21 Days of Prayer: Day 11
Worship - Community
"And they devoted themselves..."
READ ACTS 2:36-47.
Worship… glorifying God for the honor due His name as Creator, Sovereign, Savior, Re-Creator, and more... As we have already seen, the worship of God expresses itself in certain ways – the preaching and receiving of the word of God, the singing of songs to God, and offering our bodies as living sacrifices to God. Looking upon all these forms of worship, we seem to have all our bases covered, right?... While these are the forms with which we worship God, there is an element of worship common to all these… It all started with the preaching of the word, but what did that word create?
And that brings us to our text today… We are coming on the tail end of the apostle Peter’s sermon at Pentecost. Peter and several other disciples of Jesus were praying in an upper room when the Holy Spirit descended on them and enabled them to speak in different languages. They came out from the upper room and others heard them speaking in the different languages. The crowd thought Peter and the disciples were drunk. Peter corrects them, telling the crowd that the disciples had been filled with the Holy Spirit (the third member of the Trinity). And then Peter starts to preach.
Peter spends his sermon showing how Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah (the Hebrew version of the Greek title “Christ”) who would come to save His people. And then, near the end of the sermon, Peter says, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” … Peter preaches the gospel! And around three thousand people were saved and baptized!... So the preaching of the word created a PEOPLE… But what was so special about this people?
Luke (the writer of Acts) tells us that “all who believed were together and had all things in common.” … So is Luke saying that believers in Christ are different because they are together and share some stuff? Not at all… Think about this – sports teams and fans, schools, bands, coworkers, etc. – are together. If being together is the only thing that defines the people of God, then nothing sets them apart from any other group (even a group of atheists)!
No, the people of God are different because of their foundation and purpose. What is the foundation that sets the people of God apart? “They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching…” The teaching of the apostles – the word of God especially in the gospel – was the foundation that birthed and supported the church… And this is the only certain foundation for the people of God today as well. Think about this – all other groups will extinguish. Once there are no more sports being played, a team will disperse. Once a class graduates from high school, the graduates will all go their separate ways. Once you move jobs, you will stop talking to that coworker you do not like… All these groups will cease because their foundation (enthusiasm, education, profit, etc.) is not an eternal one. Only the word of God in the gospel is the eternal foundation that will hold believers together (even those believers who do not like each other). Because the word of God is a steady foundation, it can hold together a people who do not look like, eat like, or even talk like, one another for an eternity.
What else did the church of Acts look like? Luke writes that the church was devoted to the word (the apostles’ teaching) and “… the fellowship.” This group of Jesus-followers were a people devoted to one another. The Greek term is κοινωνια (“koinonia”) which we translate into “fellowship”. The term literally refers to a partnership – one where each party contributes to help the other. These people helped each other in every way because of the devoted partnership they had in the gospel. They were devoted to one another… But does that sound like the church in our modern, Western society today?
While there are several churches in America (and the Bible Belt South) that fellowship well, I believe the majority of our churches do not… Too often a person comes to faith in Christ, just to be left to figure out for themselves what a disciple of Christ truly looks like. Too often are the gatherings of God’s people just a group of overly sentimental people who try to rush for the door as soon as the sermon ends. Too often do the people of God – especially here in the South – confine fellowship to only two days of the week... This can be described as a type of cavalier Christianity – Christianity that pridefully thinks the community of believers is just an optional part of life. This prideful attitude is really no Christianity at all. This is not what fellowship is.
Christianity is not an individualistic religion – it is religion that creates a COMMUNITY, a Body. The apostle Paul calls the people of God the Body of Christ – and every member is needed (see 1 Cor. 12:18-22). From the reading/preaching of the word to living out the commands of the word, a community of believers is what we are called to. Have you ever noticed how the vast majority of the apostle Paul’s letters start out?
“To all those… called to be saints.” – Romans
“To the church of God… called to be saints” – 1 Corinthians
“To the saints and faithful brothers and sisters” – Colossians
Paul writes these letters – the word of God – to a community, a fellowship, and a Body of believers. From doctrine, all the way to the obedience that doctrine creates, we need other believers. The word of God is meant to be read, preached, studied, lived – together…
We cannot be all that God meant for the church to be until we are the church – the church in community.
Personal Questions:
What does the word of God create?
How is the church different from any other group of people?
Are you part of a community of believers centered around the word? Or do you attempt to do cavalier Christianity?
Prayer Points:
Pray that you and our church would increasingly realize the absolute importance of being founded on the word of God – especially in the gospel.
Pray that you and our church would not fall victim to the lie of cavalier Christianity.
Pray that you and our church would be a people devoted to community with one another – because each has been saved by the same gospel and called to the same Body and called to the same purpose of glorifying God.