Okay, let's begin again. Acts chapter 2 verse 42, And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many signs and wonders were done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. and sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. Let's pray. Oh, Father, thank you for this remarkable work of your spirit and your church that is going on today. Lord, come and teach your people. Come give your gifts, edify your church. Lord, we pray that you would come and take these words and move them deeply into our hearts. Amen. And please be seated. So these verses give us a window into the secret of the church's blessedness. The things that they were doing have been and will always be critical for the sustainability and the stability and the happiness of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. The church is sustained by the Holy Spirit through the practices that prepare them for everything in their lives. And that's what we see here. A theologian, Gordon Whittam, calls this text a compact description of Christian discipleship. And this is an extremely relevant and timely passage for us to consider here at the end of 2020, when the majority of church people have quit going to church the way this text describes for about eight months so far this year, and the year's not over yet. And this really is a very helpful summary of what the church ought to always be doing. The true church ought to always be doing these things in an uninterrupted fashion, regardless of anything, any orders or any principles that people have in their minds. There's a tremendous summary of this passage from Gordon Keddy. I'm just gonna read it very quickly. The pictures and acts of the emerging pattern of the church life confirmed that this was no merely voluntary association of otherwise individualistic believers, but a body made up of people called by the Lord and welded together in loving and submissive discipleship under his sovereign lordship and the pastoral oversight of the ministry of the church. The growth and development of the early church is unintelligible apart from this perspective. Here is a body, organic in personal commitments and mobilized under leadership for kingdom work and witness. And we see this in every aspect of her body life from that very first day. So this is a picture of life together in a local church. And we get a glimpse of this very early, the earliest picture of what's happening inside a true church, which has been replicated ever since. A true Christian will always be on a mission to recapture the freshness. and the beauty and the consistent devotedness of this kind of thing that we see here. Now let's look at the context before we get into the text. Of course, we walk through Acts chapter one. We learn that Jesus taught his disciples of the kingdom of God for 40 days, and now they're loaded for bear. They're like caged lions. Peter is out there now preaching. They replaced Judas with Matthias restoring the pattern of the 12, according to biblical prophecy, and really to complete the biblical picture of the 12 tribes of Israel, the number of 12 being very important. Particularly as we get into Revelation, this number appears 187 times in the Bible. You've got 12 tribes, 12 minor prophets, 12 apostles. The New Jerusalem has 12 gates, 12 angels, 12 foundations. In Revelation 21, there's the... in the earlier chapters of Revelation and later, there's 144,000. God uses numbers, and so the apostles felt compelled to restore the 11 to the 12. In chapter two, we find ourselves in Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost and this great outpouring of the Holy Spirit, this ingathering of saints. There were 3,000 who were saved that day. This launches the beginning of the church age. which will exist until the second coming of Jesus Christ. And what we find in this outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the beginning of everything that you need for life and godliness, the power of the Holy Spirit. What you need more than anything during the church age is the power of the Holy Spirit. And this fountain of grace is communicated there. Then we find that They were called to be saved from this perverse generation. These people who were gathered were being saved from something to something else entirely different. They repented of their sins. the sins of their generation and they followed Jesus Christ and they were on a track to be no longer conformed to the world but to have their minds renewed by the Lord Jesus Christ and to learn what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. That was their new track. They left the old track and they got on this restoration track. They were baptized 3,000 of them in one day. Think about that for a minute. 3,000 were baptized. Let's just say, and then 5,000 later on. Let's just say there are 3,000 and each of them had three kids and a wife. Now you're talking about 20,000 people in this one outpouring. It must have been a real unwieldy thing. We have these ideas. about just how beautiful it was in the early church, you know, to have so much growth. Guess what? These people were coming out of paganism into a local church. Do you think it was easy? Do you think it wasn't painful? Do you think there weren't difficulties? Do you think people weren't mean to each other? Do you think things were coming unglued every once in a while? Well, that's what we learned that that is true. And that's why the apostles give us so many commands about how to deal with one another. the early church. So this was absolutely astounding. Now we get to verse 42 and we find this picture of life together in the local church. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and prayers. And these verses explain the effect that the gospel had on these people. They devoted themselves. Now, each verb in verse 42 represents a continual, repetitive, devoted action. And these are in the imperfect, which indicates something that they were continually doing. They were continually getting into the Word. They were continually praying. They were continually fellowshipping. And all of these things are listed here. So, you have before you an outline that shows you how I've divided up this passage of Scripture. We'll try to cover all the major clauses in this section. But we first of all encounter these four things that characterize their life. And the first really has to do with their pattern of life. They continued steadfastly. What does steadfast mean? Well, you know what it means. It means they kept on doing it. It was a devotion. It was a prioritization. And their salvation brought to them new uses of time. They didn't use their time the way that they used to. New purposes for their weekends, new uses for their weeknights, new uses for every moment of time. And this was an unbreakable devotion. And you know, Each of us should ask, am I devoted to these things that are listed here? Am I prioritizing them? Am I allowing anything to get in the way of these things, you know, in my life? Because these are the things that the early church devoted themselves to, and so should we. And we first, we noticed this enthusiasm that they had for the teaching of the Word of God. That's the first thing. This fourfold focus of their lives was first on the apostles' doctrine. It means teaching. They were devoted to the apostles' teaching, not just any teaching, but the apostles' teaching, not the personal experience of the preacher, not an interesting story of someone else, not the doctrine of the culture, but the doctrine of Jesus Christ through the apostles. This is the foundation that the apostles laid, that the church would operate by, to the end till the Lord Jesus Christ comes again. And this is how the church is protected from every wind of doctrine. This is how the saints are protected from discouragement. This is how the saints are protected from breaking every relationship they have. because of their fleshliness. This is how the saints learn how to handle their money. This is how the saints learn how to be married. This is how the saints learn how to have a family. This is how the saints learn how to govern their emotions. The apostles doctrine brings all those kinds of things. You know, we read earlier in the service in Ephesians chapter four, and he gave himself some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry. for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure and stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into him who is the head, Christ. So this is what you find here. And this is why during the Protestant Reformation, you had a shift in the way that churches were laid out. In the Roman churches, you had the altar in the middle. In the Reformation churches, You had the pulpit in the middle. You had the Bible in the middle. And this is really our great prayer for our church and for all of you is that your lives, our lives together are centered on the word of God. And we really pray that that's why you come, for the Word of God. Don't come because there's just such wonderful personalities in this church, and the food is so good, and it is. But you want to come because the Word of God is here, and this is our God. If you have any other motive, it won't turn out very well, and you won't really be very happy. But it's the Word of God that makes me people happy. And so we really want you to focus on that. And maybe you've noticed, you know, our entire church schedule is structured to focus this congregation on the Word of God. On Sunday mornings, we preach the Word of God. During the fellowship meal, we want you to talk about the Word of God. When you go home after church, we want you to consider, to talk about, and pray about, and apply the Word of God. On Monday morning, we gather our men together, men and boys, to discuss the upcoming sermon in the Word of God. Our motive for this is that men and boys would come and they would be able to go home and they would teach their wives, their children, their roommates, whoever it might be, to explain the Word of God to their households. We want the men of the church to be focused on the Word of God and be dispensers of that Word of God. And we hope that when the wives and the children come here on Sunday morning, they've already heard it. They already know what this passage says. I hope you already know the words and the theological principles that are here, because those in your household taught it to you. And I really pray that even the little children, when they walk in, they say, oh yes, I've already heard that. What a blessing that is. On Tuesday or Wednesday morning, one of the pastors, whoever's preaching, is going to send an email to the church giving a brief explanation of the text coming up. We want you to read that and get calibrated for what's in that text. On Wednesday evening, we gather for prayer, and one of the things we want to pray about every Wednesday night is the preaching of the Word and the text that's before us that's designed to shape us. We believe it's the Word of God that shapes this church. If you want to know where this church is going, look into the Word of God. That's where we want the church to go. Where do we want the church to go now? Acts 2 42 through 47. That's the will of God for the church today. And so we wanna pray about that on Wednesday. Then on Sunday, we're gonna preach the text that we studied on Monday morning, that we wrote about on Tuesday, that we prayed about on Wednesday, that was taught in the homes by the fathers and the mothers throughout the week. So we want this church to be focused on the word of God. That's really our great intention. And of course, in these verses, we find this was their focus. It was on the apostles doctrine. Peter is speaking of the words of Jesus Christ. The church fills itself up with words, the words of Jesus. Every word of the Bible is a word of Jesus Christ. He wrote the Bible. He wrote the Old and the New Testament. And he said, my words are spirit and they are life. And our prayer is that when you engage the word of God, here's what you'll do. You'll say, His words are sweeter than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned, and in keeping them there is great reward. I pray that's what happens here. So the Lord Jesus Christ's words are taught here, and the apostles' doctrine is really designed to rid the church of bad thoughts, bad practices, and everything else, to lead them into the truth. that we would be a people who are led in to the living waters and the green pastures that God has for us. And it's the word of God that gets us there and teaching us how to love, how to do everything. I heard one preacher say, when men devote to preaching, the people devote themselves to hearing and they both grow. Now, this preaching can be difficult. Preaching should draw lines. It should always expose faithful and unfaithful practices, true and false thoughts, and preaching should always deal with the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and sin and the deliverance of sin. It's sinful for preachers to avoid conviction of sin. I hope that when you come, there are times when you feel uncomfortable. The preachers are supposed to be making you feel uncomfortable. Ezekiel speaks of leaders who profane their office. And he says that one way that they do that is that they refuse to distinguish between what is holy and what is unholy. Ezekiel 22 26 the prophet says her priests have violated my law and profane my holy things they have not distinguished between the holy and the unholy nor have they made known the difference between the unclean and the clean and they have hidden their eyes from my Sabbaths so I am profaned among them what Ezekiel is saying is that is that those who handle the word of God have an objective to divide you from this world. That's what we pray happens here, that you are further divided from a wicked and perverse generation as was happening here in the book of Acts. The person who does not want to be divided from their sins will be disappointed here. And we so desired that we would all with one heart and one soul long for the pure milk of the word. So they devoted themselves to the apostles doctrine, to their teaching, which was the foundation of the church. And the next feature in their lives together was fellowship. It was fellowship that flowed out of their doctrine. And this terminology that Peter uses, that Luke incorporates here, is the word koinonia, and it means fellowship, but it covers a broad range. Christian experiences in their relationships with one another. It means mutual communion simultaneously with God and with one another in personal conversations, in praying together, in praying for one another, in singing together, in engaging the Word of God together, and it really speaks of the personal nature of of our interactions with one another. We are participants. The word actually means to take part, to participate and commune. But it's not just a human communion. It's the human and the divine all at one time. It's the word of God and the spirit of God, you interacting with a person made in the image of God. And they were participating together. You know, I was reading an article about Thanksgiving in the New York Times this last week, telling us that we have to reimagine Thanksgiving. And the article was called How to Have a Fully Remote Family Thanksgiving and How to Digitally Reimagine the Holiday, the Shopping, the Cooking and Everything in Thanksgiving. Well, guess what? That's not what the church does. The church doesn't digitally imagine its fellowship. The church gathers for fellowship. They gather in one place, just using the language of the book of Acts. The fellowship in the Bible is the opposite of a distant, formal, disconnected, live-streamed experience. That's not what the church does. We're very grateful for the internet and the help it's been to communicate, but that's not what this is talking about here at all. This is a much deeper, close kind of contact. It's not the same thing as having a soulmate. It's not the same thing as having a best friend. It's about spiritual fellowship with one another. It's about one person being filled with the Holy Spirit, taking responsibility to do their duty to their brother. That's what it is really all about. And the fellowship that It's so important that we are commanded in the Bible to take very careful measures to keep our relationships right with one another. The one and others teach us most of what we need for how we should relate to each other. Forgive one another. Pray for one another. Think the best of one another. If your brother has something against you, lay your gift before the altar and go be reconciled to your brother. So we're taught how to do all that stuff because the one another's actually assume and the fellowship actually assumes that we might be disappointed in one another from time to time. And we have a way to deal with that through obedience to the word of God. And the question that maybe you should ask is, what kind of fellowship are you looking for? I was very struck by a book that I bought and read 40 years ago. I pulled it out of my library yesterday. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, his book, Life Together. And in that book, he speaks about the expectations that we have for the fellowship, for the relational part. And he says, anyone who has their dream of what that fellowship should be is in danger. He says it's easy to love your dream about what the fellowship ought to be rather than to love the thing that God has actually called you to in biblical fellowship. And I'll just quote him in his book Life Together. God hates visionary dreaming. It makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren. When things don't go his way, he calls the effort a failure. He becomes first the accuser of his brethren. And then he says, when the morning mists of dreams vanish, then dawns the bright day of Christian fellowship. Well, the bright day of Christian fellowship is fellowship that's governed by God's word and that we relate to one another as we have been commanded to relate to one another and empowered to relate one another by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. So this spiritual fellowship is of course directed by the Spirit of God. The third element of this pattern of life is the Lord's Supper, the breaking of bread. And, of course, this terminology here, the breaking of bread, refers directly to the Lord's Supper. In the Lord's Supper, we celebrate the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that we, with Him, died and were buried and were resurrected with Him unto new life. And that's what baptism also pictures. And now we believe in our church that we should celebrate the Lord's Supper weekly. We realize it doesn't happen like that everywhere. that the coming together in one place to celebrate the Lord's Supper is clearly communicated in 1 Corinthians 11. You find this language of together in one place in the first verse in 1 Corinthians 11, in the 11th verse, in the 18th verse, in the 20th verse, in the 33rd verse, it should be obvious that the church comes together in one place. to take the Lord's Supper. In 1 Corinthians 11, it's very clear that there was a larger meal that was eaten before the breaking of bread, the formal breaking of bread that the Lord Jesus Christ called for in the upper room. In the upper room, when Jesus taught his disciples to do this, they first of all shared a larger meal, and then they entered into the Lord's Supper. And So in the early church, the breaking of bread was most commonly practiced after a shared meal. At Mount Zion Bible Church in Pensacola, that's what they do when they celebrate the Lord's Supper. They have their fellowship meal and then they break bread. You know, why weekly? Why are we doing it weekly? Particularly from Acts 20, comparing it to Acts chapter 2, and cross-referencing it to 1 Corinthians 11 is how we get to why we do it weekly. In Acts 20 verse 7, we read, on the first day of the week, that was Sunday, when we gathered to break bread. So in Acts chapter 20, when the apostle Paul is on his trip and he is recording what they did. They broke bread on the Lord's Day on Sunday. And I think this is connected to their devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship in the breaking of bread and prayers. This is what the church did. Now, when you find an unbroken, repetitive, apostolic pattern you probably have a model you should follow. So that's why we do it. We're not impugning every church that doesn't celebrate the Lord's Supper every Sunday, but that's why we do it. Acts 20, verse 7, 1 Corinthians 11, and Acts 2, 42. So they were devoting themselves to the gospel. One of the things that I love particularly about doing the Lord's Supper every Sunday is that no matter what convictions, no matter what feelings people are having, no matter what people are thinking about themselves, we end with a gospel. We end with the shed blood of Jesus Christ. We end by saying, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved and you will be free from your sin. And your sins past, present and future are atoned for by Jesus. You're free. And so you get the cup of blessing and you get the bread of life instead of what you deserve. And so the church is a happy people. Happy is that people whose God is the Lord. and God gave us the Lord's Supper for that. So as you're celebrating the Lord's Supper this morning, renew your mind about it. The way that you think about something is the way you're gonna feel about something. And so turn your hearts to the joy that the Lord's Supper brings to the church. I pray that you are so happy in the Lord's Supper. And frankly, I'm sometimes taken back when people seem so somber at the Lord's Supper. Because the best thing that ever happened to you is being celebrated. And you really are free, like the burden of your sin was taken off of your shoulders and put on Jesus. And you're free. Praise God for his indescribable gift, an undeserved gift. So also prayers, they were devoted to prayers. This is the fourth thing that they were devoting themselves to. You all know this already. This is basic Christianity. It's such a joy to just review it though. They were devoted to prayers. This highlights the priority of prayers. John Gill in his commentary says, prayers, not only in their closets and in their families, but in the church, in the public prayers of the church, they observed all opportunities of this kind and gladly embrace them. So there are two ways that you gladly embrace the prayers, praying and absorbing them, receiving the prayers and saying amen to the prayers. So how does this work? How does this work at our church at Hope? This is something we want to give tremendous emphasis to. In our church services, we open up for corporate prayer on Sunday mornings. We so desire the men of the church to pray. If you're not praying, you should be praying. If you're not praying, is it because there's nothing in your heart and there's something else you need to deal with? But we wanna put this emphasis, so we open it up for prayer on Sunday mornings. 1 Timothy 2, verses one through five guides us through this where the apostle exhorts the church. He says, I exhort first of all, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence." By the way, we prayed like crazy for our brother Poojan in the UK, that he wouldn't get arrested for having church, and he didn't get arrested. He sent me a text this morning. He said, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for your church praying. Well, we were praying that he would be able to lead a quiet life and worship in peace, and at least God granted that to them today. He says, this is good and acceptable in the sight of the Lord and in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men. the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all." So the command of God is that the people of God should pray. And by the way, elders have pretty much a simple life. They're supposed to give themselves to the word of God and to prayer. There you go. Done. That's the job description. So how do we do this here? Well, first of all, we urge men to lift up holy hands and pray when we gather together on the Lord's Day on Sunday, as we just did during our worship service. Second, we set aside an entire evening, Wednesday night, and we're encouraging the whole church to make the gathered prayer times fixed constellations in your schedules. Thirdly, we encourage you to all pray on the spot when you're together. If there's a need, stop and pray, do it right away. You know, it's good to say, I'll pray for you. It's better to pray right there and get her done. And, you know, I hope that when you look around here at any given moment, you just might see somebody praying for somebody. It's really a good thing. Just drop it and pray. Fourthly, we encourage personal and private prayer in families. We hope that you're praying in your families. Somebody once said, if you love the church, you'll come Sunday mornings. If you love the pastor, you'll come Sunday night. But if you love Jesus, you'll come to the prayer night. So. The apostle Paul ends Ephesians in 618 saying, praying always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. So, I mean, you see here, from these four things that the church was devoted to, that the Christian is not an isolationist. He doesn't live a secluded and a cloistered life. He doesn't stay to himself. And during the years of the church age, God has designed that you be devoted to these four things until he comes again. The other thing that I think we should recognize from this is that the Bible teaches that the physical presence of Christians together is the presence of Jesus Christ. I in them and thou in me. He is in us. And when we're present in the church, Jesus Christ is present. When you're standing, talking with your brother or your sister, Jesus Christ is present. in your brother or sister. It's a very sacred moment to be with another believer. It should be astonishing, it should take our breath away to think that we are actually in the presence of Jesus Christ who lives in our brother or our sister. So our church covenant sums up these four devotions. of the early church. We will not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, nor neglect to pray for ourselves and others, nor avoid the meetings of the church. So then we find the results of their devotion. You see that word then in verse 43, then what happened? Stuff happened and here's what happened. Fear came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. First it says, fear came upon every soul. What does that mean? Does it mean that they feared God? Was it reverence for God? Or was the outside community, was everyone in fear of the church? Now, I believe that Luke is telling us that people were afraid of the church, that the presence of the church made the community afraid. Every soul, is fearing. And here's my explanation of this. A holy church should make the world fear. There's a name I ran across this last week for this. Ecclesiophobia. Fear of the church. Blaise Pascal wrote that men hate religion because they are afraid that it's true. Two things. First of all, the believer and absolutely the unbeliever should not always feel comfortable with the preaching of the Word of God. For the believer, the preaching should not only comfort, but it should also confront. My goal is not to make you feel good. My goal when I preach is if the text is here to confront, I'm here to confront. It's not my message. It's God's message from his word. So I'm not afraid of doing that. The unbeliever should not feel totally comfortable here. The unbeliever should actually be feeling, I don't belong here. This is a holy family. This is a community of obedient saints. This is a community where people are filled with the Holy Spirit. What about me? I'm not like them. I need to be transformed. I don't think like them. they should feel the tension of holiness and they should be convicted of their sin. Very interesting. I was reading John Gill's commentary on this and he reported that there's an Ethiopian version of the Bible. And he says it's very odd, but he said in this version of the Bible, in this text, it reads, and all the animals feared the apostles. That's crazy. But he says even the brute creatures stood in awe. of the holiness and the power of the message of the apostles. But fear should drive some unbelievers away. I hope it makes them want to repent. But that same fear also draws others when people are struck and they say, oh Lord, have mercy on me. I'm a sinner. I am so different. I don't have the Holy Spirit. I don't love Jesus Christ. I'm bound for hell. I don't have the help that these people have. I don't have the wisdom that these people have. I don't have the comfort and the joy that these people have. Oh Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner, save my soul. So I pray that the fear would cause conversion. The Queen of England said, I fear the prayers of John Knox more than all of the assembled armies of Europe. there should be a sense of fear and there was a sense of fear. Why are people afraid of the church? I'm gonna take you to a place where it makes it very clear. Open your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 28. Open your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 28 and you'll find the reason for the fear and the reason why people fearing the church is legitimate. That it's a biblical thing and that it's actually a good thing. That there should be fear of the church of Jesus Christ. Deuteronomy 28. I'm driving to verses nine and 10, but I want you to grab the context of it first. Now it shall come to pass if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all his commandments, which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. Now, do you see that word in verse one, if? if you diligently obey." So he's talking about an obedient people who are diligent. They are like these who are continually devoting themselves to the apostles doctrine. Verse two, and all those blessings shall come upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground, and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle, and the offspring of your flocks. Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways. The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand. And he will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you. The Lord will establish you as a holy people to your God, to himself, just as he has sworn to you. If you keep his commandments, keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. Now look at verse 10. Then all the peoples of the earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord and they shall be afraid of you. They shall be afraid of you. And the Lord will grant you plenty of goods in the fruit of your body, in the increase of your livestock, and in the produce of your ground, in the land of which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. The Lord will open to you his good treasure, the heavens, to give rain to your land in its season, to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail. You shall be above only and not be beneath. if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and are careful to observe them. You shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you today, to the right or the left, to go after other gods to serve them." So this is a picture of the blessings that God lays upon a holy and obedient people. And the first thing that you see here is the disposition of the Lord toward those who are obedient. He treats the obedient differently than he treats the disobedient. That's in verse nine. He treats his church differently. The Lord will establish you as a holy people if you keep his commandments. And the second thing is a blessing. It's this distinction. Then the peoples of the earth will see that you're called by the name of the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you. So the Lord doesn't promise that everyone will like you, but if you're holy, some may be afraid of you, and that's actually a good thing. If the people of God keep the commandments of God, worldly people will fear the people of God, and they'll want to get away from them. They clean up their language, and they act differently when they're around you. That's what they do because they're afraid. They had all things in common. Verse 44, now, all who believe are together and had all things in common and sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all as anyone had need. So how should we interpret this? Should there be a mad rush for everyone to go out and sell all their possessions? and make everyone have the same. Was this Christian communism? That's the question that people ask about this. And the answer to that is absolutely not. It's further from the truth. They established a common fund. They laid it at the apostles' feet. This is the very same pattern in the Old Testament where the tribes of Israel brought tithes and offerings to the priests and the priests would distribute it to those who had need because they knew who had need in their communities. in their precincts, they discerned who had the need. And in this church in Jerusalem, if there was a need, volunteers would rise up and they would lay resources at the apostles' feet. And there was not a needy person among them because they knew who was needy. And they did what was wise to take care of the needy. Here are a few contrasts between socialism and and Christian benevolence. Socialism forces distribution. This is not forced. It was voluntary. Socialism gets money by taxes. Here, the church gets it freely. Socialism insists in a forever kind of situation. In the book of Acts, it was only a short time according to the need. In socialism, it's the state that's the means. In Christianity, it's the church. In socialism, There's a belief that the state owns the property. Here, the people own the property, and they can do whatever they want with it, and they voluntarily manage it, and in some cases, sell it, and bring it to the apostles' feet. Socialism wants to control everyone's income. Here, only basic needs are supplied for the needy. Socialism is a demonic system, and Christianity is a heaven-sent system. This is a heaven-sent system. It's such a wonderful thing. And why did it happen? Well, it arose out of the compassionate and sacrificial spirit of those who had been saved. And that really brings us to the second thing. This was the fruit of their salvation. They were recently converted, and conversion changes you. Your view of money changes. Your view of time changes. Your view of your books that you read change. Your view of what you listen to changes. Your view of what you watch and who you hang around with and what you do with everything in your life changes. If everything hasn't changed, you haven't been saved. Because everything changes in a real Christian. And so they began to bring their tithes into the storehouse. They began to believe that God owned everything that he gave them out of his grace. And they began to think biblically about their possessions. But when you are saved, you quit looking at your money in the same way. So, you know, the question for us here is that are you bringing your tithes into the storehouse? Have you established unbreakable patterns of generosity and bring it into the church of Jesus Christ so that it would be distributed? Now, we have very consistent givers in this church. That's what the deacons tell us. But how about you? What did you give in 2019? What did you give in 2020? Search your heart. Ask yourself, has God touched your pocketbook yet? Are you bringing your tithes into the storehouse? And what we have here is enthusiastic, sacrificial compassion that was regularly ordered as they brought their tithes and offerings to the apostles. So They were not destroying property ownership. They were not creating Christian socialism. They were creating a system that really has been since the establishment of the people of God according to the law and now applied in a very similar way in the church of Jesus Christ. You know, they weren't destroying property ownership. The words to Ananias and Sapphira bear witness to this. While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? After it was sold, was it not under your control? So this is not putting your finances under the control of the church. It's you before God putting your finances under the control of God. That's the difference. So then you see this unity. The third thing you see is they were continuing daily with one accord in the temple. By the way, they were doing this daily. Can that be sustained? Well, it wasn't sustained. They were kicked out of the temple. This didn't last very long, actually. They become unwelcome, and you can see many illustrations of this as you read on in the book of Acts. And they were also, number four, they were taking their meals with gladness, and they were doing this daily. They were eating their food together. They were just enjoying the basics of food together, the simple thing of food together. I liken this to the practicing of hospitality and people gathering together. It was a joyful community. They were taking their food together with a gladness and simplicity of heart. And let's take simplicity of heart. This is transparency. open and transparent, honest people practicing hospitality together. Not putting on a show, not trying to be somebody, but just honestly, sincerely fellowshipping with people together in homes. And they were praising God. It was a happy church. This is in verse 47. Their happiness was in God. And they were having favor with all the people. Their behavior was a blessing. They weren't being jerks. This would change and not they're being jerks. They wouldn't turn into jerks, but they would be persecuted and they would be hated by many. But there will always be a people. There will always be people, secular people who appreciate the kindness and the generosity and the grace of true Christians and the integrity. And I think that's what we see here. And then there was growth and the Lord added to the church daily. those who were being saved. And notice how it happened. The Lord did it. The Lord added. It was God's sovereign hand sweeping over the community. And the Lord was adding to them. I know we pray for that all the time, that the Lord would add to the community of the saints. You know, our church covenant is a reflection of all this, of what we see. in Acts 2.42, and I'll just close with reading a section of it. We will strive for the advancement of this church in knowledge, holiness, and comfort to promote its prosperity and spirituality. to sustain its worship, ordinances, discipline, and doctrines, and to submit to its leaders as they are faithful to Christ. We will contribute cheerfully and regularly to the support of the ministry, the expenses of the church, the relief of the poor, and the spread of the gospel through all the nations. We will not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, nor neglect to pray for ourselves and others, nor avoid the meetings of the church. We will watch over one another in brotherly love, to remember one another in prayer, to aid one another in sickness and distress, to walk circumspectly in the world, to be just in our dealings, faithful in our engagements, and exemplary in our deportment. Acts 242-47 gives us this beautiful picture of the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. God has established on the church, his church in the world, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. The church will not die. The governments of the world cannot stamp out the church. It will not happen. They cannot do it. Because it is God who sustains his people. and as we gather together and learn how to be Christians in this world. It's so important that we understand how pivotal it is to establish a true Christian church in the world. The presence of the church in the world is the most important presence. The Church of Jesus Christ is the most important, it's the only eternal institution that Jesus Christ established. And she deserves all of our attention, all of our devotion. I pray that you love one another more than ever as the days go by. I pray that you seek one another out. I pray that you're praying for one another more. If you're not giving, that you're giving more. That if you're not devoting yourselves to the apostles' doctrine, that you devote yourselves to the apostles' doctrine like never before, and you know what will happen? God will bless you. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the design of your church that you have appointed. We thank you for how beautiful it is and how good it is. We are so grateful for how real and how beneficial it is. And I pray, Lord, that you would help us here in this place to establish a holy and biblical pattern of life in the community. Amen.