Doing Life Together

00:01 Thank you, Brother Ryan. Pray that God will bless his reading of his Word. Would you turn in your copies of the Scriptures to Acts chapter 2, and we will continue reading from the text this morning. Acts chapter 2 is the account of the day of Pentecost. We have been through the first part of the chapter, 00:21 and now we come to the response of those that were present there on the day of Pentecost. And of course, we know that it says in verse 38, "Then Peter said to them, Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, 00:41 and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and your children and to all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call." 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, 01:01 and that day about 3,000 souls were added to them. 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 wonders and signs were done through the apostles. 01:17 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, 01:38 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. I was driving a school bus many years ago out in the state of Oregon as a part-time job while I was pastoring out there. And they had always said, 01:58 "If your bus gets unsafe to drive, don't drive. Pull off to the side of the road." And so one day we were having some trouble on the bus, and some people were standing up, walking around, not obeying the rules. 02:12 And so I pulled off on the side of the road and said, "This bus is here until we get control into the situation." And what I should have done, experience has proven, I should have just turned right around, driven back to the bus barn, and let the administrator take care of that with the parents and gone home. 02:33 But the bus became an uproar. And what I thought would be maybe just a couple of minutes' sit-down session and people would control themselves ended up in a riot, so to speak. There was stuff flying through the bus. There were people jumping over seats. There was people. 02:49 It just went from bad to chaos in about two minutes. And then it was really unsafe to drive the bus. And so we sat there. This was before the days of cell phones and no CBs in the buses, which I think after this incident, the district added CBs to their buses. 03:11 And we sat there, and still there was no cooperation. And we sat there longer, and there was no cooperation. This was probably about 3:15, 3:30 in the afternoon. By 4:30, 5:00, we were still sitting there beside the road. And irate parents were coming and taking their children off the bus. 03:30 And that created a crisis of sorts for the Winston Dillard School District in Southern Oregon. Well, it became obvious as that unfolded that we were in this together. This place was a thing was not going anywhere unless it went together. 03:50 And I guess people could drop off. But we were doing this together. And together we needed to have cooperation. And together this inexperienced bus driver probably needed to have a better method of control. But it became obvious that if anything was going to change, it would have to be a corporate effort. 04:10 Now, why do I share that this morning? It's because we as a church and as a post-Pentecost church need to do life together. That means the good times, the bad times, the ugly times, the chaotic times, the rebellious times, the joyful times, 04:32 the safe times, whatever it is, we are called to do life together as the people of God. Now, in order to fully understand this passage of Scripture this morning, I want to give you a little bit of background and a little bit of perspective. As these Jewish people were coming into the New Testament age and as they were coming into the church age, 04:54 they brought with them a mentality, a mentality that was a group mentality. And so this is the foundation of a brotherhood approach to church. There's basically two approaches to church when it comes to involvement and relational expectations. The first one is the brotherhood expectation, 05:16 that the community is emphasized more than the individual. And so one of the reasons I had Brother Ryan read Joshua chapter 7 is to give you the idea that what Israel went through and what one man did affected the entire community. Moses was saying, 05:36 "We're in this together." God said, "We're in this together." We're so much together that one man's sin affected the whole battle of AI, and it affected the whole community of believers, of Jewish people, of Hebrews. And the congregation had something to say about this. 05:58 They paid the price with the individual. They stoned the individual. They burned the individuals. And they did this together because in Hebrew thought, it is not about me, it's about us. Now, that is opposed to Greek thought. 06:18 Greek thought, which was the pagans, the pagans believed, and based on Greek and Roman thought, that the individual was the center of the world, that the individual was where God's primary dealing was with, the individual. And that was if the individual has a need, 06:37 then everything stops or everything revolves around that individual's need. And if the community has a need, well, it's only going to be met if the individuals are met first. And so we could ask the question today, with these two systems of thought, what is American culture based on? 06:57 Well, American culture is based on Greek thought, not Hebrew thought, Greek emphasis on the individual, individual rights, individual demands, individual desires. And Hebrew thought is based on the community, the community of faith, the community of the culture, 07:17 and working together and looking at the whole needs of the community rather than just at an individual's needs and the individual's needs being subservient to the needs of the community. Two systems of thought. I'm giving you kind of a crash course in civics here this morning. 07:36 Now, our community is based on Greek thought. You remember a couple of years ago when the New Paris School District had Bible club for years and years and years and years, and they would take release time and teach Bible class there with the public school students. 07:55 It was voluntary. It was parental authorized. You had to have parental notification. And then after 30, 40 years of having Bible club, somebody moved into the community, and one family had a fit and threatened to sue the New Paris, 08:15 or it was the Wanee or whatever, the Fairfield School District, sued the Fairfield School District because they are violating the mandate of separation of church and state. And so they didn't like it. And so just the threat of a lawsuit shut the program down because the school district said, "There's no way we can win this in court. 08:36 We'll spend a lot of money to lose. And so we're just going to shut it down." Now, thankfully, they did find another way to do that, taking them off school property and maybe after hours. And it was somewhat resolved. But my point is simply this: one family was able to complain, 08:57 and legally their rights trumped everybody else's rights in the community. And if you recall, it was a big kerfuffle. And the same thing had happened over in Concord School District several years ago with the live nativity scene. The court said, and the ACLU, Antichrist Lawyers Union, 09:17 said, "We're going to shut this down. No more live nativity scene." And they took it to court, and the court said, "No more live nativity scene." So the next Christmas then, everybody was kind of wondering, "What are we going to do? And what are we going to have here?" And so when they opened the curtain at the final scene, there was no live nativity scene, 09:37 but there was mannequins in the nativity scene. You may remember that. And so they kind of skirted around the law to make a point. But the point, again, is that the rights of the individual trump the rights of the entire community. You may have culturally a desire for something as a community, 09:59 and the law says, "No," because it might hurt somebody's feelings. So that's Greek thought. It's not Hebrew thought. Now, my point is simply this: when you come to Acts chapter 2, we are looking at Hebrew thought. We are looking not at Greek thought, but at Hebrew. 10:19 Now, what are the Hebrews? Were they used to? What did they bring into the book of Acts, and what did they bring into the church age that was a reflection of their Old Testament mentality? Well, they brought with them an emphasis on the congregation. 10:39 In fact, the word congregation in the King James Version in the Old Testament appears 330 times, the word congregation. In the New King James Version, the congregation appears 131 times. And in the Pentateuch alone, that's the first five books of the Old Testament, it occurs 96 times. 11:00 And so the emphasis was on the congregation. What they did, they did together. They killed the Passover Lamb together. You can go through the Old Testament. You can see this in the first five books of the Old Testament. They killed the Passover Lamb together. They sacrificed together. 11:20 They repented together. They gathered together. They stoned people together. They made covenants together. They chose leaders together. They went to war together. They complained together. They suffered together. They went into captivity together, and they were released together. And that was their mentality. That was where God was working. 11:39 If you wanted to know where God was working in the Old Testament, it was in the congregation of the Hebrew people. Now, you can understand then why it was such a big deal when in the book of Leviticus, as you read through the punishments for various sins, 11:59 where it says that this person shall be cut off from his people. And if you do this sin, you'll be cut off from your people. And you do this sin, you'll be cut off from your people. Over and over, it says that they were to be cut off from their people. I never understood that until I understood this principle of the congregation. And so the worst thing that could happen to you, 12:20 maybe even worse than stoning, would be to be cut off from the congregation of Israelites and separated from the working of God in the congregation. Now, I hope that makes sense as you transfer that into a New Testament emphasis on the church. 12:41 The church now is bringing into its existence that same mentality. Now, unfortunately, much of Protestantism and evangelicalism is built around the individual. It's based on Greek thought, Greek mentality. 13:01 And that is that it's just me and Jesus, and we're cool, and we're doing life together, and we don't need nobody else. In fact, there's a Southern Gospel song right now that I heard the other week that said, "As long as I got King Jesus, don't need nobody else." Yeah? Well, that's kind of a defiant statement based on Greek thought, 13:23 Greek thought. Now, there is an element of truth to that, that it's primarily us and the Lord. That's where our faith originates. It is a personal faith. It is not a corporate faith. We're not saved by being a member of the church. We're not saved by being a part of the church. We're saved by a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and through repentance and faith. 13:45 But how does that get lived out? It gets lived out in the midst of a corporate body, a congregation of believers. And there's a lot that could be said about that. 13:57 But just making that point this morning as we unpack this passage here, so we understand that the church in the New Testament is God's primary place of working. He works in individual lives. But as far as his corporate work, he works in the life of the church. 14:17 Now, when it's based on Greek thought, you can be separated from the church and just go right on like you were because, after all, it's me and Jesus and don't need nobody else. But when it's based on Hebrew thought, which the New Testament Scriptures are, we need somebody else in our lives. 14:37 Amen? That's a little weak. We need somebody else in our lives. The word church in the New Testament is used 114 times. And that's just two times in the Gospels and the rest in the epistles and the rest of the New Testament. The Bible says in First Corinthians 12:12, "For as the body is one and has many members, 14:59 but all members of that one body being many are one body, so also is Christ. But now indeed, there are many members yet one body." And that is the universal church. And then, of course, we have the practical outworking of that in local fellowships. First Corinthians 12:25 through 27 says that there should be no schism in the body, 15:21 but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it. Or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now, you are the body of Christ and members individually. Now, then in other passages of Scripture, he talks more about the local assemblies. He talks about the church at Corinth, 15:42 the church at Ephesus, the church at Colosse, the church in Thessalonica, the Berean church, the Jerusalem church. And those became extensions and subgroups of the church at large. Now, what were these people experiencing? When they gladly received the word of God, 16:03 they gladly received it. They were baptized. We've talked about that. And that day, there were about 3,000 souls added to them. How would you like to have 3,000 souls saved in one day here in the city of Goshen? That'd be wonderful. What would it do to one congregation, much less, or all the congregations, much less one congregation? 16:23 And so suddenly, there was this common union of believers, this common union of believers. And they committed themselves to four things. 16:38 They committed themselves to the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and breaking of bread and prayers. Now, what all does that mean? Well, the apostles' doctrine. They adhered closely and gave earnest heed to persevere, 16:59 to constantly be diligent, to adhere closely with single-minded fidelity to the apostles' doctrine. Now, this was not just any old doctrine. This was the doctrine that was taught by the apostles. Where did the apostles get it? They got it from Jesus. Where did Jesus get it? 17:19 He got it from the Father. Where did we get it? We got it from the apostles. And so here we have the Father giving the doctrine to the Son, the Son giving the doctrine through the Spirit to the disciples. And holy men of God spoke as they were moved of the Holy Ghost and gave that information to us, the word of God in the New Testament given to us. 17:41 And so these people were steadfastly determined with single-minded fidelity to pay attention and submit to and embrace the apostles' doctrine, the teachings of the New Testament. And so Christ's doctrine came from the Father. 18:00 He gave it to us, and we speak it one to another. 18:04 Barnes in his commentary says, "One evidence of conversion is a desire to be instructed in the doctrines and duties of religion and a willingness to attend on the preaching of the Gospel." Their services were oriented around the word of God. You've heard me say that before as a congregation, 18:25 to you as a congregation. But that's why we attempt to have our services, especially our Sunday morning services, word-centered, to give heed to the apostles' doctrine. Now, the second thing that they gave heed to was the fellowship, the fellowship. Now, there's an interesting thing happening in the translations here. 18:46 Many translations, like the King James and New King James, refer to it as the apostles' doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread and in prayers. Many of your literal translations will add the definite article "the" in front of those things. 19:04 So they gave themselves to the apostles' doctrine and the fellowship and the breaking of bread and the prayers. What difference does it make? In fact, if you have an ESV with you this morning, you can confirm and verify what I'm saying. It's right there in the text. 19:23 Quite a number of translations use that definite article, "the." What it means to me is that when we're talking about fellowship and what they gave themselves to, they did not give themselves just to having a nice time in relationship, 19:41 but in a commitment to the fellowship of believers, to the fellowship. Sometimes people say, "We need more fellowship." And what they mean is, "We need more times together in houses where we can sit around and play rook and sing Kumbaya." That's not necessarily what the fellowship is. 20:01 That can be friendship. And we need to be friends. We need friends in the body of Christ. But that's not the fellowship. The fellowship is an identifiable body of believers. And so it is a society. 20:15 It could also be translated as society, a relation between individuals which involves a common interest and a common active participation in that interest and in each other. That is a quote from Jonathan—oh, I can't think of his name right now. 20:34 It'll come to me at the end of the message—"a society." So what is a society? It's not a bird-watching society. It's not a postcard-collecting society. It's not a baker's society. It's not a fellowship meal society, people that can bake good. 20:55 It's a society of believers in the Lord Jesus Christ who are committed to the apostles' doctrine and to the fellowship and to me and me to it, a society of mutually committed followers of Jesus Christ to have a common life in Him and follow the doctrine the apostles taught. John Stott, 21:16 in his commentary, said this: "Commitment to the Messiah implied commitment to the Messianic community, that is, the church." So when these people gave their life to Christ and were convinced that Jesus is the Messiah, 21:34 they all of a sudden identified with all the others that were committed to Jesus as the Messiah. In fact, we hear this talked about in Acts 24:5, where they were called the sect of the Nazarenes. They became known as Christians. That's plural. 21:55 And this fellowship was in the temple and daily from house to house, which was the third thing. They gave themselves to the breaking of bread. Now, what kind of breaking of bread is this? The text does not really tell us. Was this an ordinary meal where we get together and have supper together, have lunch together, have breakfast together? 22:17 Was it the Passover meal that they've celebrated the Passover meal now together? Or was this the communion celebration? Or was this the love feast? Or was it kind of all of that where they started doing life together? Isn't that a kind of a contemporary phrase? 22:36 What a privilege to do life together. Well, you know we're going to marry my wife so I can do life together. That's kind of catchy. But that's what they were doing. They were doing life together, meeting from house to house. And their common union was Christ, the apostles' doctrine, the fellowship, 22:57 the breaking of bread, and the prayer, the prayers, public prayers, private prayers, the time of prayer at the place of prayer, formal prayers, informal prayers, old Jewish prayers filled with new meaning, and spontaneous prayers flowing from a heart of praise. 23:17 We had prayers here this morning offered on behalf of the needs. One of the ways that we can communicate giving to people, having all things in common, whereas in verse 44 and 45, they had kind of a communal system that developed, which, by the way, afterwards, throughout the New Testament era, 23:38 this needed to be defined and refined until finally the communal aspect of the communities broke down. But we have still some Anabaptist groups that practice the communal aspect of life. 23:52 And that would be the Hutterites, Anabaptist groups where, especially out in the West, Western US and Western Canada, the Hutterites still are very communal. 24:03 Well, we can still be communal by having voluntary sharing of resources, voluntary giving, and sharing each other's joys and pains and sorrows. So we have people like Ron Art and Ruth going through a hard time right now. 24:19 They share that we enter into prayer and supplication and intercession and encouragement and if there's financial needs that arise and so on and so forth. So that is the prayers, praying for one another, sharing life together. You see, the true believer, 24:40 as seen here in the book of Acts, will desire and diligently apply himself to the study, understanding, and lifestyle of historic Christianity. It will give themselves attention to personal study, memorization, application of Scripture. 24:59 They will sit under the preaching and teaching of the word of God through spirit-filled, faithful preachers and teachers in the local church. More than that, along with that, they will be committed in relationships with one another of like precious faith. They will identify with a local congregation, caring for one another. As we say when we receive new members, 25:21 "Do you promise to give and enter into the joys and sorrows of congregational life, of each other's lives?" Being real, asking for help, offering help, accountability for spiritual growth, regularly asking the question, 25:40 "What do you see in me that is obscuring the vision of Christ and help me to grow?" And taking advantage of opportunities to grow and speaking to one another about spiritual growth, which is what next Sunday morning will be all about. It is about accountability. It's about fellowship. It's about the fellowship. 26:00 It's about spurring one another to growth. It's about being able to give an answer for my spiritual condition to the body, to the brothers and sisters with whom I do life together. Because we're in this bus together. Amen? We're in it together. Now, you can leave the bus. 26:20 You can join the bus. We do life together. That's the New Testament way. The believer will desire to experience regular communion, regular communion in verse 43, 42, the breaking of the bread. 26:40 Verse 46, "So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, breaking bread from house to house. They ate their food with gladness and simplicity or generosity." That word simplicity can be also translated generosity, of generosity of heart. 26:56 Say, "To belong to a brotherhood that has a generous heart." Wow, what a privilege. And to be a part of that brotherhood and have a generous heart. So we, by implication, see in this passage of Scripture that this includes regular communion with God and His people, 27:18 the administration of biblical ordinances, baptism, communion given to the church. There's no evidence, there's no evidence in the New Testament that individual Christians baptized themselves or ate communion by themselves. 27:36 It is always in connection with congregation, a group of believers gathered together in a common union. That's another word for communion, a common union. So what does this have to do with us? 27:55 Well, I believe that it implies and even admonishes us to be careful and to give attendance to participate in the public and private services of the brotherhood. To participate as called upon, to make every effort to support the program of the bus, 28:17 as if you please. And if the bus is going down, I'm going to go down with it. If the bus is parked beside the road, I'm going to be parked with it. If the bus needs to make a U-turn, I'm going to make the U-turn with it. These are my people. This is my place. This is my fellowship where I belong. 28:35 To guard against becoming careless about our meeting together. Hey, how easy it is to be careless about our assemblies, our assemblies. Be careful, be careful. You know how the enemy will, how a wolf or a coyote will get a prey? 28:56 It's to separate its target from the group, to separate out, to get it out and to get it alone. And it's fair game. I mean, a coyote will do that. A wolf will do that. A predator will do that. To isolate something from that which he wants to conquer, 29:17 from the group, from the congregation, from the fellowship. And when you have a fellowship of animals, I've seen some pictures on YouTube where you can take a predatorial animal, and when that group stands together, they can literally fight off that predator. They cannot do it individually, 29:38 but they can do it together, together. So it's easy in a church our size to get careless about our participation. It's easy in a church our size to, "Well, if I don't show up on Sunday morning, there's enough people there. They're not going to miss me. They're not going to miss me." Oh, but you isolate yourself. 29:58 You do that often enough and regularly enough, and you make that the pattern. And you emphasize your Greek world and your Greek thought, and me and Jesus don't need nobody else. And the enemy will pick you off. And I've seen it happen time and time again. Don't get careless. 30:18 Don't get careless about our meeting together. To voluntarily place oneself under the authority of the local church. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. 30:35 I tell you, it's amazing the ways that God can work when we are together in unity. I've seen that happen. In fact, I've seen it happen. And it's been told to me as a pastor, pastor talk, that if you have a divided bench, meaning the preacher's bench, 30:55 which we don't necessarily have, but if you know what I mean, it's what it used to be called, if you have a divided bench, you will have a divided congregation. I thank God that our team works together well. I thank God for my coworkers. We don't always agree on everything. We talk and come to a place of agreement, 31:17 but we work together well. We share the common vision. We are committed to the apostles' doctrine, to the fellowship, the breaking of bread, the ordinances of the church, and the prayers. And that doesn't always solve church divisions, but it goes a long, long way. 31:34 And then when you get the whole congregation, a body of believers praying and interceding, we shared this with you this morning about a church plant. And I'd like to just call us to prayer about that for the next 30 days before our meetings. We're running out of 30 days, but we got a few days left, 25 days before our meetings. 31:56 And then after our meetings, to ask God, "Lord, show us what you want us to do. How do you want us to move forward? How can we touch our community for Christ?" Be here tonight. We're talking about missions. Many of you ask about missions. What can our church do? We have an opportunity here tonight to hear about stuff that's happening right here in the city of Goshen, 32:18 opportunities to reach out, opportunities to be involved. We've been working on those opportunities. We have a widows' banquet coming up. We have done firemen's meals. We've done police officer meals. 32:33 This here is another opportunity for people to hands-on get to know their community and rub shoulders with people that aren't like us. And if that interests you at all, you got to be here tonight because it's a powerful thing that God is doing in our community. Do we agree with everything? No, 32:51 but we agree that we got to reach the world for Christ, reach our communities for Christ. And that is another opportunity for people to be involved. You say, "What is your church doing?" Well, we may not be doing everything together as a group, but as people go out, some people are involved in this ministry and others in this ministry and other than this ministry and other than this ministry, 33:12 other than this ministry, this ministry. And we get together on Sundays. We share what God has done and how that we can stimulate others to be involved in ministry. And it's the church going out, reaching out, and not just expecting people to come in, but reaching out. So they believed. 33:32 They were together. They had all things in common. They 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. Wow, they didn't have—they had the temple. 33:50 And that was kind of a strained territory there because they were being under the watchful eye of the Jewish administrators of the temple. But they kept gathering at the temple. Next chapter, we see the lame man healed on the steps of the temple. And yet eventually, they were evicted from the temple, and they were evicted from Jerusalem. And they went everywhere preaching the gospel, 34:12 preaching the word. So continuing daily, they were doing life together. They ate their food. They ate their meat with gladness and generosity, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. They were being saved one after another after another after another. 34:33 It's not just too many chapters. I think it's chapter five. And you'll find out that the church in those two chapters had grown from 3,000 believers to 5,000 and then from 5,000 to more thousand. And then it just said to multitudes. God was on the move. And the church did it together. 34:49 Even when they sent out the missionaries, Missionary Paul and Barnabas in Acts 13, the Holy Spirit said to the leadership, "Send them out, send them out." Together, they did this. And Paul and Barnabas went out, and then they reported back. And the people out on the frontier of missions, 35:09 out on the mission field, like we heard this morning, were accountable to those back at the home mission field. And there was accountability. There was correction that was needed. There was unity. There was oneness. 35:21 And when there was a lack of oneness and unity, they dealt with it in biblical and scriptural and spiritual ways so that they could maintain that unity and endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this passage this morning. 35:37 What a powerful passage to show us a little glimpse of what New Testament church was like. And Lord, we know that we live in a very different age and a different time with different challenges. But it's still the same in the sense that we commit to the same things: the apostles' doctrine, 35:58 the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. And do one another what we have that we may give, what others have that we may receive. And in so doing, faithfully fulfill the law of love, the law of Christ. And so, 36:17 Lord, would you bless our service this evening and bless our upcoming discussions about church planting. Lord, we get comfortable. We know we do. And we like our comfort. 36:30 But we also know, Lord, that you stretch us from time to time to move us out from our comfort zone to be more actively involved and passionate and committed to the furtherance of the gospel. So, Lord, to that end, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.