Acts 2:42-47
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Transcript
Thank you for that prayer. Good morning. If you will open your Bibles and turn to Acts chapter two, we are going to be in verses 42 through 47 this morning. As you are headed there. If you don't know me, my name is Isaac. I get to serve as one of the pastors with Mill City.
And if you do know me a little bit, you know that I have a slight nerdy bone in my body. Just a small one. And that I like the Star Wars universe. And so maybe I chalk it up to that was the sci-fi series that captivated me as a young child. Makes sense, laser guns, laser swords, spaceships, intergalactic travel. It's great.
And as I got older and I got to enjoy the films more for their stories, I often would wonder as you come to the end of the series and know Disney did not continue the canon. It ended with George Lucas. But as you got to the end of the series and if you're not a nerd, the series ends just like every other story that's told. The bad guy loses and the good guy wins. And there's this great big celebration over this galactic evil empire that has fallen and they celebrate and roll credits. And I've always thought, like, what do they do?
Like, what comes after? And there's this big climax that's great and wonderful and celebratory. And then there's something after. And last week, if you were with us, we were in a big climactic moment. Peter preaches the gospel at Pentecost and 3,000 people in an instant are transformed in the spirit to trust in the gospel of Jesus. 3,000 people.
I grew up in Gaston. I was looking this week. Gaston has a population of about 1600 to 1800 people. Two Gaston's worth of people in an instant in this one city of Jerusalem are transformed by the gospel. And it's wonderful. It was great to slow down and to think about that.
But if you're like me, you ask the question. What was next? The sun went down and then it came up the next morning. And here are these 3,000 plus people in Jerusalem that traveled there for Pentecost. What do they do? What does it look like?
What are the markers that define this new thing that hasn't ever existed before? Well, thankfully for us, Luke, who's the author of Acts, he writes, of course, the whole book is writing about this church beginning, but particularly in Acts chapter 2, these 6 verses, he's going to give us a big, powerful summary statement where he gives us defining markers of what the church is. And then he's going to paint the picture of what this looked like. And so that's what we're going to do this morning. We got to read the verses earlier. I'm going to pray, and then we're going to dive into our text.
So we thank you for the word, the way that it shows us what you've been doing throughout all time and the way that it teaches and instructs us about who you are and the life that you're calling us into. So would this morning get to be a small part of that? In Jesus' name, amen. So what we are going to do is we're going to look at the first verse, which is verse 42, we have this morning. And Luke is going to say, four defining markers that define the church. And then the rest of the verses, they're going to paint a picture.
And my hope is that that's what we'll get to do. We will get to see the picture that is painted for us. So let us begin in verse 42. This is what Luke writes.
And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. (Acts 2:42 ESV)
So as Luke is trying to capture what was it like at the beginning, he says that the early followers of Jesus, the early church as it's being birthed, devoted themselves to four things.
And the first thing he says is the apostles' teaching. So the word apostle, it simply just means sent one or messenger, but it also develops into a title, a title for the 11 faithful disciples of Jesus who were with his ministry. And then also you have the addition of Matthias that we looked at in chapter one. But those are the apostles. They were sent and commissioned by Jesus to be the ones who laid the foundation of the church who built the church from the beginning. Think about Jesus' words to Peter that he's going to be the rock on which he builds the church.
These are the apostles. And this is what they did. What they did is they taught. This is the primary means by which the church came about and was built was through teaching. And so when Luke says that they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, he's referring to these apostles, these 12 men, and the things that they taught specifically about the word of God. And for them what that would look like is that would look like the Old Testament.
They had the Old Testament scriptures. And of course these apostles, they did ministry for years with Jesus. And they would also be taking the Old Testament, think about the last couple weeks. Peter took the Old Testament and he pointed it to Jesus. So they would be taking the Old Testament, showing how it found its fulfillment in Jesus, and then they would be taking Jesus' teaching and saying how that transforms people and provides the new covenant in the work that Jesus did.
And so that's what the apostles' teaching was, and that's what the church devoted themselves to, the apostles' teaching. And next he says that they devoted themselves to the fellowship. That's a fairly common word, especially in church circles where he used to the word fellowship. I don't know if we've ever slowed down to really think about it. The word actually has a lot of breadth to it in terms of all the types of things that it's trying to cover. We get fellowship out of, we also get the idea of community.
So we have community groups, we're a gospel-centered community. It's the same idea of fellowship. And simply what it's getting at is this idea of all the ways in which life is shared. So any way that you can think that your life is shared with other people, that's fellowship. That's what it is. And so Luke is saying that the church was devoted to that.
It wasn't devoted to, okay, what cool day at Pentecost? See you guys, head it back. Now they were devoted. They devoted themselves to each other, to a life shared together. That's the second thing. Third, he says that they were devoted to the breaking of bread, the breaking of bread.
Now this is in two categories ways to understand what he means here. First, it's very simple. It means eating. That they were devoted to breaking bread at the table and eating together, eating a meal. This is what these people did. And then also the second way of understanding is that there's a very particular meal that is given to the church, which is very important.
And we know it as the Lord's Supper. This is the meal that Jesus gave us specifically for the purpose of remembering him and the work that he did on the cross. And so they would have, as the early church, been devoted to breaking bread and then also specifically breaking bread in the way that Jesus had given them to remember the truth of who he is and the life that was purchased by Jesus and his work. So that's the third thing. Fourth, they were devoted to the prayers. So contextually, all of these people that are in Jerusalem are Jews.
Right. So they've come for Pentecost. That's a Jewish celebration in Jerusalem. So at the beginning, all these people are Jews. They would have had their normal regular rhythms of prayer that would have ebbed and flowed with the seasons. And then the next chapter, chapter three, we're going to learn that Peter and John go at the hour of prayer to the temple.
So they would have had time specifically. So they would have been used to the idea of praying. But now they would have kept that up and it would have been infused with a new sense of the truth of who Jesus is and what he's done. And that would have informed the way that they were praying. And then, of course, it would have bled out into the rest of their lives that their whole lives would have been devoted to the fact that we are in complete and utter dependence upon the Lord. And we want his will done and all these different things in our life, not our will done.
And so these are the four things that marked the church that they were specifically devoted to. And Luke went out of his way to Mark those down to write those down for us. And now what we're going to see in the coming verses is Luke is going to start to draw it out. He's going to start to paint a picture for us and a couple sentences, a couple ideas. And that's what I want us to do this morning. I want us to give in a little bit to our imagination, to go there, to be there, to see it, to feel it, to taste it.
So let's go to verse 43. And to all came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. So as we'll get to see throughout the whole book of Acts, there are many wonderful, miraculous things that the apostles get to do. I mean, we're talking Jesus works and then to do some crazy stuff like healing people, raising people from the dead. There's miraculous jail breaks. One of my favorite ones that I'm looking forward to getting here, whoever teaches it, they call, makes a guy temporarily blind.
No, he didn't heal him from his blindness. He makes him temporarily blind. It's crazy looking forward to hearing it talk. So this is the kind of stuff that was happening. And this is the apostles who are doing this work. Remember once again that Jesus is the one who sent them.
And this is Jesus's. This is the Lord's way of stamping his approval of the message that is going forward with what the apostles are teaching. So let's paint this picture a little bit. Like I said, in chapter three, Peter and John, they're headed on their way to the temple. And what we learn is that they come across a guy who's lame. And apparently he's been out at the temple gate for years that people know him.
But we don't get his name. Let's call him Bart for the sake of our imagination. But Bart has been out at the temple for years. He can't walk. He can't work. Can't make money.
He needs help. He has to ask people. Peter, John, are coming by and he makes, you know, Bart and Peter make eye contact. And Bart is really hoping that Peter is going to give him something. You know, we've got a special connection going on, but Peter goes, I'm sorry, buddy. Empty pockets.
I don't have anything. But what I do give you in the power of Jesus, get up and walk. And he stands up. All of a sudden he's experiencing this wonderful thing. And boy, oh boy, does he take advantage? Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes.
I can walk. I can walk and move around. And Peter and John, they're as best buddies now in life. Most wonderful thing. It's now Peter and John and Bart. This is the new trio that's got going on.
And so Peter and John, they're going into the temple and it says they've gone into pray. And you got this kabari. He's like, yes, the praise of the Lord. This is wonderful. This is amazing. He's hugging up on Peter and John.
It's wonderful. And of course this draws a crowd. He saw me jump around. That was silly to look at. Imagine this guy come jumping in the temple and jumping around. And these people come along.
They're like, when the world is going away? That's Bart. I've seen him there for years. He's been stuck laying on the ground, just asking for help, all his life. What is going on? And then Peter and John, they come and what do they do?
Just like before, they proclaim the name of Jesus. They proclaim the gospel. And it says that more people come to faith that they are in all of what God is doing in miraculous works to heal a man. And when it's paired and accompanied with the message of the gospel, it moves forth powerfully in the spirit. This is what this looks like at the beginning. This is what this looks like as the church is beginning to be formed.
Let's continue on verse 44. And all who believe were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. And so this language of together, all things in common, the picture we're getting here is unity that they belonged to one another. They didn't see themselves as isolated individuals anymore. They were together.
They saw themselves as a part of something greater, as a part of a family, a community. Once again, remember the context of the situation, most of these people who are in Jerusalem who respond have come from far off lands. So it's not like some guy from Crete traveled all the way over the Mediterranean, got in Jerusalem for Pentecost and then was moved powerfully by the gospel of Jesus. And then was like, all right, see y'all next to your Pentecost, I guess. Bye. No, it says it.
They were together. They shared together. They belong together. I also imagine, you know, I can see a picture of a guy who traveled from a far off land and maybe that year nobody else in his town was able to make it to Pentecost. He was just kind of alone, had to make the long trek by himself. And now he's here in Pentecost and whatever Jerusalem's version of a motel six is, he's just there, a grimy room, flickery light, just kind of gross all by himself.
And then all of a sudden he's amongst this great crowd of people and he hears what looks like a Galilean speaking his own tongue. And he's proclaiming a message about this guy named Jesus and he's the Messiah and all of a sudden something starts to boil within you and yes, that's yes, that I surrender to that Jesus is the one he's the Messiah. And now all of a sudden he belongs to these 3000 other plus people who are there and no longer is he in the motel six, he's in the grand plaza. This is the neighbor's guest room, whatever that is, I don't know, but they're sharing it together. They belong together.
They're not alone anymore. This also translated to the way that they thought about their stuff. It wasn't their stuff anymore. It wasn't their belongings anymore. They just lived open handedly. If there was need, boom, done, taken care of.
Once again, I mean, you can see the picture so clearly. I don't know. Imagine there's a bread maker and that's how he makes his living. He makes bread. Well, to make bread, you got to have wheat, you got to have water. And to get those things.
Well, we don't live in modern. There's no Jerusalem Amazon. Okay. You got you got to have some way to transport that stuff. So he's got a cart.
He's got a mule. He's got to go out to the farmer so he can get the wheat. And then he's got to go to the well so he can pull the water every day. What happens if his mule gets sick? You can't make it. So this guy, his mule, maybe get sick.
Maybe it dies. He's got no way and he's wondering, how am I going to make it? I got enough wheat to maybe make it another three weeks to make bread and make money, put food on the table for my family, but I don't. Then what? I don't know what I'm going to do. And I don't have enough to go get another mule.
I just don't. Well, then he finds himself in a large crowd and he hears this Galilee and speaking in his own language. About this person named Jesus. And he gives in. He says, yes, that's what I want. And then he belongs to this crowd of 3000, you know, before he didn't really want to bother people.
You know, you just kind of you help yourself. That's kind of that's the lane you stay in the Lord helps those who help themselves. I just kind of buckle down and I do. I don't really share with other people, but all of a sudden something's new now. And he's with these new group of people, this new community and all of a sudden he feels, you know, I think I'm going to tell him. Oh, yeah, I just can't get.
I can't get my supplies anymore. My mule is he's done. He's just out of commission. Can't work. One of the people sitting around the table goes, Oh, my God, I got 10. You can have one straight up.
Boom, take care of. And this guy's like, what? You would just give me a donkey to haul my car so I can. What? This is what it looked like for them. That they were together that they belong to each other that they lived as family that if there was a need, it was just taken care of.
And this goes on to the next verse verse 46. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts. Praising God and having favor with all the people. And so he mentions the temple that day by day, they were attending the temple together now temple is in Jerusalem. And oftentimes, I think when we hear the word temple, maybe we're familiar enough, we think about like the really holy like inner place, right? Like we think that.
But the temple actually was like a huge compound and it had a really big courtyard, like massive. It could hold lots and lots of people. If you know of any accounts in the gospels where it says Jesus goes to the temple and he teaches or anything like that, that would be the space he would be in. He would be in the big courtyard. And the church went from like 120 people that could kind of get in a room somewhere to 3000 plus people. Like if they were going to get together, they got to have a big place to meet.
And this is it. They go to the temple courtyard and they gather together as a church. And what are they going to do there? Well, like I said in chapter three, it's the hour of prayer where they're going to the temple. So they're going to pray there.
They said they were devoted to the apostles teaching. That would have been a perfect, beautiful place for the apostles to be teaching and declaring this. I mean, they went from having to teach 120 people to having to teach 3000 people about this Jesus guy and what it was all about. They were getting there in that space. They were gathering and clumping people up to try to teach about this man Jesus and how he affected what they understood about the Old Testament. And so they would gather together in this temple, but it also wouldn't just stay there, right?
He says they would also break bread in each other's homes. That it wasn't just like a thing that you would go do like kind of religiously that the temple kind of has like a religious mindset, but your home is your home. It's your place. That's where that's like, that's like your domain. But now it's wide open and you come in and you sit down and you break bread with me.
You share a meal with me that they would have gathered together in the temple and they would have scattered into each other's homes day by day. I can just imagine that like every single night, there's somebody's home that is just keeping the neighbors up because they're just, they got people over and it's just loud and festive and wonderful. This is the image that comes to my mind that they're together and said they did it with glad and generous hearts that this wasn't like a, okay, this is the new way. This is Jesus way. We're, okay, lock in. We're doing this thing.
Come on. No, join. Yes. Jesus is great. Y'all are great. Let's be great together.
This is what happens as the spirit moves amongst these people in Jerusalem as the gospel transforms them and they belong to one another and they're committed to one another and it says that they had favor with all the people. And surely this would include inside the church, but this would also be out. I mean, once again, we're talking about the, the quantity of people of two small towns inside of one city in an instant transformed their lives. And there's miracles and signs and wonders and they're eating people's homes that gather in the temple. There's no way that there's anybody in Jerusalem who, who haven't at least heard if not seen some of what's going on.
And specifically what he says is that they have favor and that makes sense. Now we'll get to some of the kind of tensions that arise amongst the religious leaders of the day. But if you're just an average Joe and you're just head down. Life is a struggle and you just grind until you die and that's you. And then all of a sudden these people around you start to have a walk about them and they start to have a talk about them. That's filled with life and purpose and joy and they're together and there's peace.
There's not a bunch of bickering and strife. That seems pretty inviting. And if I have any need you just meet it. I imagine the needs would start being met in the community as well that they had favor amongst all the people that this is what this early community looks like. Now I want to slow down for a second specifically on the breaking of bread.
The fact that they ate meals together. We looked at it. We saw it in the big four category and then we also seeing it played out here. Now be honest with you. I've always found it funny that in this passage as Luke is describing what the early church looked like. He says they devoted themselves to eating.
That's what they did. They devoted themselves to eating a meal together. Like if I were to ask you, okay, go down. I want you to sit down. I want you to write out. What does it look like to follow Jesus?
Would you ever think on that list to write eat food with other people? I pray read my Bible, my 10 church. I eat food with other people. No, but it shows up right here. That one of those spiritual things you can do is eat a meal with somebody. And in a way, it doesn't make sense, but also in another way it does, doesn't it?
Who do you eat with? Well, you eat those people you love, which you care about. That's why you share the table together and you don't eat with the people that you don't really like. I was reading a little bit of statistics this week in preparation for this. And there was this survey done of over 200,000 US adults that was specifically trying to ask about meal stuff. And the one question that I had paid attention to was honed in on was, had you eat in a meal with somebody the previous day?
So how, like how many meals had you eaten with somebody in the previous day? And 25% of that 200,000 plus number people said they hadn't eaten a meal with anybody the day prior. Now, you have to be careful with statistics and blowing it up too much. But it's kind of jarring that a quarter of the large people that were surveyed said that they hadn't eaten one meal, not a single meal with another human the day before. That's the cultural moment we live in. And you know the difference.
Okay, totally. There are times where you just have to eat on the go. A meal is not about like really a meal. It's just about like fuel yourself so you can do whatever's ahead of you. But you know the difference and you've experienced the difference.
Like when you are eating by yourself, you probably either either distract yourself with some kind of screen or you feel really sad. Because you know that that's supposed to be like a shared space. You know the table is designed to have more than one chair. You don't go sit in a desk to eat. You sit at a table and that's chairs and there's a reason there's a purpose for it. Those of you that don't know my wife and I, we adopted our first child about a year and a half ago.
And so he's now at the point now he's more like toddler age. He's got it. He's holding his own. He's testing the bounds of everything. Anyways, he's eating well enough. We can sit him in his own chair and we can sit around the table.
We can eat before when it was just she and I. We gave into the classic American grab dinner and stuff and sit in front of TV, whatever. But you know we're starting to sit around the table starting to enjoy it. And we, the other day I was coming home late after working out. I was just behind. I was like 10 minutes after they had started dinner and I, you know, I make my plate.
I sit down at the table. I come from family custom of you pray before and you hold hands together, which we did some people out, but we hold hands together and then we pray and then we eat. And so I sit down. They were already going. So I just figured out and hop right in whatever I sit down and Leo goes.
Oh, yeah, I knew that would get something. But he holds his hand out. I didn't think twice about it because my son holds his hand out of all sorts of things. So I just think he wants attention of some kind, but my wife goes, he wants to pray and I was like, oh, do we pray and you can stay a prayer. And we say amen at the end. He goes, that's his amen.
But this is the, this is what table fellowship you all know what it is. This image of us sharing together. And it's this idea. As well that there's peace between us. If I sit beside you or I sit across from you and we eat together, we are at peace and we are one. And this gets to happen in this community, not because all of a sudden they've decided to throw aside their differences, but because of the gospel of Jesus that has transformed their lives and set them free from sin.
Do you see the difference? This is what Luke closes with. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who are being saved. And so the spirit continues to work, continues to transform parts and minds with the message of the gospel. Do you see, this is what the Lord wants. It doesn't say that, and these people went around and they scrounged up anybody who would come and listen to them, pull them together into a room and force them to be a part of this thing.
No, says the Lord added to their number that what the Lord desires is for more people to hear and respond to the gospel of Jesus that they can be set free from the power of sin. That's what he wants. And that's what he's doing here in this early community, welcoming more and more. You think that around here, there's new faces and you don't really know anybody. Imagine here this time now, 3,000 people day one, a couple weeks later, 2,000 more people get added, we'll get to read about that later. On Wednesday night, you know, you show up for that, you all decide on Wednesday nights when you show up to eat, you meal at this guy's house in Jerusalem.
And one Wednesday night, you eat with some people and the next week you show up and there's 20 new faces, you haven't seen them before. This is what this is like, there's just more people, but it doesn't matter, that's joy, wonderful. Praise the Lord that the Lord is rescuing and redeeming people from their sin. And so this, this is the picture that Luke is painting. And as I was meditating on this passage for today, I was trying to think through, what would this look like today? Like if Columbia were Jerusalem and we were the beginning, what would this look like?
What would show up? And one of these times as I was contemplating this and trying to think through, I was walking through our lobby and I was coming down the hallway. And I don't know if you ever noticed, we have these little like collages of photos that are put up. And I started looking and I got, and I got caught up and captured in moments that were photographed of the years of our church. I've been here for 13 years and I got to see glimpses into each of it. And I began to see it.
I began to see it. I took some, I took some of those photos and put them here while I say, I ask Katie to go in the archive and find some. But this is our church. I realized that I began to see fellowship and community. That I saw serving one another and meeting needs. I realized that I began to see breaking bread together.
I saw as we gathered a symbol that the temple to praise and make much of the Lord. I saw that very old picture and wondered, I don't know who those people are. I saw as we were dedicated to prayer, writing on the very walls that are down there. I saw as he added to our number. Do you see it? Do you see it?
Yeah, it was a final. If you see it, do you know what you're looking at? Looking at the spirit of the living God as he transforms the hearts and minds of us. And we now belong together. That is what you are looking at. I think we have a tendency to think that spirituality lives in the clouds.
That we think that what the Christian life is calling us into is to ascend into some heavenly space which we define as feeling of. The realness. Spirituality is following Jesus. And this is it. This is the church. And so what I'd like to do with our closing minutes here is I would like to consider what this does mean for us as a church.
We're in a unique moment in time in history where we as a church believe it or not in 17 weeks. We are sending and planting Oak Ridge church out in Lexington. Yes, whoever that was. I tried to find the number that would like punch and hit most in weeks was the best one. There are going to be people who stay and send from the Mill City side and they're going to be people who go with the Oak Ridge side and we're going to ask ourselves. What do we do?
What is this supposed to look like? I've never done this before. Well, I hope 10 years from now. We'll be able to look back. And we'll be able to say that we were devoted to four things. We'll be able to say it with confidence.
We'll be able to say that we were devoted to the apostles teaching or in other words, we were devoted to the word. Now let's slow down once again. Let's not live in the world of a serial spirituality. Let's bring it down to real practical. What does it look like? To starters, real simple easy one.
Here we go. Right here. Do you know what we're doing? We're devoting ourselves to the word. This is it. If you thought that it was all full of giggly feelings, maybe it's not.
Maybe it's just us sitting in a room, gathering around the word of God and understanding what does it look like. This is it. What a blessing. If you don't know, I don't actually often teach. I'm not the main teacher here. I work in other zones, Chet and Spencer, who are out on vacation this week and they're mainly teaching.
But do you know what a gift and a blessing it is that we have two men that week in and week out devote themselves to deep study and meditation on the word. They come and they present that before us that as a community, we could engage the word of God. What a gift. And then for us, that doesn't just stay and remain here in this room. We don't walk out of that door and drop the Bible. No, we take it with us.
And what do we do? We gather in groups and we have a group discussion time where we begin to ask the question. That's an amazing message. What does it mean for me? Where does the word of God hit me and speak to me in my life? And we begin to discuss that out together.
And we live in an unprecedented time in history and which eats in every one of us at every moment of every day has unfettered access to every single word of God that he's spoken to us in his word. So 10 years from now when there's another Isaac standing here speaking. Would we be able to look back with confidence and say we are devoted to the word. Will we be able to also look back and say that we are devoted to fellowship. That we're devoted to one another. And I think we're good at this, but this is also really hard because culturally we're not set up well.
You're supposed to be isolated and live for yourself and your own dreams, your own ambitions, your own whatever. It's all about you, you, you, you, you, you, you. But it's not us. And once again, let's pull it back down into reality. Okay. We have community groups of reason.
We say it every Sunday for a reason because we are devoted to fellowship. Now, certainly the community group meeting time is not the entirety of fellowship, but it also isn't less than it. When we gather every week, I didn't know if you know this, but when you gather every week and somebody's home with your fellow believers in this church, you are being devoted to being the church. It's that simple. And in those spaces, what gets to happen? You build relationships.
Maybe people that you never talk or meet to before. You have a shared bond in the work of Christ that bridges gaps. Maybe in that space, there are needs that are met. You know, I think about, I love that we do a give project where every December, we all rally together. And it's a big thing and we all see it and we all see the stuff that's going into it all that kind of stuff. But have you ever slowed down and thought about the fact that in each and every one of our groups, there's somebody who has a need.
We all have need eventually. There's somebody who has a need. You've never heard about it because somebody in our church already stepped up to the plate and met the need. That's the church. That's what the gospel does to us. May we be able to in 10 years look back and say with confidence that we are churches devoted to fellowship.
May we also be able to say that we are devoted to breaking of bread. I mean, come on people. May we be able in 10 years to look back and say that we are people devoted to eating at the same table. How much more mundane does it get than that? This is why in our groups, literally half of the time is just eating a meal. You just share them together.
Do you know that that does something deep? I would also say that if the only time that you've ever had a meal with our church families at a group time, you're missing out. These people eat other times of the week. We'll get to participate in a moment, but maybe we also be able to not just say that we ate food together because that is a beautiful and wonderful thing. But will we say that we are devoted to the reason why?
Because of the cross of Christ that broke the bonds of sin that separated us. It separated us and him and it separated us. And that's been absolved in the person of Jesus. And a meal is a time of remembering that. And we're going to get to do that in a very specific meal, the Lord's Supper, that He's given us here in a moment. In 10 years, may we be able to look back and as two churches say we are devoted.
To the breaking of bread. And lastly, would we be able to say that we are devoted to praying? I'm so appreciative of in the last couple of years some shifts to our group content, some shifts on Sunday morning. And I think about prayer nights in our groups. That's actually one of my favorite nights. I appreciate the ability to study the Bible.
I appreciate all the other things we do. And maybe it's that it just was a thing that felt missing and so I appreciate it more. But a time when we just slow down, do you know in praying that you're not doing anything? You bring no power to the table when you pray. You bring nothing except need. Do you know that's why we pray?
Father, would you? Would you? Would you? Would you? And we just get to be dependent upon the only one who's ever done anything worthwhile in our lives ever. And we do it here on Sunday morning.
Raz just prayed over us. We prayed collectively. I'll be honest with you, that was hitting me. I'm in a season of just head down grinding and I'm going, oh my word, I'm missing you, Lord. It's because we gathered and we prayed. What a mercy.
This also includes praising together. We're so blessed as a church family to have so many people that can be up here. I don't know if you know it, but most churches don't have like revolving teams of people that get to come up and play. Like you might be here four weeks in a row and not see the same person up here playing music. That's about to change, but... We get to praise, but it's also not confined to here in this space, in this room.
Praising is a posture of life to exalt him, to come low and exalt him. In all things, whatever we're blessed with, thank you, Lord, because I know that every good and perfect gift, it's from you and you alone. Who else can I praise? In ten years, may we, as two churches, be able to look back and say we were so dependent, so dependent that we were dedicated. We were devoted to people of prayer. So this is what it looks like.
If you ever ask the question, really, yeah, but like what is the church really like? What's it supposed to be? There you go. Or maybe you're looking at your life. It's a busy life. And you're hearing this stuff and it sounds inviting, but also I got a lot going on already.
I don't know if I can add all that, because that's a lot. I'll be honest with you. It is. But do you understand that the gospel transforms? Transforms means to be made new, to be made into something new, something different. So it's not looking at the way that was in figuring out how can I add this Jesus church stuff in on the side.
It's okay. I know this is what I was, but I now see what Jesus is offering. Jesus, how do I live where it's all about you? How do I bring my whole life under you? Because you're king. You went to the cross and you absolved the guilt.
You freed me. I was a slave. Sin owned me. I had nothing, no power, anything that could take me out from under its grip. But at the cross, you freed me and you rose to give new life and you sit as king.
How can my life come under you? The band's going to come back up as we continue in this time of being the church. We're gathering and doing the things in church and we get to devote ourselves right now. We've been devoting ourselves in praising and prayer and fellowship and sitting under teaching from the Word. This is it. But we get to also right now devote ourselves to the breaking of bread.
As a church, we're about to take communion. The Lord's Supper. It's a meal. It's supper. Now in our setting, we just have kind of small tables with a couple of things because there's a lot of us.
It'd be a real big table in the middle of the room. But we're coming to the table together. And we get to share our meal together, reminding ourselves of Jesus and His work. That's what brings us to the table. And so as we come up, if you feel the Spirit at work convicting you, go to Jesus, go to the cross. Don't sit in the feelings of conviction.
Rejoice. For the cross has covered it completely. This is a meal. We can come rejoice at the table. And as you come up and you take, not in solemnness, but in joy, I want you to take a moment and look around. I understand we normally we stand in a line because we're trying to be efficient and get to the table and get stuff.
I want you to see each other. If you want to have a conversation on the way up to the... Don't you know that's what you do at a table? This is a meal. Let us remember and proclaim Jesus, the one who bought us the right to come to the table. And may we come together and enjoy.
I'm going to read from 1 Corinthians to prepare us to come to the table. And if you need, there's gluten free in the back corner over there. Read from this word what Paul writes about this meal. And when I'm done and you're invited to come, come to the table together as a church, as those who belong to Jesus.
For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. (1 Corinthians 11:23–26 ESV)
Let's eat.