Thank you, Ben. I'll invite you to take your Bibles back to that passage that was just read a few moments ago, Acts chapter 2. You may have seen the fictitious advertisement, at least I assume it's fictitious. It said, wanted, it was in a paper, wanted, good woman. I guess that's pretty popular. Not wanting a good woman, but advertising for a spouse with e-harmony and all that. Wanted good woman must be able to clean, cook, sew, dig worms and clean fish. And then at the bottom it said, must also have a boat and motor. And then it had in parentheses, please send photo of motor and boat. I really don't think that guy was looking for a spouse. I think he was looking for a servant. I'm going to assume at this point you've probably already realized that Relationships are very important in life. Proper relationships are one of the keys to fulfillment in life. You will never feel fulfilled if your relationships are wrong. If they're not what they should be, they're not working the way they were intended to be by God. Proper relationships are a key to fulfillment in life. And God wants us to work on our relationships and fix those relationships. This is certainly true with our relationship with the Lord and His church. If that relationship isn't right, we will not feel right as a Christian. If our relationship to God and our relationship to the church is not what it should be, we will feel unfulfilled as a believer. No one can deny the primacy of the church, the local church, in the New Testament documents. You can't read the New Testament without realizing that it's all about the church. And the idea of being a Christian apart from the church is completely alien to the Scriptures. way that you can come up with the idea that I can be a lone wolf Christian and exist without the church. That is completely contrary to doctrine. And that would be alien to what New Testament Christians would have believed. You may have heard me say before that out of the 115 times that the word church, actually the Greek word ekklesia is the Greek word for church. Ekk means out of. Klesia is the group, the gathering. Out of the 115 times that you find the word ekklesia in the New Testament, 95% of them are referring to a local church. A local church. Obviously, the church at large, the church universal we sometimes say. The family of God is found in the New Testament, but it's only about 5% of the time. 95% is talking about a local church just like we are here together meeting this morning. Red Rocks Baptist Church. And we would be a church if we didn't have a building. Sometimes we say, welcome to Red Rocks Baptist Church, and we think of the building. But even if this building wasn't here, we would still be Red Rocks Baptist Church. And the early Christians were fiercely loyal. They were fiercely loyal to four basic commitments concerning the church. And I have a handout for you. I'm going to ask the ushers if they would come with that handout. It might help us kind of move through the passage that we're looking at this morning a little bit quicker. You can fill in some blanks. And as you know, generally when we have the Lord's Table, I preach either from 1 Corinthians 11 or a passage that deals in heart preparation for the Lord's Table. Today I want us to better understand the local church. We've also been in a series on great New Testament texts. I think this one would fit into that as well. Acts 2, verses 42 and 47. or what I would call the keys to the idea that I want to communicate to you this morning, and that is four fundamental relationships in the local church. Four fundamental relationships in the local church. Let's re-examine the text again. As a matter of fact, would you read it with me? We're going to read Acts 2, v. 42 and then v. 47. Would you read it along with me? Acts 2, v. 42. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and in prayers. V. 47. praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. Let's look at these four commitments that the early church, the early believers were fiercely loyal to. And it would be my prayer that we would have that same loyalty. That we would understand the value, the weight, the importance of the New Testament church as we relate to it as believers here this morning. First of all, there was a truth commitment. A truth commitment. Verse 42 says, "...and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine." So they related to the apostles with submission. If you're filling in the blank, it was a truth commitment. They related to the apostles with submission. They were serious about this matter of the Word of God. They were serious about it. The Bible says they continued steadfastly. It is one word in the original language, one word in the Greek language. It is proskar tereo. Proskar tereo, which means to give constant attention to. Now you stop and apply that to that church and you apply that to our life. It's saying that the early church, the early believers, gave constant attention to the Apostles' Doctrine. You would say it today, they gave constant attention to the New Testament writings. They gave constant attention to the Word of God. They had a commitment to the truth. Is that true for us? Do we have such a commitment to God's Word, a truth commitment, that we're constantly going back to the Word of God? And they related to the apostles in submission to that. It is, it has the idea, this Proskar Toreo, an idea of persistence and perseverance. Early believers plunged themselves unreservedly and continually to the study of God's revelation. They plunged themselves into it and they gave themselves to it consistently. One of the great tasks that I have as a pastor and every true shepherd of the Word of God is to teach the apostolic faith. Now when we say that, people say, wait a minute, what is the apostolic faith? The apostolic faith is the Bible. The apostolic faith is what the apostles preached that became written down and preserved and inspired by God and is handed down to us as New Testament doctrine. So my job is really to preach New Testament doctrine, New Testament truth. So they were serious. The Bible says they gave themselves continually, perseveringly, immersing themselves, plunging themselves into the Word of God. And if you have a truth commitment, that will be true of you as well. Not only were they serious about it, they were selective. They were selective. It says the Apostles' Doctrine. In the early New Testament church, they had the same problem we have today. They had false teachers. They had pseudepigrapha. You've heard that term? Pseudepigrapha. Pseuda means false. Pigrapha, of course, means writing. There were many pseudepigrapha writings. By the way, that's what Dan Brown does with the Da Vinci Code. He takes many of those false writings by false apostles, by false teachers, And he uses and extracts from that some of the things like Jesus had a earthly, Jesus had a mother who lived on and he had other siblings. And Jesus was, I'm sorry, Jesus was married and he had children. And those children are still a part of the Holy Grail that are living on today. That came from pseudepigraphy. He took false writing and incorporated them into fiction. They had false teachers in that day. We have false teachers today. And the Bible is telling us that they were very selective in what they committed themselves. They committed themselves to the Bible. is what it's saying. If you put it in modern day vernacular, they committed themselves to Bible. Not some man's thoughts. Not some commentary necessarily. We all use probably commentary. But not something that was outside of the Bible. They were very selective and committed to the apostles' doctrine. The apostles were the exclusive, authoritative source for special revelation. We talk about general revelation, which is God's creation. Special revelation is the Word of God. They were the exclusive source for special revelation. God spoke through them. They proclaimed it. It was written down. They were the authoritative source for special revelation until God's message was inscripturated. In every age, there are false teachers. We tend to think that maybe they're only around today. No, they've been in every single age of the church. And God warns us about them. A large part of the New Testament writing are warnings about false teachers and false apostles. And there is a proliferation of false teaching today. And by the way, one of the ways to mark and understand false teachers is they always rename or excuse sin. They rename or excuse sin. God covers sin with His own blood. But false teachers will rename it. They will excuse it. They will call it a syndrome. They will call it an addiction. They will call it an inherited problem. A genetic disorder. They will come up with all kinds of ways of taking a sin problem and kind of covering it, sugarcoating it instead of dealing with it. And as long as we sugarcoat the sin problem, we will never deal with the sin problem the way God wants us to. which is repentance, which is turning from it by faith, claiming the victory through the grace that is available to us through Jesus Christ and through His shed blood on the cross. And I'm not trying to be offensive here, but one of the biggest problems today is the whole field and realm of psychology. You've heard of the psychic hotline. You know, the psychic hotline, you call them up and they tell you what's in your future or if you should marry this person or you're going to come into wealth or whatever. That's the psychic hotline. Have you heard of the psychiatric hotline? Hello, welcome to the psychiatric hotline. If you are obsessive compulsive, please press one repeatedly. That's what obsessive compulsive people do. If you are codependent, Please ask someone else to press 2. Because you can never do it on your own. You're codependent. If you have multiple personalities, press 3, 4, 5, and 6 to cover all the personalities. If you are paranoid delusional, we know who you are and what you want. Just stay on the line and we'll trace your call. If you're schizophrenic, Listen carefully, and a little still voice will tell you which number to press. If you're manic-depressive, it doesn't matter which number you press. No one's going to answer you. We laugh a little bit, but psychology and the whole realm there of psychiatric hotline or whatever, is very real in our world. And it's a way of sugarcoating our problem. It's a way of not ever coming to grips with what God says is our problem. And it is a sin problem. And God wants to deliver us from it. He does. But we'll never get there by listening to false teachers tell us, I'm ok, you're ok, we're all ok. etc. There are four critical axioms about truth I want to just mention here before we move on to the next point. Four things about truth we ought to recognize. Number one, truth is foundational. Truth is foundational. If you're going to build a life, if you're going to build a family, if you're going to build anything, a church, whatever, truth is foundational. There is truth and there is error. And we have to have the truth if we're going to build. Truth is foundational. Number two, truth matters to authentic Christians. We can't have the attitude, whatever. So what? It's truth to you. That's not necessarily true to me. No, truth matters to authentic Christians. Why? Because there is a truth source called the Word of God, and we find all truth there, all truth belongs to God, and truth matters to us. In other words, error matters to us as well. Which brings me to the third idea, the third critical axiom. Truth stands in opposition to error. Sometimes people say, well, why can't we all get along? Why do you have to deal with false teaching or whatever? Why don't you just preach the Gospel? And we certainly believe in preaching the Gospel, but truth stands in opposition to error. In other words, truth draws lines. It does. Truth draws lines. The very nature of truth makes it passionate, makes it oppose that which opposes truth. Truth draws lines. Truth is in opposition to error. Number four, truth is best promoted and protected in the context of the local church. God didn't give truth and say to the seminaries, you are the depository and the repository of truth, even though I believe in seminaries. I've been to it. He didn't give it to Bible colleges. We certainly need them. But he says the church is the pillar and ground of truth. The church is to protect the truth. The church is the repository of God's truth. It's best protected and promoted there. Let's move on. Let's look at the second idea I see in verse 42 as well. There was a truth commitment. They related to the apostles in submission. When the apostles preached the Word of God, they submitted to it. That should be our attitude towards truth. Number two, there was a family commitment, a family commitment. They related to each other with compassion. They're filling in the blank. There was a family commitment. They related to each other with compassion. The Bible says in the second phrase of verse 42, they continued steadfastly in fellowship. You've heard that word before. I mentioned the other Greek word that is pivotal in this passage. Here's the second one. Fellowship is the Greek word, you'll recognize it, koinonia. Koinonia. We sometimes translate it communion. Fellowship. Koinonia. Someone says it's like two fellows in a ship. You've got to be going the right way. You've got to be going the same direction. You've got to be working together, pulling those oars. Fellowship. That's the idea here. They were continued steadfastly, not only in the apostles' doctrine, but in fellowship together as other believers. You will never know what God wants you to be and experience in the Christian life if you're really not a part of the fellowship of believers in a local church. You can be a believer, but if you're not in fellowship, in harmony, and in service, and in unison with other believers, you're missing out on a dynamic part of the New Testament experience for Christians. Fellowship. Koinonia means to have in common or to share. That means we have a common faith, obviously, and I put a couple of references there. 1 John 1, verse 3. 2 Corinthians 13, verse 14 uses the word fellowship in having a common faith with God and with others. So we share a common faith, and as well, we share our goods with those that have need. We're to do kindness to all people, but he says, particularly or especially those of the household of faith. In other words, we particularly pay attention to those within our own body that have needs, and because we share a common faith, we also share our goods with them when they are down and out, when they are in destitute situations, we help them. We're reminded of that even as we observe the Lord's Table. So they had all, look at verse 44 of the same passage. It says they had all things in common. In the early church, they were not perfect. They did some things that later they realized, okay, this may not be the best way. Acts is a history of the early church. Doesn't mean everything that they did was inspired. They were very close to God. But sometimes people come to this and say, oh, see, they sold all their goods and it was an early form of Christian communism. By the way, I believe those two words are oxymorons. Christian and communism. But sometimes people come to this and say, oh, see, they had all things in common. Everybody was selling their stuff. And that was an early form of communism. But it wasn't. It was not early communism. Because it was voluntary, not compulsory. Communism is compulsory. It was voluntary, not compulsory. And it was occasional, not universal. They did it when others had need, but it wasn't the norm. It wasn't how they lived. So it was occasional, not universal. You've heard the term capitalism. Capitalism is an unequal distribution of wealth. Some people have more than others. They say you can take the wealth that's in this room, And take whatever net worth you have and evenly distribute it amongst everybody so everybody would have the same amount. And in five or ten years, it would be pretty much the same way it is right now. And I tend to believe that. Capitalism is an unequal distribution of wealth. Socialism. Socialism is an equal distribution of poverty. And communism is socialism with a gun in your back. It's just socialism that's forced upon you. No, these folks were simply being obedient to the Holy Spirit in caring for one another. And we want to stay sensitive to the Holy Spirit. We want to have services just like this where we observe the Lord's table and we talk about need and we talk about those in the church that have special needs. And we want to remain sensitive to the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit prompts you to put a 20 or a 50 to help someone out in the offering plate, you will do it. So it isn't forced. It is Holy Spirit led. And that is a mark of a caring church that has a family commitment. They treat one another with compassion. It's not compulsory and it's not forced. It's Spirit generated. Look at the third thing I see in verse 42. There was a truth commitment. They related the apostles with submission. There was a family commitment. They related to each other with compassion. Third, there was a God commitment. They related to God with adoration. They related to God with adoration. The Bible says in verse 42, the third phrase and final phrase, they continued steadfastly in the breaking of bread and in prayers." They continued steadfastly, not only with the Apostles' Doctrine, not only in fellowship with one another, but with the breaking of bread and prayer. And the use of the definite article in the original is before both breaking of bread and before prayer. So it would literally read, the breaking of bread and the prayers. Now why is that important? Because it's talking about a formal time of meeting together. They had a formal time where they gathered together and they observed the Lord's Supper. And they had a formal time where the church gathered together and they prayed. Let me stop there and park for a moment. If that is true, and if you look at all the emphasis in the New Testament about prayer, we as New Testament believers ought to be committed to it as well. It is very easy for people to say, well, I go on Sunday morning and I hear the preaching of the Word of God. But what about the emphasis in the New Testament and the emphasis in this passage about the formal meeting of the church together specifically for prayer? Do you ever do that? Do you ever say, you know, I've got to pray with the brothers. I've got to pray with my fellow believers there at church. It is important. It is a mandate. It is a command. It is something that beckons the blessing of God upon my life and upon the church. And if you don't do that, then you're exiting and neglecting this aspect right here. the breaking of bread, and the prayers, it says in the original. This refers, no doubt, to the Lord's Table and formal prayer meetings. Belief in, practice of, and answers to prayer are marks of a vibrant faith. Can I say that again? Belief in prayer. Now, I recognize it would be very easy to say, oh yeah, we believe in prayer. We believe in something when we practice it. So that's why I say belief in, practice of, and answers to are marks of a vibrant Christian experience. Now let me ask you, if I said, ok, let's have testimony of God answering your prayers recently. Not your sinner's prayer at salvation. But if I said, OK, let's stand and have answers to prayer, how many of us would be able to say, yes, yes, God answered this prayer, God answered that prayer. God has been working in my life. Belief in, practice of, and answers to prayer are a demonstration that there is a vibrant life. There is a vibrant Christian life going on. And of course, the opposite is something we need to ponder as well. So, second thing I see here, their worship was formal and informal. It says, in the temple and from house to house in verse 46. They gathered for worship and prayer at the temple, verse 46, and they also did it from house to house. By the way, we have cottage prayer meetings. We've been having cottage prayer meetings for the last several weeks where we simply open up homes. We have won this week, my wife and I, and Pastor Sean has won, and I know the Shelleys have won, and the Vassas have won, and we've been praying for these last several weeks saying, we want to set aside, people could easily say, well, we have a Wednesday night prayer meeting, why don't we pray on Sunday morning? Why don't we pray in our Sunday school? We want to do all of that, but we want to have some dedicated, set aside obedient times of prayer so we say, God, bless our revival meeting. May people be saved. May You stir the heart of the church. May You move me closer to You. So they had formal and informal at the temple and from house to house. And it was not only formal and informal, it was joyful yet respectful. Joyful yet respectful. They were exultant and yet reverent. What a combination. They were exultant. We would think of that like a fist pump. Yeah! Whoa! Gah! That's exultant. We sometimes do it at a ball game. They were exultant, but at the same time, there was a reverential awe of God. You look at 1 Corinthians 11 and verse 14. which are two of the worship passages as Paul is instructing the wayward church there at Corinth about proper worship. And he deals with worship all through chapter 11. We often read it in the communion context. And chapter 14 is also dealing with that. In between there, of course, 13, the love chapter. But you'd have to say their worship was dynamic, but it wasn't dull. It wasn't dull. So joy characterized the community life of the church. We can get a snapshot of us throughout the week. Would that be reflected on our faith? Would that be reflected in our life that we are a joyful community of believers? When God is at work and He is doing something in our life and in our body and in our church, that's going to come out. There's going to be a joy about saying, yes, God, You're so good. That doesn't mean that everything is perfect. The circumstances are all just right. It's that He gives us an internal joy. Happiness means it's dependent upon happenings. Circumstances. That's where the word comes from. You can be happy when everything is going great. You know, you're healthy, you've got money in the bank, job, kids at school, whatever. You know, you can be happy. That's based upon circumstances. Joy, you can be in prison like Paul was, and he was singing praise to God. Because joy is on an inward condition on an outward circumstance. And that's what this is describing right here. They were being persecuted. As you well know, the persecution came upon Peter. He was in prison right after this great sermon. Acts chapter 2. Joy. Does joy characterize our congregation? Maybe that's one of the things we need to be praying for in our prayer meetings. Oh God, give us the joy of gladness. Give us the joy of Your presence. God, may we constantly be lifting our songs in praise to You and our voices in songs extolling You for Your character and for Your works and what You're doing. We should be praying that way. Look at the fourth thing I see down in verse 47. The fourth thing that characterizes this church, and I would love for it to characterize our church as these other three. And there was a people commitment. A people commitment. They related to the world with penetration. They penetrated their world with their message. They related to the world with penetration, it says in verse 47, and the Lord added to the church daily Not just on Sunday, but daily people were being saved. They added to the church daily those who were being saved. They got saved, they were added to the church. They got saved, they were added to the church. Worship is the church gathered. Evangelism is the church scattered. You've probably heard that before. We gather on Sundays to worship. Sunday is the church gathered for worship and the rest of the week the church is scattered for evangelism. That's God's plan. That's God's program. That we take Jesus with us wherever we go. We take the gospel message with us wherever we go. Because it's important. Learning is important in the local church. Worshipping is important in the local church. Fellowshipping is important in the local church. But they must be balanced by witnessing as well, or the church becomes lopsided. If it's all about learning, worshiping, fellowshipping, and there is no witnessing, the church becomes lopsided. It's all about the believer and it's all about us. And we forget about the lost world that God has sent us to penetrate and to share the truth with. And it's what keeps the church vibrant and alive. This is as New Testament church was. This verse also gives us a couple of important lessons about evangelism. Notice them with me. It is a divine work. The Lord added to the church daily. It is a divine work. He did it through the preaching of the apostles and He did it through the dynamic body life of the believers that made up this church. But it was the Lord who did it. And this should help us eliminate pragmatism as our modus operandi. It should help us eliminate pragmatism so we say, well, it works. That's the problem with pragmatism. It works. And so we become very pragmatic. But it is the Lord that says, and it helps us eliminate the pragmatism. And it helps us, I don't know, temper or monitor human methodology or even human technology, because it is God that does it. Certainly, we don't ignore those things, but at the same time, we recognize and we give credence and credit to God. He is the one that says, we simply are the messenger. We're simply the paper boy. So it is a divine work. Second, it is a daily work. It says, and they were added daily. It is a daily work. We're all involved or should be involved in that daily work. Just as their worship was daily, so was their witness. Praise and proclamation, worship and witness were both a natural outflow or overflow of hearts full of the Holy Spirit. And we need to recover. this from the early church. We need to recover this expectation of steady, uninterrupted church growth. For God is adding daily because we are living for Him and exulting in His great goodness to us. Now let me ask you, because you have to answer it for all of us, will our church be marked by a truth commitment, which is biblical teaching. I'm responsible for that. A partnership commitment, which is a loving fellowship. A loving fellowship. A God commitment, which is exultant worship. Is that going to mark us? Exultant worship. and a people commitment, ongoing evangelism. We all have to say, yes, Lord, I want to practice. I want to be marked by the four fundamental relationships like the early church was. Would you pray with me? And more than that, would you do business with God this morning? Would you say, whatever needs to be said to God, maybe it's, Lord, I really enjoy worship, or I really enjoy teaching, but Lord, I'm not really involved in evangelism. Or I'm not really marked by loving, caring of other people. Pray for me. Pray for me. Would you do business with God right now? Whatever needs to be said to Him and asked of Him? Father, thank You for Your Word. It is sharper than a two-edged sword that cuts through flesh to joints tomorrow to the very essence of our being. As we examine ourselves and as we allow the Holy Spirit to examine us, may we be affected, may we be impacted, may we be changed. Because we take the Word of God and what it instructs us about and where we are and shows us our need. And we act upon it, Lord. Today we ask for Your forgiveness of our lopsided Christian life sometimes. And I can't say that's true of everyone here, Lord, but it's certainly true of some. And may You bring us into balance. May we be a church, a church that is marked by the same commitments of the early church. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.