A Devoted Community

SERMON: 2009-09-06--ac0927--a-devoted-community-part-2 SOURCE DURATION: 00:30:04.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The material begins with narrative and theological exposition (sermon). The sermon concludes in segment [267] before the subsequent segments transition into sustained acoustic music/worship song, which marks the end of the spoken discourse. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:26:38.460-00:30:01.980 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- The year was 1973. The place was Trinity College in Deerfield, Illinois. The class, Professor Gilbert Belizekian's New Testament theology class. The subject, Acts chapter 2. Dr. B had a passion for the church, had a vision for what the church ought to be, and every so often he would lay aside his class notes and he would wax eloquent and he would say to his class the early church was alive. It was spirit-led. It was fresh and energetic and creative and dynamic and unpredictable. It wasn't about maintaining the status quo or going through the motions. It was about the Holy Spirit working dramatically and explosively in people's lives. Present in that class and every other class that he taught for the two years that he was at Trinity was a young man, the son of a Kalamazoo produce dealer. The young man had already previously laid aside his title to the family business in order to pursue the call of God and his life. And as he sat in that class week after week and as he was challenged with the vision of what the New Testament church was like when one day Dr. B, as he was affectionately called, blurted out maybe someday one of you students will try to build a church like this. Young Bill Hybels responded with all of his heart and he said, "Sign me up." And out of that encounter and out of that vision came what is now known as Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, a community of faith that in the 34 some years of its existence has on average baptized 400 new believers every year. And through its extension the Willow Creek Association has been an instrument of renewal and revitalization for churches all around the world. Such is the power of vision when it is based on scripture and when it is fueled by the Holy Spirit. And as this morning we start coming back to our study in the book of Acts and as we're going to spend the next couple of weeks, Lord willing, looking at these verses that we have read together, it's my hope and prayer there will be at least some of us here, maybe all of us, God willing, here whose hearts can burn with a vision and a passion of what it is that God is about in the church in building it up to present it to himself as a holy bride one day dressed in white without spot or wrinkle or blemish or any such thing. The church has often been said is the hope of the world and the vehicle for all of its imperfections that God has designed to reach the rest of the world with the good news of the gospel. So pray with me as we get into this that God will not only enlarge our vision of the Lord Jesus but that he will also enlarge our vision, our passion, particularly for the local church. Now as we begin looking together at these verses that we have read, I'd like to start off by having as note there are three adjectives that can be used to describe this early New Testament church. It was, first of all, a devoted community. It was, secondly, a transformed in a transforming community. And then, thirdly, it was a growing community. And this morning we're going to begin then with the fact that it was a devoted community. Listen again to verse 42. "They," that is the early church, "devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer." Now the word devoted comes from a Greek word which means to persevere in a thing or to adhere to firmly. And so the King James Bible translates this passage as they continued steadfastly. Or the New American Standard, which is a very literal translation, they were continually devoting themselves. So the picture here is that of a group of people who value a particular set of values, and then come hell or high water, they hang on to these values, and they abide by them. They are firmly gripped by these values that unfold. And then as the passage goes on, it tells us there are four things that this early church devoted themselves to. They devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and then to prayer. In the time that we have this morning, I'm hoping that we can cover at least the first two of these, beginning with their devotion to the Apostles' teaching. They devoted themselves to the Apostles' teaching. Now the Apostles here, of course, are the twelve Apostles whom Jesus has left in charge of the church, the people to whom he has entrusted his commission to go out into all the world and to make disciples of all nations. And their teaching, then, is the core basis of their message that the church is to be built on. Paul says in Ephesians that if Jesus is the chief cornerstone upon which the church is built, then the teaching of the Apostles and the prophets are the foundation that undergird the whole church community. And if you were to summarize the Apostles' teaching, then you can summarize it by saying that it focused on the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's how Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. "For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures." He says it's of first importance. Christ died for our sins according to Scriptures, and he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures. This is the core of the Apostolic message. You will recall Peter earlier on in his Pentecost sermon talking about this Jesus whom you crucified, God has raised up as Lord in Christ. And the reason this is the core of the Apostolic message is that it deals with the most fundamental issue in the world, which is our alienation from God. Remember you can summarize the Scriptures message in this way. God created the world good. We messed up in our sin and in our rebellion. God in Christ enters into our world so that by his death he can pay the penalty for our sin and so that by his resurrection we can experience new life so that now we are called upon to repent of our sin, put our hope and our faith and our trust in Jesus and learn to live his way so that when he comes again in glory to judge the living and the dead we will not be judged and sent to hell, but we will rather be saved and enter into the fullness of God's glorious eternal inheritance. The message of the cross is at the heart of the gospel because it deals with the issue of reconciling us to God through faith in Jesus. And so to be devoted to the Apostles teaching is to be devoted to the centrality of the person of Jesus, the necessity of the cross, and the necessity of his glorious resurrection. Now why do I emphasize that? Why does Luke in Acts chapter 2 begin his list of a devoted community by talking about being devoted to the Apostles teaching? I'll tell you why. Human nature being what it is, there is always a desire and tendency to downplay the cross to soft pedal sin and to avoid the radicality of repentance and conversion. See I discovered a long time ago, I discovered it in my life as I'm sure you have discovered it in your life and if you haven't discovered it in your own life all you have to do is keep an ear to the culture of our day. Most people and there are exceptions but most people really don't mind that there is a God and most people don't mind hearing that this God loves people or even that he sent his son into the world so so that we can be restored to God. That's all good news. People like that but what people don't like very much, what in fact sometimes you and I don't like very much, is the message of the cross. Not just that Jesus died 2,000 years ago that we can live with but what the cross represents. Because the cross represents that you and I are sinful by nature. That the best of the best that we can do is not good enough for God. That Jesus came to pay the penalty for that sin. That we need him to give us new life and that we must therefore repent and believe in him and that now we must submit our lives to his will and to his control. That is where you and I dig in our egos. Nobody minds a God who is kind and loving and grandfatherly and indulgent. For every one of us if truth be known in the core places of our own sinful hearts we become rebellious when God says to you and to me do it my way if you don't do it my way I'm gonna send you to hell. And so there is a constant temptation even in the Christian church to whitewash the message of the gospel. To make the narrow gate a little wider and to emphasize certain aspects of who God is at the expense of other aspects. Let me give you an illustration. How many of you here have read the Shack? Quite a number of you. The Shack I finally had a chance to read it this summer on vacation at my sister's place. And the Shack for those of you that are not familiar with it is a publishing phenomenon. It was rejected by 26 publishers all of whom I can assure you are kicking themselves right now. It was finally self-published by a small group of men who helped co-author of this particular book. They spent $300 on advertising if you can believe it. And mostly by word of mouth it has become an incredible bestseller. I think over 20 million copies presently are in print. It's been on the national bestseller list in a country as secular as Canada. I noticed in today's paper for 57 weeks. On top of that list for a good many of those weeks. And it's the story, again for those of you that haven't read it, of a man, Mackenzie Allen Phillips called Mack for short, whose young daughter Missy was abducted at a campground, brutally murdered. And then Mack in searching for answers ends up in the Shack where she was murdered and there has a very dramatic encounter with the Trinity. God the Father is represented as a black woman, the Lord Jesus as a man, and the Holy Spirit I think as a woman if I'm correct. Sort of spiritual anyway. And in the dialogue back and forth the Trinity walks him through the problem of pain and the problem of suffering and how God is not the author of evil. And from the point of view of addressing broken people and wanting them to understand the heart of God, the book I think is extremely well done and very clearly resonates with vast multitudes of people, not only Christians but secular people as well because that's the only way you get a bestseller in this country or around the world. Which is not to say that the book has not been subject to criticism. And people have criticized you know God the Father being represented by black woman and Jesus being kind of clumsy and dropping things and all kinds of other aspects of the story. But the largest criticism has been addressed to the fact that the book borders not quite but almost on something that's known as Universalism. Universalism puts such an emphasis on the goodness and the love of God that at the end God could never send anybody to hell but that rather he would save everybody. Now let me emphasize the book doesn't quite go there although William Paul Young, according to an interview that I read, originally himself leaned in that direction but his co-authors kind of helped straighten him out a little bit. But the emphasis on the book in terms of the purposes that it wants to accomplish paints such a gloriously wonderful picture of the love of God that you'd be an absolute idiot if you didn't come to faith in him. Not true, those of you that have read the book? And that's all well and good but according to scripture it paints an incomplete picture of who God is. Because God is not just idly standing by allowing people to create and to make their own hell. No, the downside of God's love is that if you continually, willfully, and stubbornly reject it, God is going to reject you. You don't just make your own hell, God sends you to hell and come the curtain on history. The reverse side of God's passion for his people is God's incredible anger at all those who have not bent their knee before his authority and before his power. You say why make a big deal of it? It's only a story and that's absolutely true and the authors continually emphasize that. It's only a novel that is meant to teach a particular thing. It's all true but you know we live in a world of incredible biblical illiteracy. People don't know the Bible and people get their theology today from pop culture and from the things they read. And so I wonder, for example, when I read the book, and I quite enjoyed it, but I wonder when I read the book, if there had been an equal emphasis on the necessity of the cross and God's judgment on your sin and on my sin and the need for repentance and what happens if we don't, I wonder would the book have been as popular as it is today? Do you see where I'm going with this? Anybody can embrace God in terms of his love as well we ought to and should, but the love of God is pure and holy and the love of God will always take us back to the centrality of the cross of Jesus. Paul puts it this way, the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. And then later on in that same chapter he says, "We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews, foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God." So what does it mean to be devoted to the Apostles teaching? It's to always allow yourself to be taken back to the centrality of the Christian message, which is the cross of Jesus, which is God's judgment on all our sin, the resurrection of Jesus, which is the vindication of Christ's holiness and righteousness, and the corresponding need in your life and in my life to die to sin and to live righteously before God. Only the cross can take us to where we need to go, and every time the cross is minimized and its stone of offense is laid aside you get a church that has the appearance of godliness and the appearance of spirituality, but they don't have a real relationship with God because outside of Jesus you can't meet God and have a relationship with him. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. Now as we'll see later on at some point, Lord, this is huge implications in terms of what you and I spent our time, talent and treasure on. It is huge implications for what we believe, how we believe it, and how we live it. For the moment it's suffice to say the early church held on steadfastly, firmly in the light of numerous attacks and numerous false prophets. It held on to the Apostles teaching. So that's the first thing I want us to note this morning. But they were not only devoted to the Apostles teaching, they were also devoted to the fellowship. For listen again to verse 42. They devoted themselves to the Apostles teaching and to the fellowship. Notice the definite article there. The fellowship. Most translations leave it out. I think that's unfortunate because these aren't just people who enjoy hanging around drinking coffee at Tim Hortons or at Starbucks or from house to house. No, these are people who are committed to the fellowship. That is to say the koinonia, which is the Greek word used here. A community of believers who share their life, hence the word fellowship. And a good definition of fellowship is a bunch of fellows all on the same ship. Fellowship. You hang around, you've got a common goal, and you've got a common direction. See, something fundamental changes when by faith in Jesus you cross the line into faith. You not only get joined to Jesus and become a partaker of his life, but you also become part of a community of faith. A new community, just like these people here. Having crossed the line of faith, all 3,000 of them, they were added to the church. The word church is the Greek ekklesia, the called out ones. And so what we have here is the birth of a brand new community that supersedes every cultural, linguistic, or natural line of separation. You know just as well as I do that in the world, in the natural communities are shaped and formed on the basis of a variety of criteria. They're based on blood relationships. We talk about blood running deeper than water. Language, culture. Burt was talking earlier about all the tribes in Africa. The world by nature is tribal. You've got your people. I've got my people. And your people and my people may not get along, because I will defend you and you will defend me. That's part of the human reaction to the fall, whereby we can no longer trust God to look after us. And so we build all these communities of interest and all these communities of self-support. But when we come to Jesus and we're born again, we become part of a new community of believers of which scripture speaks here. The church, the called out ones, and that community now supersedes all other communities. And as we'll see in a few moments at the end of history, it's the only community that is going to pass into eternity as the bride of Christ. So when the Bible here says they are devoted to the fellowship, they are devoted to this new community of which they have now become part. Though previously they were separated by race and by religion, by language, and by culture, they are baptized into one body. Now when it comes to talking about the church, just very quickly, it helps to remember that the church exists on at least two levels. There is what we call the universal church. If you're familiar with the Apostles' Creed, then you know that one of the confessions of the Apostles' Creed is, I believe, a holy Catholic church. The word Catholic there doesn't mean Roman Catholic, it means universal. And the reality of the Bible is that when you come to faith here in Canada, somebody else comes to faith in Russia or in China, they're joined to Jesus because they're joined to Jesus, they're now also joined to you. There is the mystical reality of the body of Christ that supersedes both time and space. That's why the Apostles' Creed talks about communion of saints, and communion of saints not only includes the people that you hang around with and includes the whole worldwide body of Christ not only, but it also includes those who have passed on before. The church is truly one body. One of the reasons [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:26:38.460; remove through 00:30:04.000] I'm so excited as I shared last week that my book "Blessings and Curses" is being [CUT] translated into Chinese is because 30 years ago, give or take a few years, in the early years of my ministry, there was a season in the life of our community faith first church that I pastored where I had this overwhelming burden in connection with congregational prayers to pray for China. And I remember week after week and prayer after prayer calling out to the Lord, "Lord, open up that country to the gospel. Do your work there. Set the people free from the kind of persecution that they were experiencing. I can't explain it simply on the basis of my natural disposition. I had no connections in China, but it was there." And this was all before detente and all before the barriers between the West and the East were let down and that happened subsequently. And I said, "Lord, that must be part of the answer to that prayer." And I'm sure that it was. Now I wonder is there more to it than that? Can this book in some way be used of God in that nation to bring him? Can you imagine if you know the number of broken people that we have in a culture like ours where we have been raised mostly with a silver spoon in our mouths? Can you imagine the brokenness that exists in a country like China and how much of a need there is for people to find in Jesus Christ the power to have their lives transformed? So pray with me that God will open the doors wider and wider and that out of that whole multitude that is going to surround God's throne in eternity, there will also continue to be many people from that nation whose lives have been transformed by the power of Jesus. Isn't that kind of neat? I think there's a billion of them. So in all fairness, there ought to be a sixth of the world's population surrounding the throne of God come the day of eternity. So there's the church universal that ought to have our heart, but there is of course also the local church that ought to have our heart. And frankly, the latter is much more difficult than the former, isn't that? I remember Charlie Brown saying years ago, he says, "I love humanity, but it's people that I can't stand." And as another saying goes, to dwell with saints above that will be glory, but to live with saints below is quite another story. And you and I know how difficult it is sometimes to get along with people who share our background and who share our culture and who share our tradition, let alone divisions across language and culture and all of that sort of thing. You ought to hear Bert and Wilma talk about the challenges of cultural transition in a nation like Cameroon, where there are certain tribes who are industrious, but there are certain other tribes who are not industrious. And you know how that goes in your own relationships. And God's not just interested in [CUT] having a whole bunch of [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:30:04.000; resume after this marked segment] people who, you know, have some kind of vague love on for the church universal, and anybody can do that, but to love the guy that you're sitting next to, to get along with a woman whose tongue is sharp and bitter, to be friends with somebody whose values don't line up with yours, to allow your kids to play with somebody else's kids when you're not sure that your kids are going to be safe. That's where the challenge lies. And what God's interested in in building the church is not just in this vague love on for a universal humanity, but God wants to build local communities who can model before the world that they have been transformed by the power of Jesus. Remember how Paul says to the Corinthians, "If there's jealousy among you, and if there's envy among you, and if there is strife among you," he says, "What more are you than the world?" And his implication is that if you're in Christ, that somehow or another, life in Christ should supersede all those natural divisions and all those natural places of sin. And so Peter puts it this way, one of my favorite New Testament passages in terms of vision setting. He says, "You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light." God is building the church, and he is building local communities of believers who, in the context of their society, can picture a life of faith in God, a life of humility and brokenness produced by the cross of Jesus, a life that is characterized by love that supersedes every cultural barrier, every language barrier, every barrier of taste or fashion or prejudice or priority. A community where God is so powerfully present that when people walk into it, they know God's here, their sins are exposed, their lives are turned over to Jesus, and they are forever changed by the power of Christ. So to be devoted to the fellowship is not just to be in love with God and not just to be one of these independent Christians that come and go and do as they please and fly by night. No, no, it's to be part of a community that is organized and structured on the basis of the lordship of the Lord Jesus, where you can learn in the rough and tumble of life, in the rough and tumble of relationships, in the rough and tumble of living in community what it is to be made more and more like Jesus. You say, "Well, you know, it's asking too much." Oh, don't I know it. I would have never believed years ago how tough this would be. But you know, if scripture is true, and I believe that it is, and if Jesus died on the cross to bury all our crud, and if he rose from the dead to make us a new creation, then somewhere along the line it must be possible for people to be so transformed that they can become more and more this kind of community. Not a community that is perfect, but a community that is so passionately in love with God and so passionately in love with each other, so passionately transformed by the power of Jesus that their lives forever reflect the character and the nature of God. It was that vision of the church that propelled Bill Heibolz so many years ago to turn his back on all the prosperity and all the fortune that his family could have provided, and to start out with no support whatsoever, looking for that city that has foundations whose builder and maker is gone. And if you know me at all, then you know that's one of the passions that burns in my soul, that God would make that kind of community a reality. And my question to you this morning then is, will you give your heart? Will you give your time? Will you give your talent? Will you give your treasure? Will you be devoted not only to the Apostles' teaching and all that it stands for, but will you be devoted to the fellowship? Do you want to see God raise up a people of power and making himself a people of praise who will march through this land by his Spirit and glorify his name? Because you see, at the end of history, that's all God cares about. You and I, we go to school, we learn about the rise and the fall of nations, and it's great to learn all that history. But you know, in the Bible, the rise and the fall of the nations is just a footnote because the Bible is the story of God's people. And you and I, we're part of that story. And God says, "You haven't even begun to see what I can do and what I will do as people give themselves over to Jesus and let Jesus transform them by the power of his Word and by the power of his Holy Spirit." ♪ Raise up a chosen generation and we'll march through the land. ♪ ♪ For the creation is longing, for your unfailing of power. ♪ ♪ Would you release your anointing? Oh, God, let this be the hour. ♪ ♪ Let your glory fall in this world. Let it go forth from here to the nations. ♪ ♪ Let your fragrance rest in this place as we gather to see your face. ♪ ♪ Ruler of the nation, the world has yet to see the full release of your promise. ♪ ♪ The church in victory. Turn to us, Lord, and touch us. ♪ ♪ Make us strong in your might. Overcome our weakness that we could stand up and fight. ♪ ♪ Let your glory fall in this world. Let it go forth from here to the nations. ♪ ♪ Let your fragrance rest in this place as we gather to see your face. ♪ ♪ Let your kingdom come. Let your kingdom come. Let your will be done. Let your will be done. ♪ ♪ Let us sing on earth the glory of your Son. Let your kingdom come. Let your will be done. ♪ ♪ Let us sing on earth the glory of your Son. ♪ ♪ Let your glory fall in this world. Let it go forth from here to the nations. ♪ ♪ Let your fragrance rest in this place as we gather to see your face. ♪ ♪ As we gather to see your face. ♪