holy Spirit will come upon you.
SPEAKER_00: The one better than myself, the one, in fact, your proximity to me was localized.
SPEAKER_00: Now, sons and daughters will have the spirit across different locations, no longer resignated to just Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone now has the spirit who was poured out on Pentecost, and out of that, friends, verse 41.
SPEAKER_00: So those who received his word were baptized, and those were added to that day about 3,000 souls.
SPEAKER_00: That verse makes me anxious.
SPEAKER_00: What would happen if 3,000 souls were added today?
SPEAKER_00: Here I would panic.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you.
SPEAKER_00: But this verse will comfort us.
SPEAKER_00: These 3,000 souls have what?
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of God.
SPEAKER_00: And and and listen to what then happens.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, a couple of things happens.
SPEAKER_00: Um, the the souls, the 3,000 souls, uh, so it's 3,120 people, plus children, women, it's it's a lot of people.
SPEAKER_00: These people, a people then formed by God, these which are called souls, there's something then that happens.
SPEAKER_00: Again, I'm I I asked the question, what would you do?
SPEAKER_00: But here's a family now out of the blue that has been created of 3,120 people plus.
SPEAKER_00: What what what happens?
SPEAKER_00: Is there a program?
SPEAKER_00: Is there what what what actually happens?
SPEAKER_00: Look at it quickly.
SPEAKER_00: In verse in verse 42, it says, and these souls they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first point.
SPEAKER_00: They were together around the word.
SPEAKER_00: They they they devoted themselves.
SPEAKER_00: The first word, the writer of this book is is Luke.
SPEAKER_00: Luke uh scribes this letter to say, Man, um, this historical document to say this community did not panic into programs, did not panic into think tanks, it devoted themselves into the word.
SPEAKER_00: Again, friends, uh, just a side piece on that is that the devotion to the word says that the word uh is uh a picture, the the apostles' teachings, the the picture of the old and the the new testament forming, as it were, the picture of apostolic witness, the picture of teaching.
SPEAKER_00: This community is a learning community.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, church was never meant to be a place where you leave your brains at the door.
SPEAKER_00: I I like I like I like Paul when he speaks about the the Perians, as it were.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, Luke exactly that there's a sense of interrogating and being interrogated by God's word.
SPEAKER_00: The mark of a true church, friends, is a church devoted to God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Number one.
SPEAKER_00: A church that does not silence your questions.
SPEAKER_00: A church that says, we want to be interpreted, we want to be interrogated, we want to wrestle with the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want wrestle with personalities, we don't want to wrestle with trends.
SPEAKER_00: If you are new here, I'm not shouting at you guys.
SPEAKER_00: Probably someone's like, Why is this guy shouting?
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I'm not shouting.
SPEAKER_00: I tell my wife it's passion.
SPEAKER_00: Sounds like a red flag, but anyway.
SPEAKER_00: The point here, friends, that devotion is a word that is not occasional, it's a rhythm of the church.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's not out of uh convenience, it's a it's a devotion.
SPEAKER_00: The the word devotion is like, man, we are devoted.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's the first primary thing we're gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be devoted, we're gonna give ourselves to God's word.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna give ourselves to to to learning and and and being interrogated by this timeless truth.
SPEAKER_00: Someone's like, what is what is the word of God objectively, historically?
SPEAKER_00: What is the word of God?
SPEAKER_00: The word of God is what the word of God says about itself.
SPEAKER_00: Because any other authority that can define the word of God outside the word of God, then that becomes the authority.
SPEAKER_00: So we speak about a principle of scripture interpreting scripture.
SPEAKER_00: What does the word of God say about itself?
SPEAKER_00: It says the word of God is God breathed, the word of God is inspired, the word of God is living and active.
SPEAKER_00: The word of God is able to interrogate the depths of your soul more than any other podcast would do.
SPEAKER_00: Are you devoted to God's word?
SPEAKER_00: It's not general spirituality, it's not a collection of inspiring thoughts and memes.
SPEAKER_00: The apostles are men appointed by Christ Himself, sent to speak with his own authority as eyewitnesses, and another writer says, as ear witnesses, eyewitnesses of his life, his death, and resurrection, carriers of his own authoritative word.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, when this community devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, they were submitting not only to the word but to Christ Himself.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is what the church is, friends.
SPEAKER_00: A people devoted to God's word.
SPEAKER_00: And and hear what the demand is, friends.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, before he he places the idea of fellowship, I just want to be at church for vibes and just you know, like uh we're speaking to another lady is like I I don't go to church because God is a man.
SPEAKER_00: And I was with a pastor, a friend of mine.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Says who God is spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We're not there, but I'm just digressing.
SPEAKER_00: We need to hear what God says about himself in his word.
SPEAKER_00: Because, friends, the word is what we call objective truth, it's timeless objective truth that stood the test of time, so powerful that in some countries it is banned.
SPEAKER_00: Why would someone ban something that has no power?
SPEAKER_00: Some even remark, man, the colonizers came, gave us their Bibles, and took our land.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks be to God they gave us Bibles because we got a far more greater treasure.
SPEAKER_00: We can get the land back, but we have the Bibles now.
SPEAKER_00: And and friends, this this early community, this remarkable community is forming a people that are diverse across classes, across ethnicity, across occupation, across history.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a product of social programming, as it were, but it is the fruit of a shared truth.
SPEAKER_00: They are greed about Jesus Christ, agreed about what Christ produces in people, people who love one another.
SPEAKER_00: And friends, our To say this that the the devotion to the word, the apostles teaching, is a devotion to doctrine.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, doctrine is not an enemy of community, it's actually the foundation of it.
SPEAKER_00: When there's no shared truth, there is no shared life.
SPEAKER_00: A church loses its people the same way it loses the word.
SPEAKER_00: A church loses its people in the same way it loses what, friends?
SPEAKER_00: The word.
SPEAKER_00: Slowly, quietly, until one day nobody knows why they are here together.
SPEAKER_00: But Romans 10, 17 says, faith comes from what?
SPEAKER_00: Hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: God uses preaching to form people.
SPEAKER_00: Not to entertain them.
SPEAKER_00: I throw in jokes here and there.
SPEAKER_00: It's not entertainment, it's just windows for you to understand the word.
SPEAKER_00: But God is forming us through his word week after week, slowly, quietly, over years, people begin to think differently, to live differently, to love differently.
SPEAKER_00: That is what Paul means when he says scripture is profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Whether you are a podcaster or following a podcast, whether you scroll through different opinions, whether you observe you observe trends and different voices and documentaries, hundreds of them every week are published.
SPEAKER_00: The question is not always what is what is what is forming you, as it were, or whether something is forming you or not.
SPEAKER_00: It's actually this question.
SPEAKER_00: The question is what?
SPEAKER_00: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_00: We are not asking what whether you have been formed or not.
SPEAKER_00: We are asking what is forming you.
SPEAKER_00: Many people consume spiritual content.
SPEAKER_00: The way they consume everything else.
SPEAKER_00: Looking for what resonates, what feels good, what confirms what they already think, what confirms what they already think.
SPEAKER_00: But friends, that that is not discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: If God is gonna agree with you all the time, that is not discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: That's what God created in your own image.
SPEAKER_00: Discipleship is you being submitted to the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Not the word to adjust to your preferences.
SPEAKER_00: A word that confronts you, that corrects you, that comforts you, that forms you.
SPEAKER_00: That's what discipleship is.
SPEAKER_00: And friends, we cannot really build genuine community out of atmosphere alone.
SPEAKER_00: Shallow churches cannot sustain deep mission.
SPEAKER_00: So the call here is not merely to attend, but to be formed in the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, we have three minutes.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 44 quickly.
SPEAKER_00: Together in fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 44.
SPEAKER_00: The church is formed, friends, in fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: Together in fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: Says, and all who believed were together and had all things in common.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 46.
SPEAKER_00: And day by day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts.
SPEAKER_00: To illustrate my point here of together, here's a picture I want to paint.
SPEAKER_00: There's a difference between attending a five-star Michelin restaurant and a brae.
SPEAKER_00: Five-star Michelin, I'm not even sure I'm saying it correctly.
SPEAKER_00: The five-star restaurant, you're gonna attend it.
SPEAKER_00: Everything is in order.
SPEAKER_00: Can I take your drink, sir?
SPEAKER_00: Whatever.
SPEAKER_00: There's a five seven-course meal, everything is in order, everything is it's just the way it's meant to be.
SPEAKER_00: And then you pay the bill, add a bit of 15% tip, and you go home.
SPEAKER_00: No one is gonna call you back from that hotel and say, How was your experience?
SPEAKER_00: No one's gonna call you back and say, hey man, I uh you know how he related was not great.
SPEAKER_00: A brave, on the other hand, it's chaotic.
SPEAKER_00: Someone is starting the fire, someone is is is is is is marinating the meat, someone is someone is running and chasing someone to did you buy this, did you get this in order?
SPEAKER_00: A bride, friends, is a beautiful chaos.
SPEAKER_00: Hey man, we had a good time at that bride.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, but we also are she's singing.
SPEAKER_00: It's all of those things, friends.
SPEAKER_00: But within a bride, the context is it's a community.
SPEAKER_00: The very people we're having that bride with would be the very same people you shed tears with.
SPEAKER_00: Are the very same people you're gonna attend a funeral with?
SPEAKER_00: Are the very same people you're gonna give a call and say, Man, how are you?
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing?
SPEAKER_00: It's it's not just it's not just a consumeristic exercise, it's community.
SPEAKER_00: And that's what that's what the church is meant to be, friends, a community of a shared life, a cononia, a community that that that gathers beyond social aspects of it, but but a community of mutual participation, together, going all the way down, friends, into in not beyond shared interests, beyond surface friendships, to to shared identity.
SPEAKER_00: First John 1, verse 13 puts it this verse 3 says, That which we have seen and heard, we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us.
SPEAKER_00: And indeed, our fellowship is not just only with us, it is with the Father, with the Son, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It is a shared identity, shared community with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, these people were so united and knit together that they shared even their possessions.
SPEAKER_00: Community that inconveniences you, a restaurant will do everything not to inconvenience you, but a bride will inconvenience you.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the church is meant to be, friends.
SPEAKER_00: A church is meant to be a community that that costs something.
SPEAKER_00: Man, I'll I'll I'll give you my car keys.
SPEAKER_00: You need to drop off the kids, I'll give you my car keys, drop off the kids.
SPEAKER_00: Oh man, ish, I just hit a pothole.
SPEAKER_00: Inconvenience, but that's the shared life.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's a quality of belonging, a quality that says, Man, Christianity was never meant to be lived alone.
SPEAKER_00: It was never meant to be lived alone.
SPEAKER_00: The church is not a service to attend.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a restaurant, it's a family to belong to, together in fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: Point number three.
SPEAKER_00: Together at the table, they devoted themselves to breaking bread.
SPEAKER_00: Look at it in verse 42 again.
SPEAKER_00: Says, and the fellowship to the breaking of bread and the prayers.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 46, it says, and day by day attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts.
SPEAKER_00: There's something, friends, about the table and the church.
SPEAKER_00: About the early church eating together.
SPEAKER_00: They opened their homes and their fridges.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if they had fridges at the time, but they opened their homes and cupboards for that matter.
SPEAKER_00: They sat around tables, they broke bread, and something happened at those tables that did not happen anywhere else.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture was broken as well.
SPEAKER_00: Fellowship with Christ was happening, prayers were happening, tears were shed together.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, the the the there's a theological element of the idea of a table and eating.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus ate with sinners, and it was scandalous in Luke 15, verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: He fed 5,000 in the field out of a heart of compassion.
SPEAKER_00: He he sat at a table the night before his death.
SPEAKER_00: He took bread, he broke it, he poured out wine and said, This is my body given for you.
SPEAKER_00: Something, friends, profound happens around a table united around Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The table is where belonging is made visible.
SPEAKER_00: Where grace stops being an idea and starts being an experience.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: A table is where people open their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's a coffee table or whatever, a table, friends, around Jesus is where it's at.
SPEAKER_00: It's where the gospel comes to life in the daily rhythms of people.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go for coffee.
SPEAKER_00: Let's have a conversation.
SPEAKER_00: I see things are not okay.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: When we take friends, even communion, so they broke bread in community in church, but they broke bread again in their homes.
SPEAKER_00: We are not performing, friends, a ritual, as it were.
SPEAKER_00: We are proclaiming truth.
SPEAKER_00: That there's room at this table for broken people.
SPEAKER_00: Not because we deserve it, but because, friends, he was broken in our place.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Jesus says the table, the bread and the wine point to something significantly profound.
SPEAKER_00: It points to me being broken in your place.
SPEAKER_00: And the table says you belong here.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, many people eat every day but still feel emotionally starved.
SPEAKER_00: The early church understood something that our city has forgotten: that the meal is not only about food, it's actually about presence, about being with people who know your name and have made a room for you.
SPEAKER_00: Hospitality, friends, is a mission.
SPEAKER_00: A true church is not a service, it's a family.
SPEAKER_00: Devoted themselves to the word, devoted themselves to fellowship, devoted themselves to the table.
SPEAKER_00: Another word, because of time, I won't go into it, is the sacraments, the bread and the wine, pointing to Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: The table says you belong here by grace, and perhaps that is part of what the church's witness is in a city like ours, to become a people who keep making room for one another because Christ first made room for us.
SPEAKER_00: All of us saying, I actually don't deserve to be at the table.
SPEAKER_00: It's by sheer grace.
SPEAKER_00: Who am I to deny you of partaking?
SPEAKER_00: Second last friends, they were together in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Before Pentecost, friends, there was a room, the upper room.
SPEAKER_00: 120 people, no building, no budget, no strategy, no platform, no influence.
SPEAKER_00: Jerusalem had every reason to ignore them.
SPEAKER_00: Their leader had just been executed, the movement looked finished, the disciples themselves had scattered when things got difficult.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said, wait and pray.
SPEAKER_00: For 10 days they waited, gathered, and called on God.
SPEAKER_00: They had nothing else.
SPEAKER_00: And then the Spirit came.
SPEAKER_00: And 3,000 people were added in a single day.
SPEAKER_00: Not because of a strategy, not because of being impressive, not because of impressive speakers, not because of impressive personalities, but because heaven had made a people, a people who were desperate for God.
SPEAKER_00: By God pouring himself out to these people, then this church became a living organic being.
SPEAKER_00: Because they had the attention of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us we do community badly or well.
SPEAKER_00: We get to a home, maybe a friend's home.
SPEAKER_00: Like, hey man, can I have the Wi-Fi pin?
SPEAKER_00: Oh bro, there's no signal.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us in our homes, when there's no signal, we we we panic.
SPEAKER_00: We always want to be connected.
SPEAKER_00: How desperate are we for God?
SPEAKER_00: How desperate are we to really connect with God in prayer?
SPEAKER_00: We've been so obsessed with with the Wi-Fi signal.
SPEAKER_00: So obsessed with being connected to everyone else around the world.
SPEAKER_00: But are you connecting with God in prayer?
SPEAKER_00: Actually switch off that Wi-Fi and spend time with God.
SPEAKER_00: It's not to guilt trip anyone in this room, it's just to say, man.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer is not just about those times where you're looking for a job and like, Lord, I need a job.
SPEAKER_00: That's all well and good.
SPEAKER_00: But also, it's not about those times of need.
SPEAKER_00: It's just about being connected.
SPEAKER_00: Being connected to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Being connected in fellowship to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Saying, Man, I cannot do this without you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That I have no strength in and of myself, I have no strategy in and of myself.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, without you, we are nothing.
SPEAKER_00: Without you, friends, we we are blind.
SPEAKER_00: We we are anxious.
SPEAKER_00: Without you, friends, there's nothing we can do, friends.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, if Philippians 4, verse 6 says, Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be known to your God.
SPEAKER_00: Programs can impress people, but only the spirit of God can raise the dead.
SPEAKER_00: And lastly, friends, we made it 1231.
SPEAKER_00: Praising God and having favor with all people, and the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
SPEAKER_00: Together on mission.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord added to their number.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what is what is being said here, friends.
SPEAKER_00: There was no marketing strategy, there was no outreach program, not even a platform to launch.
SPEAKER_00: It was just a community devoted to the apostles' teaching, devoted to fellowship, devoted to the table, devoted to prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And God did something.
SPEAKER_00: Alive in the presence of Christ, generous, prayerful, devoted, and the city noticed.
SPEAKER_00: People were watching, people were watching as they were sharing meals together.
SPEAKER_00: People were watching us, they were generous, uh and none of them were like seen to be, oh Lord is a have not, and this one is a have no.
SPEAKER_00: They were generous, they were united in community around the table, around Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They were united in sharing each other's burdens.
SPEAKER_00: Hey man, I'm struggling with sin.
SPEAKER_00: Hey man, I'm discouraged.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, bro, I lost my job.
SPEAKER_00: Hey man, I just feel a sense of angst.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, Pastor Toby, I'm in a hospital.
SPEAKER_00: Would you pray for me?
SPEAKER_00: Friends, they were they were losing themselves and being formed into this new humanity around Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And people were watching.
SPEAKER_00: People were watching, and and and and and God was doing a work in people's hearts who were watching across the city, was being changed.
SPEAKER_00: From a city that was busy, that was selfish, that was lonely.
SPEAKER_00: There was a sense in which man, people even here are like, Man, I need a community.
SPEAKER_00: Have you seen Mchgengi?
SPEAKER_00: Have you seen them gathering during the week?
SPEAKER_00: Have you seen them around coffee tables?
SPEAKER_00: Man, there's a room for you there.
SPEAKER_00: And not because of Mklengi, but because of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Before the gospel was persuasive, friends, it was visible.
SPEAKER_00: The city noticed their joy, their generosity, their love before hearing all their theology.
SPEAKER_00: The community was the apologetic.
SPEAKER_00: And as I close, friends, perhaps you are like, man, what a tall ask.
SPEAKER_00: I'm alone, I like my space.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean, open my home?
SPEAKER_00: Friends, you can ask people to take off their shoes as they get into your home.
SPEAKER_00: It's fine.
SPEAKER_00: That's your uniqueness, that's what you bring to the mix.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: I need to I need to pray.
SPEAKER_00: I I I I I clog in some codes on Excel spreadsheet and I come up with solutions.
SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_00: Rest in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are like, oh, okay, I can barely read a chapter in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: I don't understand it.
SPEAKER_00: And others are like, hey man, I don't have enough budget for me alone for a table.
SPEAKER_00: Now you want me to be in tables with other people.
SPEAKER_00: The point of this text is you cannot do it alone.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot do this Christian thing alone.
SPEAKER_00: It's an oxymoron.
SPEAKER_00: I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm doing me, boo.
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing this Christian Christianity thing my way.
SPEAKER_00: No, you you cannot do it.
SPEAKER_00: You need others.
SPEAKER_00: You need the old, the young, the weak, the strong.
SPEAKER_00: You need to do it together.
SPEAKER_00: You need that one who's who's who's hoping again, who's unemployed, who's who's persevering in that, who's who's hustling through life in different ways.
SPEAKER_00: You need that one who's who's who's keeping keeping on and trusting the Lord Jesus Christ in the midst of uh uh uh travesty and and and difficulty in life.
SPEAKER_00: You need that one who is who is doing well but who is generous to those who are struggling.
SPEAKER_00: You need you need everyone, friends.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot do it alone.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you can't host people, but you can be hosted and host along another person.
SPEAKER_00: You can collaborate in hosting.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, you you need to be in it together.
SPEAKER_00: Those are those are the marks of a true church, a church doing life together in Christ Jesus, confidently so, not in themselves.
SPEAKER_00: See, friends, the word of together is basically saying that I can't do this alone because I have no ability to do it alone in any case.
SPEAKER_00: I need one who has done it.
SPEAKER_00: I need the I need the one who has submitted himself to the point of death.
SPEAKER_00: I need I need the one who died a death that does not just merely forgive people and scatter them all around the city, but forgives a people who who who were living separate lives in their apartments and now are being formed into this one new community.
SPEAKER_00: I need I need the one who was alone at the cross, who was forsaken, who understands the depths of my loneliness.
SPEAKER_00: I need the one who faced the the biggest and greatest abandonment, the abandonment of the father.
SPEAKER_00: My father, my father, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_00: He went through all that loneliness so that you don't, so that you are in a community, so that you you are in in a sense carried along with other people.
SPEAKER_00: He bore the weight, friends, of isolation on that cross, so that we could journey together as a family.
SPEAKER_00: So would you come?
SPEAKER_00: Who would you come to Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Not not not you you can't do it alone, but you can't do it at all.
SPEAKER_00: All you need to do is surrender.
SPEAKER_00: Say, Lord, I've been I've been trying to figure this life thing alone.
SPEAKER_00: I I I gave up.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps you're not a Christian here and like, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Man, you speak so well about this thing.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, this was only possible because the Holy Spirit came upon these people.
SPEAKER_00: Historically, so how does the Holy Spirit become yours today?
SPEAKER_00: It's by faith in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: As you believe in Jesus Christ, you receive the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Guess what's his name?
SPEAKER_00: What his name is?
SPEAKER_00: His name is Helper.
SPEAKER_00: Receive another, a better than, as it were, if I can say that.
SPEAKER_00: Another like Jesus, but who is better in the sense that He is shared across many people.
SPEAKER_00: And you can walk this journey.
SPEAKER_00: But all you need to do is believe that I can't do it on my own.
SPEAKER_00: I need Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Who was isolated in my place, who was stricken in my place, who was who was crucified in my place.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I repent of thinking I can live life independent of you.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I repent of thinking I can do me, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Would you help me live for you?
SPEAKER_00: Father, thank you for your grace and kindness.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your love.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your Son Jesus Christ.