It's great singing for a rainy morning. It's really looking forward to taking home Bon Accord and teaching it to the saints in Birmingham until we got to that third verse about confederate kings despairing of success. Okay, we started in last night talking about Luke's vision for the church out of the book of Acts, Acts chapter 2. We looked at the audible and visible phenomena of Pentecost, how those audible and visible signs revealed to us what the church is, the wind and the tongues of fire and the speaking in tongues. They all point to the church as God's new humanity, as his new Israel, as his new temple, as the true Babel, the true connection point between heaven and earth. They point to the church as a community of priests offering themselves as living sacrifices to the Lord. So all these things are there in this event of Pentecost. And what we want to do now, and I want to mention, too, it's obvious how much of that overlaps with the things that we saw in Revelation 21 and 22. These different visions of the church obviously converge. We also saw towards the end of that chapter how when Peter calls for a response of repentance and baptism, he shows that the gospel is both ecclesial, that is to say it is churchly, as well as experiential. There's got to be the outward means of grace, baptism, as well as an inward change of heart. That's why he speaks of repentance. So the gospel is both institutional and individual. You are incorporated into the church, and you also are called upon to make a personal response of repentance to the grace of God. You've got repentance, which is how Peter describes that personal response, and you've got baptism, which is God's gift to us of forgiveness and of the Holy Spirit, its initiation into the church. So repentance, describing the inward change of heart, which is our responsibility, and baptism the outward means of grace, which is God's work, and which grafts us into his community of the new covenant. Those two together constitute a full response to the gospel. What I want to do now is focus really on the end of the passage. We're mostly going to focus on verse 42, but I will read the last little bit of the chapter. Let's pick up in verse 40 of Acts chapter 2. And with many other words he testified, and exhorted them, saying, Be saved from this perverse generation. Then those who gladly received his word were baptized, and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and the breaking of bread, and in prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now 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. This is the word of the Lord. Father, we ask for your blessing to rest upon the preached word and upon your people this day. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Now, as I said last night, Pentecost is a public, you might even say political, event. God pours out His Spirit not only to transform the church, but ultimately to transform the world. The Spirit comes to make us the true Israel, the true temple, the new humanity, the new creation. But the Spirit makes us these things for the sake of the world. See, Pentecost was not just a private event in the experience of the disciples. It was a public event in the history of the world. In other words, that first Christian Pentecost was not just a part of church history, you might say. It's one of the major turning events in world history. It's not as though church history is some separate history. That's how it gets treated a lot of times. You've got world history, and then church history is this separate thing over here, and the two don't really intersect. No, that's not the case at all. Church history is the core of world history. So for this to be a major event in the life history of the church, the people of God, means it is a major turning event in world history, because church history is right at the core of world history. What happens to the church happens for the world. The church is given the Spirit on behalf of the world, that the Spirit that has come from the Father through the Son to the church now might flow through the church out to the nation. through the church, the whole world can know God by means of His Spirit. Pentecost is part of the divine invasion, you might say. It's part of God's rescue mission. But God's plan is not just to save a tiny handful Rather, God is determined to save the whole world. God is renewing the whole world by His Spirit. Just as the Spirit came and hovered above the face of the earth at the beginning of all things, now the Spirit will again hover above the face of the whole earth, making God known. That's why when the Spirit comes, immediately the disciples begin speaking in tongues. The Gospel is spoken in a wide variety of languages to show that the coming of the Spirit means now God is including all the nations of the earth. in his redemptive program. So in looking at this event, Pentecost, in Acts chapter 2, we are not merely remembering a private religious experience that the disciples had. Isn't it neat that they had this experience of God's Spirit? No, we are remembering and indeed celebrating a public event that will shape the course of world history right down to the last day. Every bit as public and world-transforming as the death and resurrection of Christ. The death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ and Pentecost set the world in a new direction. All that God had promised to do in the Old Covenant, all God promised to do through Abraham and through the prophets, now God is bringing to fulfillment through Christ and through His Spirit. When the new wine of the Spirit is poured out, it becomes evident right away that the old wineskins of Israel cannot contain it. This wine is poured into new wineskins. You could say the new wineskins of the Catholic Church, a church that will embrace all nations, bringing all nations into the kingdom. When the Spirit comes, He not only changes individual lives, He changes nations. He changes cultures. He restructures the whole order of the world. I really like how Doug Wilson put this recently. He said, if the goal of the secular state is one nation with many faiths, the goal of Pentecost is many nations sharing one faith. And that is exactly right. Now, I point all this out because, again, as I started to talk about at the end of last night's talk, If you just glance at this passage, if you just kind of take a surface-level view of what Luke describes here, sort of the aftermath of Pentecost at the end of Acts chapter 2, it looks like Luke is only concerned with the effects of the Spirit on the church, with the effects of the Spirit on the disciples. He says a lot about the church's own life as a Spirit-filled society. He doesn't seem to say very much about the Spirit's impact on the world at large. But I want to suggest to you that's not the case at all. The Spirit fills and transforms the church precisely so the church can fill and transform the world in the power of the Spirit. The emphasis on the interior life of the church is there. That certainly is where Luke focuses the bulk of his attention. But Luke hints and gestures at ways in which the church's interior life touches and removes the world external to the church. That is to say, The picture that Luke draws for us of the church is, yes, the Spirit is working in the community, transforming the community, but that community is not a closed circle. It's not simply an inward facing community. It's also an outward facing community. So the disciples are not simply sharing the Spirit with one another. They're also going to share the Spirit with the world, that the world might be drawn into the church. See, the focus is on the church community, to be sure, but that community is missional through and through. The Father sent the Son. The Son now sends the Spirit. And in the Spirit, the church is now sent. So Luke describes for us, the kind of community that is sent on a mission. And of course, ultimately, if it's a mission in the Spirit, it's also the Son's mission, which is also the Father's mission. That is to say, the mission of the church is really missio Dei. It's really the mission of God himself. Well, let's walk through these verses here and see what we find. What we have here is Luke painting a portrait of God's Pentecostal people. This is Luke's vision of the church on the ground, you might say. And it's very important for us to remember this. See, we are not called to be Christian theoreticians. We're called to be Christian practitioners. Yes, the theory, the theology is important. But really what we're called to do is embody it, live it out, put it into practice. And Luke shows us how that happens. here at the end of Acts chapter 2. It's great to talk about all these images and pictures of the church that you've got in Revelation at the beginning of Acts chapter 2, but what really counts is when you really cash it out. What's the cash value of these things? What does it look like on the ground, on the street, in our lives? And keep in mind as we go, that first Pentecost, obviously there's a lot of confusion about Pentecost in the church today and the role of the Spirit, That first Christian Pentecost was a once and for all event in the story of the church and in the story of the world. So it can't be repeated any more than the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus can be repeated. But just as the cross and resurrection have ongoing implications that shape history down to the last day, so the event of Pentecost has implications for the rest of history. The power of Pentecost continues to reverberate down through the rest of history. So we don't experience the same phenomena that you have in Acts chapter 2, but the power of the Pentecostal spirit, the power of Pentecost, abides with the Church. So this is not just a history lesson. It's not just a history lesson for us, it is a model for us. See, Acts 2 is not just a record of the past, it is a blueprint for the present. not just what God did for the church way back then and, hey, isn't that neat that happened for them, but it shows us what God is doing for us, what God is doing through the church community. So let's look at some of the details here, starting in verse 41. Peter has finished his sermon, and those who have received his word with joy, it's interesting that receiving the word with faith would be tied into receiving the word with joy. There's a joyful response to the gospel message, even though they were just previously cut to the heart. because they've been convicted of their sin. They received the word with joy, and they were baptized. In baptism, they are identifying with Christ and with his people. See, their individual baptisms make them sharers in the church's once-and-for-all baptism when the Spirit is poured out there in Acts chapter 2 earlier in the passage. But note this. These people make a response to the gospel. They do what Peter says. They repent. and they receive baptism, but they don't just go their own way after that. It's not as though they repent and get baptized and go their merry way, go off to live their lives just as they did before. No, through repentance and by means of baptism, they are made part of a community. They are made members of the body of Christ, part of this Spirit-baptized, Spirit-indwelt community. They are added to a body of disciples. See, baptism initiates us into the New Covenant community. The baptism of the Spirit at the beginning of the passage transforms Old Covenant Israel into the New Covenant Church. And now through their individual baptisms, they are incorporated into this new community. It says 3,000 became disciples that day. We talked about the significance of that number typologically last night as it relates to the giving of the law at Sinai, where 3,000 died. Now here 3,000 are made alive. But there's also something else to consider here. If you think about it, 3,000 responding to one sermon, that's a pretty big response. That's a huge response. If you look back at the Gospels, you see Jesus never really got that kind of response to his preaching. But remember the promise that Jesus made to his apostles in John's Gospels. He said that when he returned to his father, They would do greater works than he himself had performed. And here I think you begin to see what Jesus meant by that. See, in three years of constant preaching and ministry, Jesus could only gather 120. And those 120 gathered in Jerusalem to wait for the giving of the Spirit. But now that the Spirit has come, just as Jesus promised, the disciples are doing greater works, greater works than Jesus did. See, Jesus could only gather 120 in three years. Here, Peter gathers 3,000 with one sermon. That's the power of Pentecost. The Pentecostal church has power, power to grow. The Pentecostal church is an expanding church, a growing church, a multiplying church. See, with the coming of the Spirit, new power for mission has come on the scene of history. With the outpouring of the Spirit, now the Kingdom of God is going to march and advance and press forward, press her way into the world. Now, verse 42 gives us one of the most succinct and yet comprehensive descriptions of life in the early church that you will find anywhere. The picture given in verse 42 is filled out in the rest of the chapter, and you could say it's filled out really in the rest of the book and even in the rest of the New Testament. But this four-fold description that we're given in verse 42 is really, I think it really gets to the heart of what life in the church is all about. So we're going to camp out here for a few minutes. Luke says they devoted themselves to four things. They gave themselves to the teaching of the apostles, to the fellowship, to the breaking of the bread, and to the prayers. Now each one of these, I think you could say, applies directly to us. fourfold vision of the church, this fourfold picture of what the Pentecostal spirit does through the community, what the Pentecostal body, the Pentecostal community, what it looks like on the ground when these things are lived out. This is what it looks like. And here we have something of a measuring rod that we can use to see how we measure up, to see how we're doing, to see how our church communities compare. So let's talk about each one of these four things. First, devotion to apostolic doctrine. Devotion to apostolic doctrine, apostolic teaching, apostolic instruction. You might say that the Holy Spirit opened school on that day of Pentecost with 3,000 students newly enrolled. See, that's what Christians are. We are disciples. We are disciples of Christ and of His apostles. To be a disciple is to be a learner. That's what disciple means. a student. To be a disciple of another is to put yourself under their teaching. And that's what the Christians are doing here. They're putting themselves under the instruction, the leadership, the teaching of the apostles who, of course, are Christ's appointed spokesmen. Now, one thing this means is that anti-intellectualism and discipleship are incompatible. You cannot be a faithful Christian, you certainly cannot be a growing, maturing Christian and have a dislike or a distaste for doctrine because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. That's how Jesus described the Spirit back in John's Gospel. So the Spirit would guide His disciples into the truth. The Spirit comes to teach truth. And so you cannot be going with the flow of the Spirit, you cannot be filled with the Spirit, you cannot be walking in the Spirit and have a dislike for Christian doctrine. The Spirit comes to teach us, and of course, He teaches us through the Word. He teaches us especially, though I would not say exclusively, through appointed men in the church, men who are set aside to proclaim the Scriptures, to teach the Scriptures to us, men who are especially equipped and set aside within the body for that purpose. A Spirit-filled church is going to be a Word-filled church. See, the Spirit and the Word go together. A Spirit-filled church is going to be a doctrine-loving church. A church that relishes Bible teaching. A church that bleeds Bible, you might say. See, the church is a learning community because we desire to be formed and shaped by the Bible more than anything else. We want the Bible to be right at the center of our worldview, right at the center of our thinking, right at the center of our living. We desire to make the Bible's worldview our worldview. We desire to make the Bible's story our story, so we see ourselves within its history, within the story that it tells. We desire to make the Bible's symbols our symbols. The Bible's rituals our rituals. Now, sadly today, many Christians are more devoted to TV and to Hollywood than to apostolic doctrine. There are students, you could say, more pop culture than Peter, James, and John, and so it's no wonder that so many in the church today are ineffective. See, the teaching that we receive from the apostles through the inscripturated Word, through the Scriptures, draws a line between the Church and the world. The things that we believe, the convictions that we have, set us apart. And those convictions derive, or ought to derive, from the Word of God, from the teaching of the Apostles. And of course, you can't understand the Apostles without understanding the Old Testament, because the Apostles were building on the Hebrew Scriptures. So don't think, oh, well, this just means I can focus on the New Testament. No, the apostles themselves cannot be understood apart from going back to the Old Testament, which is really their foundation. Now, let me ask you a few questions, sort of litmus test type questions. Do you love to learn? Do you love to read the Bible, to study the Bible? Do you love preaching and teaching from the Bible? Do you enjoy being challenged and stretched by the Bible, even when it convicts you, even when it's a painful thing for you? Do you devote yourself to apostolic doctrine? Is that where your loyalties lie? That when you're confronted with a major question, a major decision in life, you want to know, what would the apostles say? What would the apostles do? You devote yourself to apostolic instruction. Or, is the weekly 45-minute sermon an interruption of your regularly scheduled programming? You'll bear it, but it doesn't really shape your life. It's not really the main thing for you. Do you love to read the Bible? Are you a student of the Scriptures? Do you seek to put into practice what you learn? Do you desire to submit to what you find in the Scriptures? Will you let the Bible cut your life apart and rearrange your life? In the book of Hebrews, we're told that the Word of God is like a two-edged sword. That's priestly imagery. See, we are the sacrifices being cut apart by the Scriptures, transformed so that our lives can be acceptable offerings to God. And you find there in Hebrews 4, the Word of God cuts deep. It goes right to the joint and the marrow, right to the soul and to the spirit. It goes right to the heart of things. See, we need to strive to read the Bible not just for information, but formation, for transformation. The Bible is not just data. God has given us the Word in the form that He's given it to us, so that it might be formative in our character, in our community. See, we're to be a people who not only know the Bible, but who use the Bible. I'm afraid sometimes in Reformed circles, in Presbyterian circles, the kind of circles we run in, Very often theology becomes something that's rather academic, and certainly there's a place for the academic study of Scripture. We need biblical scholarship. But more than anything, we need to make sure that our study of Scripture always serves some purpose, that it serves a function in our lives, that we're not just studying the Bible so we can accumulate data, but we're studying the Bible so that we can put it into practice. See, our study of the scriptures ought to serve the purpose of ministry and mission. Our study of the Bible ought to be functional. It ought to be practical, you could say. Now, I'm not saying that every Christian is going to have the same level of interest or ability when it comes to understanding the Scriptures, handling the Scriptures, teaching the Scriptures, studying theology. That's not the case. And not only do different Christians have different abilities in this, but there are different seasons of life, different stages of life. And you may find in some periods of life you don't have freedom in terms of time and energy to study the Bible as much as you would like, or as much as you have in other times of your life. But what I am saying is this, every Christian needs to have a deep, deep love for the truth, a deep love for apostolic doctrines. I'm saying you cannot grow to maturity as a Christian unless you are feeding yourselves on the teaching of the apostles. And if you're really devoted to the truth, it's not going to just be an intellectual game for you. It's not going to just be Bible trivia. You're going to be diving into the Bible because you want the Scriptures to reshape your life. You want the Scriptures to reshape your worldview. You want the Bible to be your map, your light, your path, your compass. It's what you live by. So you've got to go deep into the Word of God, and you've got to allow the Word of God to go deep into your life. So that's the first of these four aspects that we're given in verse 42. Well, second, we're told that they devoted themselves to fellowship, which really is a way of saying they devoted themselves to one another. See, this is a community with theological depth, but that is matched by their relational depth. And I want you to understand how balanced that is. And as I've been around you all this week, I really sense that balance in your community as well. But there are some churches that veer off to one side. They're all about theology. And it's almost like the church is a book of the month club. And there are others that, you know, I mean, nobody knows anything, but hey, they sure are nice. You know, they're a friendly bunch. That's not the case here. You've got theological depth and you've got relational depth. They're going deep into the scriptures, but they're also going deep into one another's lives. And those things have got to be together. They were devoted to the common life of the church, a life of caring and sharing, a life of giving to and receiving from one another, a life of mutual accountability, encouragement, and service. See, the gospel is sort of like a magnet. It draws us together. It draws us into a community. It draws people into deep relationships with one another. The gospel creates community. How did this community get formed? Peter preached. Peter preached the gospel, and next thing you know, there's a community living this way, sharing these things together. See, the gospel forms us into this kind of community. This, of course, is the communion of the saints that we confess in the Creed. And it's really, really clear. The communion of the saints is not a clique. It's not a club, it is a community formed by the grace of God. The bonds that bind us, the bonds that tie us together are bonds that are formed by the Spirit Himself. See, we are God's family. The unity that we share is a unity that is God's gift to us, not something we can create. It's a unity that God Himself forms among us. The church is the family of God. It is a place to love and be loved, a place to care and be cared for, a place to rebuke and be rebuked, a place to encourage and be encouraged. More than that, It is a place where we learn to love the unlovely, to forgive the unforgivable, to embrace the untouchable, and to befriend the awkward and the difficult. See, if the church is not those things, then the church comes off looking just like another human organization. The church is to manifest relationships that are created and sustained solely by the grace of God. Where you can look around and you can say, you know, there's no way in the world I would ever have been friends with that guy. if it were not for the church. That's kind of scary to have to say sometimes, but it's true. Life as it should be lived is life in community. We can only be a holy people in a hostile world if we are in it together. If we are in relationships, deep relationships with one another that will give us the support and the encouragement that we need to go live a faithful, Godly life, a life of obedience. In a world where everything is arrayed against that. In a world where we are surrounded with temptations that would pull us. away from that. I want to read to you something from Christopher Wright that I think is helpful. He's talking here about Israel, but this is just as applicable to the church. He says, The social shape of Israel was an integral part of what God has called them into existence for. God's message of redemption through Israel was not just verbal, it was visible and tangible. They, the medium, were themselves part of the message. It would be as they lived out the quality of national and social life demanded by the law, with its great chords of freedom, justice, love and compassion, that they would function as God's holy priesthood, as a nation among the nations for the nations." See, that calling that God gave to Israel to be a distinct people, a uniquely holy people, that calling now has fallen upon the church. Israel didn't fare so well in that calling for most of her history. But now that the Spirit has come, We're called to live this out in a new and far greater and more powerful way. Now, let me ask you some questions here, sort of litmus test questions again. Do you make an effort to invest yourself in your fellow Christians? See, fellowship doesn't just happen. It is a gift that God gives to us, but it also takes work on our part. It takes effort to build community. Do you take the time to invest yourself in your fellow Christians? Do you make time for one another? Is there space on your calendar and in your pocketbook, in your bank account for sharing with other believers? Do you strive to live at one with other Christians so that you share joys and burdens with others? Do you realize you're dependent upon other Christians and they're dependent upon you? That in a church we're interdependent, we're dependent upon None of us is self-sufficient. None of us should try to play Lone Ranger Christian. That just doesn't work. Do you have friends with whom all your cards are on the table? Friends with whom you are open and accountable? Can other people tell you what you really need to hear? Or if they did tell you what you really needed to hear when it set off World War III? Are you being open? or do you shield yourself from that kind of scrutiny, that kind of accountability? Do you hold grudges and spread gossip so that you are tearing down community? Or do you forgive others and turn the other cheek and say, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry so that you build up community? Are you just content with the relationships you have or are you open to forming new friendships even as you seek to maintain those old friendships? So you're open to growth in the community. It should be very, very clear from here in Acts 2 as well as elsewhere in the Scriptures, you cannot live the Christian life on your own by yourself. Christian life is life together. Christian existence is communal existence. We were made to live together. Salvation is, you could say, social. It is a social reality. There's really no such thing as a solitary Christian. Again, Peter calls for baptism. Baptism is something that has to be done by another, not something you can do by yourself. That presupposes a community. See, and obviously you can talk about exceptions to that, exceptional cases where baptism is not possible. But the point is, we are grafted into a community and there's no ordinary possibility of salvation outside of that community. And there's certainly no way to live a normal and healthy Christian life apart from the medium, the context of a community. You can even say a local congregation. To use a sports analogy, if I can, Christian living is more like baseball than like golf. You can go off and play golf by yourself. And some people even enjoy it that way more, just go off and play by yourself. But if you're going to play baseball, you've got to have a team. You've got to have teammates. You've got to have other people. And so it is, if you want to play the game of the Christian gospel, the game of the Christian life, the game of Christianity, you might say, you've got to have teammates. You've got to have partners. You've got to have a network of relationships that you're plugged into. It is our primary family. It is our ultimate community. It is where our deepest loyalties lie. Indeed, Jesus in the Gospels makes it clear loyalty to His disciples supersedes even loyalty to family members if there is a conflict between those loyalties. Jesus says you must leave behind your mother and your father. to be my disciple. He says, I came to bring a sword to set mother against daughter and father against son. Sometimes that happens. It's sad. We believe that God works through families and redeems families, but it doesn't always happen that way. And when there's a conflict of loyalties, water is thicker than blood. The water of baptism binds us together more deeply than our blood ties, our blood relationships. As John Calvin put it, he said, we cannot be Christians without being brothers. And so we need to learn to live as family. We need to learn to practice familial love, brotherly love towards one another. Now, how does this fit into the context of Pentecost? Well, when the Spirit comes, the Spirit comes to form a new community. When the Spirit is poured out, the Spirit comes not only for salvation, but for service. Service in community. See, in the Spirit, we are to one another, one another. I already made reference this week to all those one-anothering commands in the New Testament. Well, how can we carry out those one-another commands? Love one another, be patient for one another, pray for one another, forgive one another, put one another first, bear one another's burdens. How can you carry out those commands if only in the power of the Spirit? This is what the Spirit has come to do, to help us one another, one another. See, the Spirit ministers to other Christians through you. And how do you get ministered to by the Spirit? Other Christians. As the Spirit works in them, they minister to you. Now, in the New Testament, you've also got all these negative one-another commands. Do not bite and devour one another. Do not envy one another. Do not provoke one another. So, see, what is life in the Spirit all about? Life in the Spirit is the right kind of one-another. It's doing the right kind of one-anothering, and it's avoiding the wrong kind of one-another. That's what it's about. Now, in particular, here in Acts chapter 2, Luke illustrates this fellowship by showing us how they share their goods with one another as need arose. It is, you could say, a financial fellowship. There are needs in the community, and those needs are being met. There are needs that are arising, financial hardships that are arising, perhaps because those who become Christians are being shunned by their family and by their friends. Their old social network now has expelled them because they've joined the church. So there are needs. their needs, and in this Spirit-filled community, this Spirit-indwelt community, those needs are being met. See, they are looking towards the common good of the church, not just their own individual desires and interests, but what's best for the community as a whole, and that's what the Spirit does. The Spirit gives you this wider way of looking at things, so you're not just focused on yourself. You're not just a self-protective person. You're not just curve in on yourself, but you're curved open. You're curved outward. You're looking out for needs around you that you can meet. There's real economic sharing that's going on. They're sensitive to needs. They're looking for needs that they need to meet. But I would say this is a lot more than just a matter of economic sharing. If you look at other places in the New Testament, perhaps especially the letters of Paul, This fellowship is illustrated by how we use spiritual gifts to minister to one another. Now, as I said already in another talk, the primary gift of the Spirit is, of course, the Spirit Himself. What is the ultimate spiritual gift? It's the gift of the Spirit. How does God bless His Church? He blesses His Church with the gift of the Spirit through whom the Father is present with us and through whom the Son is present with us. See, the primary gift of the Spirit is the Spirit Himself as He comes to make us sharers in Christ's glorified life, as He comes to unite us to the Lord Jesus Christ so that we share in the life and the benefits and the blessings of Christ Himself. But as I already mentioned too, that one gift of the Spirit is refracted into a diversity of more specialized gifts. So we all have the gift, the gift with a capital G, the gift of the Spirit, but none of us have in ourselves a full complement of the spiritual gifts. The Spirit, as He works in the body, divides those gifts among us. So there is within this unity that we share in the Spirit, there is a diversity of spiritual gifts. Gifts like teaching, mercy, prayer, evangelism, counseling, healing, wisdom, governing. And I don't think that the list that the New Testament gives us are supposed to be exhaustive. I think they're representative of the kinds of things that the Spirit does in the community. So how is the Spirit manifested, how do these spiritual gifts come to fruition, how do they function? The Spirit primarily manifests Himself and manifests His gifts through our relationships, through our relationships with one another. Because it's in these relationships, as we're connected with one another, that we have opportunities to serve. See, where do the opportunities to serve, to minister arise? It's as we are connected to one another and we see deficiencies or we see needs. And then we can step in and meet those needs in the power of the Spirit. See, a Spirit-filled church is going to see a crisis situation like, say, a death in someone's family or the loss of a job or an illness or a natural disaster. A spiritual church is going to see these kinds of crisis situations not simply as crises, but as opportunities to spring into action in the power of the Spirit to serve. Every crisis is an opportunity to minister in the grace and power of the Holy Spirit, to minister in the name and according to the pattern of the Lord Jesus Christ. which we do by His Spirit. I talked about churches that take spiritual gift inventories and how there can be something good about that. If you discover gifts you didn't know you had, that there can also be something limiting about that. You can say, well, this is my gift so I don't have to do all these other things. I think more often than not, you probably don't know the gifts of the Spirit that you have, the specialized gifts of the Spirit that you have, until a crisis hits, until a need arises within the community. And then you see that need, and because God has opened your eyes to that need, now you have an obligation to meet it. And you think, oh, but I can't. I'm not very good at that. Well, guess what? As you go to meet that need, the Spirit mystically equips you to do it. I've seen it happen again and again. People doing things they never thought they could, but because they were willing to step in and give it a shot, the Spirit did not let them down. The Spirit equipped them to serve and minister in that way. So see, within the one gift of the Spirit, The church has a multitude of gifts, a multitude of gifts waiting to be used, waiting to be exercised. And as we see needs in one another's lives, we can step in and be an agent of the Spirit in filling in those gaps, meeting those needs. This is part of our fellowship together. In a sense, you might say, you know, we've all got the flame of the Spirit. What we need to do is fan that flame into a roaring fire. And we do that through acts of service, through making ourselves available to be used by the Spirit in these kinds of ways. Well, then Luke in his list here, his catalogue in verse 42, he turns to liturgy. He speaks of the breaking of the bread. And that doesn't show up in most of your English translations, but it is the bread, which I think clues you in to what's going on here. This has got to be a reference to their liturgical gatherings, reference to the divine service, to their worship assemblies where the people come together to praise God and ultimately to celebrate the Eucharist. And this seems to be Luke's consistent vision of the church in the book of Acts. You go to Acts chapter 20 where we have one of the fullest descriptions of an early Christian worship service, one of the fullest descriptions of an apostolic gathering. It's on the first day of the week. It's on the Lord's Day. And Luke says they came together on the first day of the week to break the bread. It's that same expression, and it's a reference obviously there to the Eucharist. Now, if you read the whole account in Acts chapter 20, you see that they did more than just break the bread together. There was also preaching. In fact, Paul preached so long that some kid sitting in the window fell asleep and fell right out the window, which is interesting in and of itself. It provides an opportunity for a death and resurrection right there in the center of of the liturgy. I won't go down that, because that's Acts 20, and we're in Acts 2, and I want to stay focused. But I do want you to see this phrase, the breaking of the bread, it's something that occurs again in the book of Acts, and it's clearly a reference to the Eucharist. See, in Acts 20, verse 7, the stated purpose of their coming together on the first day of the week as an assembly is to break the bread together, and it's a reference to the Lord's Supper. So we can say rightly, I think, that the covenant renewal meal is the pinnacle of the gathering. That's not to say, again, it's not the only thing that we do, but everything else that we do flows into that. Everything else we do flows into the table, flows into this meal that we share together where we celebrate with bread and wine together. But notice again here what happens. The Lord suffers not just an isolated event, any more than baptism could be an isolated event. Baptism plugs you into a community. Well, so too the breaking of the bread together. Builds community. It builds them up in their common life together. They didn't just break the bread together and then go live separated, isolated lives. The breaking of the bread together flowed into hospitality in one another's homes. The special meal gave rise to common. See, they have this special meal together that gives rise to common meals together. In a sense, you could say that meal together, that special sacramental meal, the breaking of the bread together, really sets the tempo for the rest of life. See, that's the liturgical meal, but there's a liturgy after the liturgy. And the pattern of that liturgy flows out of what they've done together in God's presence. They share a meal together. in God's presence, and you could say in God's house. And so now in their own homes, they're compelled to share meals together as well. So Acts chapter 2 verse 46 describes them eating together in one another's houses day by day. the special communion meal gives rise to these common meals that they share together. They share a common table in the Lord's presence, and so all their tables become common in day-to-day life as well. In fact, really, if you read verse 46, and it talks about them eating together day by day, you kind of get the idea that you couldn't keep these people apart. These people are just so drawn together. They can't stay away from one another. They want to share. They want to share their tables. They want to share their lives. with one another. Because they've shared the Lord's table, they can't help but share their own tables. Because they've shared in the body and blood, they can't help but share lives. They can't help but share their lives with one another. See, shared bread in the Lord's presence leads to shared lives in day-to-day life. You might say the Eucharist binds them together. It gives rise to a culture of hospitality. They've experienced God's hospitality. Well, now they're going to show hospitality to one another. Now, gathering to break the bread with one another is covenant renewal. And I can't go back and prove that to you. You'd have to do a study of Leviticus and look at a bunch of things in order to get to that conclusion. But that's what it is. You have, I would say that it's suggested too by the words of institution where Jesus takes the bread and he describes it with covenantal language. He describes it as a memorial feast. So this is a way, when they break the bread together, and of course that's shorthand, they also of course were taking the cup together as well. But when they do this, when they share this meal together, this is covenant renewal. And that means it is in part calling upon God to keep His covenant with them. Now it's interesting. This is the only ritual event that Christians are commanded to keep, that Christians are commanded to do on a regular basis. We're commanded to assemble together to break the bread and to share the cup together. Hebrews 10 says, do not forsake these assemblies of the saints. And it's clearly they're talking about a covenant renewal gathering because it's talking about a gathering where we are lifted up into the heavenlies, where we enter into the most holy place. It's where we ascend before the throne of God, the altar of God. And so we feast at his altar table. But you still might ask the question, why is the assembly so important? Why does it matter? Why do I have to go to church every seven days? Well, if the church is all those things that we've seen in the earlier part of this chapter, all those things that the events of Pentecost itself point this to, if the church really is the new temple, the new creation, and so forth, then it should be obvious. It should be obvious why we need to come together. We come together to be who we are, to live out who we are. See, the church, you could say, is the chief locus. It is the central location of God's work in the world. It is the place where God is specially present with His people. But don't misunderstand the purpose of those gatherings. You know, sometimes we talk about those gatherings as worship gatherings, and of course worship is a part of it, but that's sort of putting the cart before the horse. We gather each Lord's Day primarily not to give to God, but to receive from Him. See, why do we gather each Lord's Day to break the bread together, to feast together? Because we are always a needy people. We are always a hungry people. We gather together each Lord's Day the way a bunch of starving beggars might go off to a soup kitchen together. I mean, that's really what's happening. We don't come so much to give praise to God, rather we come to receive from God, to receive His Now, we do give God praise, but we do so as a way of thanking Him, as a way of responding to His prior gift. See, what happens in the liturgy, the breaking of the bread, it's all about God's gift to us. The bread that we break is God's gift. It's the gift of God's Son. It's God giving us His Son. It's how He gives His Son to us, how we become sharers in His benefits, in His blessings. See, in the service, in the breaking of the bread, we receive Christ afresh, which is exactly what we need. We go through the week, and in various ways we sin, and we don't live the way we're supposed to, and we don't do all the things we know we're called to do. And so we need to come into God's presence, and we need to confess our sin, and we need to hear God declare us forgiven. And we need strength. And so God fills us with His strength through His Word and through the breaking of the bread. You know, if you're familiar with Lord of the Rings, you know about Limbus Bread. Bread for the journey. Bread for the way. And in a sense, that's what the Lord's Supper is. It fills us with God's strength so that we can go on living faithfully to Him, ministering in His name throughout the week. And that's why you should come to church even when you don't feel like it maybe, especially when you don't feel like it. You know, I've known people who've said, well, I don't really want to go to church this week. I don't feel like I have much to give. Well, you really need to go then because you need to be on the receiving end. And that's really what it's all about. You know, you're again like a hungry beggar coming to get God's free bread. I think I already mentioned earlier in the week that the standard word for worship in the New Testament really means to prostrate yourself before another. Well, if you're prostrating yourself before another, you're putting yourself in a position of acknowledged helplessness. But you're also putting yourself in a position where you can receive from another. Where another who has strength can lift you up. And that's what we do in worship. We fall down on our faces before God, and God raises us up. God gives us His gifts. He strengthens us. He equips us. You can think about it this way, if you come across a mountain stream, you don't honor that stream, you don't glorify that stream by lugging buckets of water up the hill to dump into that stream. The stream doesn't need your buckets of water, okay? And God doesn't need your buckets of praise. The way you honor that stream is by prostrating yourself before it, getting down on your hands and knees and drinking from it. And when God calls us into His presence, this is what He's calling us to do. He's the all-sufficient, overflowing fountain of goodness and love and mercy. And He calls us to drink deeply from that fountain, deeply from that well of His own life. And when you come up from the drink, you say, that's good, that's refreshing. See, that's our praise. That's our thanksgiving. but it's a response to God's prior gift. So you go to church not because you have something God needs, not because your praise is so great. You go to church not because you've got something to offer. You come to receive. And you receive from God so that then you will have something to give. So you'll have something to give to God, to thank Him and praise Him with, and to serve and minister to others around you. See, that's what the breaking of the bread is all about. God giving Himself to His people to strengthen us, to equip us, to enable us, to serve Him and praise Him, to live for His glory in the rest of the week, the rest of our time. Well, then finally, there is praying together. And I said, Luke, here at the end, turns to liturgy. I think this is a part of that as well. Again, it actually says, the prayers. So it's got that article there. So this may refer to set prayer times that they shared according to Jewish custom, which you can find the roots of that in the Old Testament scriptures. It may refer to a body of prayers, like the Psalms, that they prayed together corporately. You see that happen later on in Acts chapter 4. together a psalm. They lift up their voices with one accord, it says. So they must have prayed the psalm together, which means they must have had it memorized or they had prayer books or something, obviously. They're going to pray it together. This is a reference to the corporate prayers of the church. Now, it does not exclude individual prayer times or family prayer times, but understand that your individual prayer times, your family prayer times flow out of the corporate prayer life of the church as a praying community. See, there's a sense in which corporate prayer has got to always take priority over individual prayer. Corporate prayer is central. Let me read to you something about prayer. This is from Timothy Chester from his book, Total Church. I thought he had some helpful thoughts on prayer. He says, biblical spirituality is not a spirituality of silence. It is a spirituality of passionate petition. If we are engaged with the world around us, then we will care about that world. We will be passionate about people's needs, our holiness, and God's glory. We will not be still in prayer. We will cry out for mercy with a holy violence. If we are silent, it will be because we are in distress. Words have failed us. This is the spirituality of the psalm. of spirituality in which all our emotions are engaged. When the psalmists do talk of stilling our hearts, it is not the stillness of silence, but the stilling of self-justification or self-confidence." And he points to Psalms 46, 62, and 131. He says, "...to ask God for things is a profound act of faith. It is a recognition of His majesty, goodness, and power. It is an act of worship." He says, thus we should prioritize prayer with others over prayer alone. And he says, if corporate prayer is so important, we need to keep this in mind, we must not separate our relationship with God from our relationship with others. In Isaiah 58, Matthew 5, 23 and 24, Matthew 6, 14 and 15, and 1 Peter 3, 7, God says He will not answer prayer. In each case, The problem is not sin against God. Sin against God is no barrier to prayer if we are truly repentant. Indeed, we run back to God in prayer to confess our sin and find forgiveness in the gospel. Now, in each one of these cases, those scriptures he lists, The problem is sin against other people, against the poor, against our Christian family, against those who have wronged us, against our wife. Sin against others requires us to first be reconciled with them. See, what is the main hindrance to an effective prayer life? Unreconciled relationships. That example in 1 Peter 3 is really, really clear. Peter says, speaking to husbands, he says, live in understanding with your wife so that your prayers will not be hindered. See, God's saying, if you want me to listen to you when you pray, then you've got to listen to your wife. And if you turn a deaf ear to your wife, I'm going to turn a deaf ear to you when you pray. It's kind of this Lex Talonis, law for a law, I'm sorry, Lex Talonis kind of thing. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, deaf ear for deaf ear kind of thing. If you don't listen to your wife, you're the head, she's under your authority, I'm not going to listen to you. I'm not going to listen to your prayers. So I point that out because I want you to see prayer within the context of community. It can't be separated from these other things. If we're going to pray effectively, we've got to be in deep and harmonious relationships with one another. You know, we can't just let our community go to pot and then still expect God to answer our prayers. He's not going to. We've got to be faithful in building up the community. And then we can say the prayer of a righteous community avails much. before the Lord. A praying church is a powerful church, and you see that all throughout the book of Acts. A people who live like this, who've got these four ingredients in Acts 2.42 in the mix, right at the center of things, a people who live like this cannot be stopped. They will conquer. And if you look at the book of Acts as it unfolds, the gospel moves forth. Conquering and to conquer. It moves forth. It advances. The Kingdom of God is growing and expanding. The Word of God is multiplying. And prayer is right at the heart of that. Corporate prayer especially. Because see, I think that prayer ties together all these other things that are listed here. Because prayer is where we really express our utter dependence upon God. See, in prayer it becomes really, really evident that all our hopes are pinned on God and on His mercy. You know, that's why sometimes Christians joke about when they You know, a bad situation hits and somebody says, well, I guess we should pray about it. And the other Christian says, oh, has it come to that? You know, we pray when we've exhausted every other option. I mean, that's typically what we do. When there's nothing else we can do, okay, we've got to pray about this now. There's nothing else we can do. Now, it shouldn't be that way. Prayer should come first. And see, there's a sense in which we are practical atheists, really, I would say, if we think we can go out and change things or fix things on our own apart from prayer. It's really prayer that makes things happen in the world. It's really prayer that gets things done. In prayer we show that all our hope rests in the grace and power of God, not anything that we can do ourselves. So the Spirit-filled church will be a house of prayer. And tie this in with everything else going on in this chapter, it will be a house of prayer for all nations. This is a fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy that God's house will be a house of prayer for all peoples. We pray for all. We welcome all to come and pray with us to the triune God. The church is to be a praying community. Now that account in Acts 2.42 may seem like all that really matters. is the church's interior life. That the church is called to be an alternative society, a kind of counterculture, you might say, and that's really an end in and of itself. That the church would be different, the church would be distinct, and that's just it. But that's not the case. The church is a counterculture for the sake of the common good, for the sake of the wider culture. The church is an alternative society for the sake of society. She is an alternative nation, a distinct and holy nation, existing among the nations of the world and for the sake of the nations of the world. Now, I think it was clear last night, as I was talking especially about the response that Peter calls for at the end of his sermon, that a commitment to Christ entails a commitment to His church. See, repentance and baptism. You repent, so you're committed to Christ, but you're also baptized. You're committed to His people. A commitment to Christ entails a commitment to His church. At the end of this chapter, I think we can add something to that. A commitment to Christ includes a commitment to His church, which also includes a commitment to be the mission of Christ to the world through the church. You cannot be committed to Christ without being committed to His church. And you cannot be committed to the church without being committed to the mission that Christ has given to the church to carry out in the power of the Spirit. And I think it's so interesting the way Acts 2 closes out. I think it shows you here that the church's mission, her mission to the nations, her mission to open the kingdom of God up to people of every language, every tribe, every race, every ethnicity, flows out of her common life together. See again, just as Jesus' baptism launched His ministry, so the baptism of the church at Pentecost launches her ministry. To be a Christian is to be a part of this community. And to be a part of this community is to participate in this mission. Look there at verse 43. It speaks of fear falling on all the people who saw the church, who saw this Spirit-filled community. Now why fear? Well, this recalls Old Testament holy war. Think of the book of Joshua. What happens in Joshua? The Israelites are moving towards conquering the land of Canaan. They're on their conquest. And it says, fear filled all the Canaanites who saw this community, this nation, Israel, coming. It filled the people of Jericho with fear in Joshua chapter 2. It filled the Canaanite kings with fear in Joshua chapter 5. Well, now a new and even greater invasion is beginning, an invasion of the nations with the gospel. And once again, fear falls on the outsiders. The conquest is about to happen. See, Acts is the new book of Joshua. Acts is the new Joshua. It's the new covenant counterpart to Joshua. And I can't go into all the parallels here this morning, but there are deep, deep connections between the structure of the book of Acts, the way the story in the book of Acts unfolds, and Joshua. Luke has clearly patterned the story after Joshua, which is because ultimately God has patterned the history of the church after the conquest recorded in Joshua. What is the book of Acts? Acts is a holy war narrative. It is a story of conquest. It is the church on a mission, like Israel. And the Holy Spirit now is our Joshua. He is our commander-in-chief. He is the one leading us. We are His army. We're the army of the Holy Spirit going forth, conquering and to conquer. See, the life of the church inside is totally connected to the mission outside. Think about the first thing that goes wrong in Israel's conquest of Canaan, back in the book of Joshua. It's when they fail to conquer the tiny little city of Ai, much smaller than Jericho that they just wiped out. They can't conquer Ai. Why not? It's because sin is in the camp. Achan has sinned. There's an impurity, a defilement in the camp that has to be dealt with. See again, it's all about how the community lives determines success in the mission. The interior life of the church, faithfulness there, is what determines whether or not the church is faithful and successful in her mission. The rest of verse 43 then says that the apostles did signs and wonders. Now, we find in the Bible anytime you have a new period of revelation, anytime God's going to give a new block of revelation to His people, you have a cluster of miracles that verify that revelation, that authenticate that revelation. And that's part of what's going on here, but there's more to it than that. You also see here that the church is ministering in deed. It's not just a word ministry on the part of the apostles. It's also a deed ministry. See, when Jesus and the apostles did miracles, they did miracles that helped people, miracles that served people, miracles that served real needs, that met real needs. You don't find the apostles levitating one another. You don't find them making themselves invisible. I mean, these are not neat tricks. These miracles are radical acts of mercy that bring in the new creation. See, sometimes people talk about the miracles of Jesus as, you know, these miracles of Jesus and the apostles, they are suspensions of the natural order of things. No, they're actually restoration. of the natural order of things. They are accelerated little pictures, hyper-drive pictures of what the recreated world is going to look like when things are whole again. That's what the miracles are all about. So, the four-fold description of the church in verse 42, that four-fold description of church life flows out into the world in verse 43 in acts of restorative kindness and mercy. Now, we can't do miracles like Jesus and the apostles did. But we can do what those miracles did. We can manifest and embody what those miracles are all about by ministering to the world in deeds of love. See, what are those miracles? Miracles are accelerated forms of what God normally does in other ways. So God turns water into wine. Well, that normally happens over a much more extended process. The miracle speeds it up. Jesus feeds the hungry. He does so miraculously. It takes a lot more work for us to do it, but we're called to do the same thing. See, we're called to do what these miracles are all about. We've got to do it in a more, you could say, normal kind of way, organic kind of way. But these miracles, these signs and wonders, they're exactly what we're supposed to be doing. Ministry indeed to the world. And then verse 46 describes the attitude of the people that textures everything they do. It says, they ate with gladness, with glad and generous hearts, with joy and sincerity, you could say. And then verse 47 adds that they had favor in the people. So the people feared them, but they also come to have the favor of the people. See what happens here? On Pentecost morning, the disciples have been accused of drunkenness. They looked and they said, these people are crazy! Well, now they see, no, they're not drunk, they're filled with the joy of the Spirit. They're filled with the Spirit, and that's why they're so joyful. That's why they're living this way. The community is shot through with the joy of knowing Christ and knowing one another. They received the Word with gladness when Peter preached it, and now they live together with gladness in their community. See, when all these ingredients in verse 42 are in the mix of a local church, You have something that is vibrant, that is attractive, that is contagious. There's a joy about it all. The whole community is shot through with joy. And I don't mean that there aren't hard times, hard things that happen where we have to cry with one another and suffer with one another. But the overwhelming attitude on the part of the people is joy, it's gladness. The public face of the church is a smiling face. It's a happy face. We're joyful people. And you know how counter-cultural that is in our world today? If Christians would radiate with this kind of joy, you know, what people out in the world today do all the time, they grumble, they're cynical, they're full of despair. Christians can be a counter-cultural people just by being joyful, just by being thankful, just by not grumbling. And then we will see the mission move forward. See, the church's joy makes her effective in mission. It wins her favor in the eyes of the people. And then finally, at the very end of the chapter, it says in verse 47, the Lord added to their number daily those who are being saved. Here we learn that the church is indeed the place of salvation. I'm not ruling out extraordinary cases, but ordinarily Salvation means incorporation into the people of God, into the body of Christ. Church membership and salvation go together. Now, that's not to say that you can make two mistakes. You can say, well, the church is not really necessary to salvation, it's just an individual thing. That'd be one mistake. Clearly, this argues against that. On the other hand, you could say, well, being in the church means I'm automatically saved. So I can live however I want, and because I'm in the church, I'm okay. Well, no, church membership doesn't guarantee salvation. We are grafted in by faith and we can be broken out again if we don't persevere. That's what Romans 11 is all about. And indeed, you even see church discipline happening a couple pages further into the book of Acts. But understand, God's ordinary plan of salvation includes being plugged into the covenant community. It includes being grafted into this body of disciples, this community of people. Note too, it says the Lord adds to His church. The church is not a mere human organization. The church is God's doing. It's God's building. The church is God's new humanity. He's the one who formed the church. He's the one who grows the church. He's the one who maintains the church. The church is His work from beginning to end. It's His project to build the church. The church's daily growth here shows you that it's not just a community turned in on itself, but it's a community that is very aware of its outward-facing mission. She reaches up towards God in the breaking of the bread, in the liturgy, in worship. She reaches in towards one another in fellowship, in this community life, and she also reaches out to the lost in ministry, in signs and wonders, in deeds of kindness. distinct section of the church's life, some discrete sector, like one thing among the many that we're called to do. Mission actually cuts across everything. See, in everything that these Christians are doing together, their prayers and their breaking of bread together, and their fellowship, their community life together, the teaching they receive, and all of these things, they are witnessing to the world that the kingdom has come. I think it's very, very interesting that a passage that focuses with so much detail on the interior life of the church closes with this account of remarkable church growth. The Lord continues to add daily to their numbers. Luke does not tell us anything about their evangelism strategies or techniques, anything about their church growth techniques. What he does show us is that the best external witness to the world is the quality of our community life. The best witness to the world outside is our interior life together. And the fundamental way that the church reaches the culture is by being a distinctively biblical culture that's not withdrawn that's engaging the world around, but that's doing so as a community, as a distinctively Bible-shaped community. See, the fundamental way the church reaches the culture is by being God's holy culture, by living in community in this kind of way. And that's really just the opposite of what you hear today. Today, so many are saying that what the church really needs to do to grow is she needs to market herself, she needs to reinvent herself, find new and better ways to market herself to the world, to do surveys, to find out what the world wants in a religious institution, and then to go and provide those kinds of things. No, I mean, those kind of things may make the church popular, but those kind of things will not make the church powerful. What the church needs more right now, what the church needs more than anything in our day as in every day, is to live as a Spirit-indwelt people. To live as God's new temple. Loving and serving one another within the covenant community. Reaching out towards the world with the grace of the Gospel in word and deed. Breaking the bread together and joining in the prayers together. Let's pray.