20230827 Sermon Acts 2:41-47 The Ministries of a Christian Church

If you had to plant a church, how would you start? Before we think of buildings, speakers, sermons, musicians, setting up and tearing down, we must begin with God. The church is God’s idea so we must do church God’s way. Because the Bible is God’s Word, doing church God’s way is doing it according to the Bible. Acts 2:41-47 is a great text to learn about the ministries of a church. Acts 2:41-47 offers a simple template to remain true to being a Biblical Christian Community. Acts 2:41-47 is one among other summary statements about the life and the activities of the early Church (c.f. Acts 1:14; 4:32-37; 5:12-16; 6:7; 9:31). Acts 2:41-47 is the longest of these summaries. The other summaries overlap with the content of Acts 2:41-47. For this reason, commentators assume Luke is doing more than describing church activities. He is prescribing normative church activities.[i] The NT letters to churches and individuals fill in the picture of church activities. The NT is sufficient as a ministry textbook. It keeps church simple and focused. Practicing Acts 2:41-47 fulfills the Great Commission of Matthew 28. It is the way we make disciples of all nations. It fulfills Acts 1:8. It is the way that we bear witness to the resurrected King for the extension of his kingdom to the ends of the earth. Acts 2:41-47 are the simple activities God wants the church to practice. According to Acts 2:42, the church devoted itself to the apostles' teachings, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. The results are that they experience awe (Acts 2:44). They were praising God (Acts 2:47). They cared well for one another (Acts 2:45-46). They found favor with outsiders and the Lord added to those being saved (Acts 2:47). This passage resonates with me because I became a Christian in a church that embodied this text.

1 Acts 2:42, 43, 46 First, The church is Devoted to the Apostles' Teaching

The Great Commission is the mission of the church. At the end of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus commissioned his disciples to make disciples of all nations by baptizing and teaching to do everything Jesus commanded. This is what the church is doing in Acts 2. In Acts 2:41, they were baptizing converts, and in Acts 2:42, the church was devoted to the apostles' teachings. The apostles appear again in Acts 2:46 for their miracles. They were teaching and God was showing his stamp of approval by the miracles (c.f. Acts 2:22; Heb 2:3-4). Today, the church must be devoted to the teachings of the apostles. We do this by studying the Bible. We have the teachings of the NT that are the teachings of the apostles and their close associates like Mark and Luke. In Acts 17:11, when the apostles taught, the Jews in Berea examined the Scriptures of the OT to assess the apostles' teachings. We must be a people that studies and applies the whole Bible. We do this from a New Covenant perspective in light of the ministry of Christ. We can be devoted to a lot of things. We are called to live in the world and live around unbelievers. We must make sure that it is the apostles' teachings that shape our worldview and not secular entertainment industries, social media, or both conservative secular or liberal secular news media. We develop a gospel lens by devoting ourselves to the apostles' teachings. We want our devotion to the apostles to shape our Sunday worship services. We want our smaller groups to be devoted to God’s Word. Through the ministries of the church, we want to equip all followers of Jesus to delight in God’s Word, to feed on God’s Word for spiritual nourishment, and to minister to others with God’s Word.

2 Acts 2:42, 44-46 Second, The Church is Devoted to the Fellowship

The second element of Acts 2:42 is "the fellowship." The word fellowship speaks of the community and the way Christians of a church interact with each other. The same Greek root word occurs in Acts 2:44 when it says they had everything in “common.” Fellowship speaks of a close tie between people, brotherly unity, and communion. According to Acts 2:44, they shared everything in common. According to Acts 2:45, they distributed their resources so that there was no need. They were selling and giving money to those in need. According to Acts 2:46, this unity was enjoyed around shared meals in their homes. One of the traits of the early church was its hospitality. It may be too tempting to say that this part does not apply to us. Why would it not? We need close fellowship and unity. We need to care for each other sacrificially. We want to provide for each other’s needs. We want to be hospitable. We want to spend a lot of time together so we can know each other’s needs. We need to be quick to invite visitors for a meal. We want Christians who are new to Brussels to discover a new family at Hope that they never knew they had!

Hospitality had a huge part in how I became a Christian. The reason I kept coming to church as an atheist was not because I believed in the church’s God but because the Christian community loved me. A lot of time was spent around meals. I am here now, so it did lead to me coming to faith. At first, I was drawn to this amazing warm, caring community of Jesus-followers.

3 Acts 2:42 Third, The Church is Devoted to taking the Lord’s Supper

The third element in Acts 2:42 is the breaking of the bread. This is the Lord’s Supper. “Breaking bread” from house to house in Acts 2:46 was different from “the breaking of bread” in Acts 2:42.[ii]

The Lord’s Supper is a visible representation of Christ’s sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins.

By taking this meal we revisit the core teachings of the Christian message. We share the same meal together so this is not something that is to be done alone at home. Membership in a local church is the best context to celebrate the unity we have with one another as we enjoy it with Christ. Of communion, Jesus said by eating bread and drinking wine, we would feed on his blood and flesh (John 6:54). By faith we have union with Christ and benefit from what Christ achieved on the cross, the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. This meal is part of our spiritual diet that helps us to grow in Christ-likeness and it shapes our identity. We want to take communion regularly when we gather together as a church.

4 Acts 2:42 Fourth, The Church is Devoted to The Prayers

Acts 1:14 teaches that the apostles were devoted to prayer. Here the church is devoted to “the prayers.” It could be standardized prayers. In the other summaries in Acts 3:1; 4:31; 6:6; prayer was a mark of God’s expanding church.

We need to be a praying church. Our worship services include prayer. We have a prayer of invocation, the Lord’s Prayer, prayer of confession, pastoral prayer, that includes a prayer of illumination of the scriptures before the sermon. A prayer follows the sermon. When we do the Lord's Supper that includes another prayer. Many of the songs we sing are prayers. We want prayer to be an important part of our community groups. We want to pray for God's will to be done in our lives. We pray that he would transform us to be more like Jesus. We pray for each other in the context of our smaller groups. The more intimate the groups become, the more people will share their struggles and requests. This would lead to greater love for each other, and God will use us to answer the church's prayers.

5 Acts 2:43-47 presents three results

In Acts 2:43 and 47 we read of the results. As a result of devotion to the apostles' teaching, fellowship, communion, and prayer, the people experienced awe so and they praised God (Acts 2:43, 47), they had favor with outsiders (Acts 2:47), and The Lord added to those being saved each day to them (Acts 2:47).

First, there was “awe” and “praising God.” The word “awe” in Acts 2:43 is “fear.” It is the proper response to being in the presence of God Almighty. We need reverence and care when we worship. Acts 2:47 says followers of Jesus were praising God. Awe and Praise are the natural result of being a Christian, knowing that our sins are forgiven, receiving purpose in life, and knowing love like we have never before. Christians are joyful worshippers. Awe, praise, and joy are the fuel that propels us to go out in the world and live our Christian lives and to make Christ known!

Second, Acts 2:47 teaches that the church found favor with all the people. This does not neglect other NT texts that speak of persecution. The Christian church that is devoted to the study of Scripture, deep care for one another, communion, and prayer is a light that shines bright in darkness.

In the early 100s, Aristides, a Christian from Athens described the church to the Roman emperor Hadrian, “They do not commit … immorality; they do not bear false witness, or embezzle, nor do they covet what is not theirs. They honor father and mother, and do good to those who are their neighbors. Whenever they are judges, they judge uprightly. … Those who oppress them, they exhort and make them their friends. They do good to their enemies…. As for their servants, … they persuade them to become Christians; and when they have done so, they call them brethren without distinction. … Falsehood is not found among them. They love one another; the widow’s needs are not ignored, and they rescue the orphan from the person who does him violence. He who has, gives to him who has not, ungrudgingly and without boasting. … If they find poverty in their midst, and they do not have spare food, they fast for two or three days in order that the needy might be supplied with the necessities….”[iii]

Today, the church is for the good of society. The secular worldview provides no meaning for life. In Christ, we live to love God and love people. In a random universe, the culture must define life, gender, family, love, sex, and success. The all-wise creator teaches us to value all life, how to flourish in his created world, how to live faithfully, and also to understand success as doing God’s will not by material results. In a society that is divided, the church and the gospel message has offered unity across races, countries, continents, and the world, in a way the world has never known. When the church lives as the body of Christ, people will start to ask questions and we will find favor with people.

The third result, according to Acts 2:47 is that the Lord adds to those being saved each day. The church finds favor with outsiders and the Lord saves them! When we encounter Jesus our life is turned upside down. We still suffer and endure hardship. We still struggle with unwanted behavior. But, the love of Christ, the presence of God, and the benefits make the thought of life without God completely unbearable. For this reason, we want all people to know the love, joy, and peace that we have found in Christ. We want people to be saved through the ministries of all churches in Brussels for their own sake and the Glory of God! We also want to support new churches being planted across the world who are committed to these simple ministries.

Conclusion

So it is simple! Acts 2:41-47 describes the activities of a church: worship, discipleship, and mission. This is how we fulfill the great commission. No fancy programs are required. We are just a community that submits to God’s Word, that loves our neighbors as ourselves, and enjoys intimacy with God through prayer. This is the evangelistic society we are called to be. God uses biblical, gospel-shaped, and Holy Spirit filled communities to expand his kingdom. We want to be devoted to the apostles’ teaching, be extravagant in our love for one another, continue to practice baptisms and the Lord’s Supper, worship, enjoy deep community through hospitality, pray for each other and that God would draw people to himself.

[i] Eckhard J. Schnabel, Acts, ZECNT (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2016). Ch 6. Introduction. .
[ii] Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Acts of the Apostles: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, AB 31 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), 271; Ben Witherington, The Acts of the Apostles: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI : Carlisle, U.K: Eerdmans Pub. ; Paternoster, 1998), 160; John B. Polhill, Acts, NAC 26 (Nashville, TN: Broadman & Holman, 1992), 119.
[iii] The Apology of Aristides, translated by Rendel Harris [London: Cambridge, 1893].