"Early Church Priorities"

Fellow Israelites. I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that god had promised him on earth that he would place 1 of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was to come, He spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, but he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead nor did his body CDK. God has raised this Jesus to life.

And we are all witnesses of it. Exorted to the right hand of god, he has received from the father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. But David did not ascend to heaven. And yet he said, the lord said to my lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both lord and Messiah.

When the people heard this, They were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, brothers, what shall we do? Peter replied, repent, and be baptized every 1 of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will be you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, for all whom the lord our god will call. With many other words, he warned them and he pleaded with them, save yourselves from this corrupt generation. Those who accepted his message were baptized. And about 3000 were added to their number that day.

They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day, they continued to meet together in the temple courts.

They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts. Praising god and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the lord added to their number daily, those who were being saved. Well, my name is, David, and, thank you Anne for re ding. That was beautifully red.

It's rather it seemed to be rather hot and sticky today. So the person next to you drops off, then give them a nudge. And if I drop off, well, you can you can go home early. So I'm going to read a, a speech that was made in 19 o 3, and I want to see if you'd anyone here knows who who spoke it. I've altered it ever since like but not much.

Friends, our struggle is not merely political. It's the dawn of a new social order. We are destined not just to seize power, but to create a society unlike any before. A society without classes, without exploitation. It's not a utopian dream, but a real movement that abolishes the present state of things.

From the ashes of a press will arise a community where the means of production belong to all where labor is not a curse, but a joy shared by every member of society. We envisage a future where no individual is enslaved by pop or class privilege, where education and resources are common treasures, where the barriers between people are torn down by collective ownership and solidarity. This is the promise of a community where free and equality are not abstract ideas, but living realities. Our task now is to prepare the people to take up this mantle, to educate, organize, and lead the mass towards this future. The road is is hard and dangerous, but the goal is worthy, the complete transformation of society into a harmonious community of equals.

We must be fearless. Dis disciplined and united. Only through evolution, can we make this ideal real? Long live the new society? Anyone?

No. Lennon. Very good. And so with that, began 1 of the great experiments in, creating a perfect human community. But like all human attempts at paradise, it was destined to fail, although perhaps no 1 could have predicted how badly and how violently and how cruelly would be the consequences.

I think I I read at some point that it's estimated some 50000000 people have died under the communist regimes, and it still goes on today, of course. But down the ages attempts, other attempts have been made to create the perfect community, at least to unite all human beings together. You can read about the first 1 in the scriptures called Babel. But there have been other attempts, Alexander, the gray and his great empire building. Hitler's master race, the league of nations, the United Nations, and so it goes on.

And and of course the great communist experiment. But these attempts have not only proved elusive, but destructive. Many have written that the most successful attempt is in fact Western culture that developed from its Judeo Christian roots and has flourished until recently. Melanie Phillips, though, says now that it's been destroyed. She writes our intellectual classes have embraced secular ideologies such as moral and cultural relativism, multiculturalism and transnationalism that were infused with revolutionary zeal to destroy the core values of the West and liberate the individual from biblical morality, upon which rested West in civilization.

The result is moral and cultural decay. But even a culture, our country built on Christian foundations and wisdom, has been far from perfect. But, as elusive as it is, we still yearn for it. Perhaps because in our our distant past, it existed just for a time in the Garden of eden before the fall. And many years ago, and the children are dreading me telling the story, but here we are.

Many years ago, I was sitting in the garden. It was a beautiful day. So sum was up, and the children were going through their naked phase. If you're if your parents, you'll set you'll if you don't know this phase, it's coming, they they love to run around the place where any clothes on. It's quite indeed tearing until they do it at 1 of your parents' parties.

But it was, that garden was looking as beautiful as it's ever looked. It doesn't look very good at the moment, but it did then. And it was just 1 of those moments that as you watch them totally absorbed in creation, in some poor little worm or a little creature they'd found, there was no shame, no embarrassment, no, nothing to darken the sun Just for a moment, you could see Eden something beautiful. And it was beautiful, but it didn't last, of course. You knew they had to grow up into a world that was, and discover cover in themselves and in the world around them.

There is darkness. But in acts 2, we are introduced to a remarkable community, look again at those verses in 42. Everyone with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together. They had everything in common.

They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need in every day they met together. They broke bread in their homes and ate with glad and sincere hearts. It's the sort of community we've over only ever dreamed of. And in this, passage, we're going to learn how such a community can be made and sustained. So what is the key to this community?

What are we being showed in the short shown in the short passage? Well, the first thing is that god creates the community through the gospel. The first thing we learn is that what mankind has failed to do, god has done, or at least he's begun to do. Notice in these verses, they're not descriptive. They are descriptive.

They're not telling us something we must achieve. There are no do's and don'ts. We're being told something god has done through the work of his spirit, and we're wanted to join will be part of what god is actually doing. We've been told here that Christian community is not an ideal we have to realize, but rather a reality created by god in Christ in which we may participate. 1 writer said the more we learn to recognize that the ground and strength and promise of all our communities is in Jesus Christ alone, the more calmly, we will think about community and pray and hope for it.

So the first thing we learn is that god has done what human beings could not do. And this is what, of course, links this passage to Peter's sermon. The key to the new community is the preaching of the gospel and of the Holy Spirit's work in bringing people to faith and then gathering them together in community. The second thing we learn is that god grows community through the gospel. Just as he creates community by the gospel, he grows it through the gospel.

Luke tells us as you see that they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fell a ship to the breaking of bread and prayer. So this remarkable fellowship grows and rests on 2 things. First, the teaching about Jesus Christ. Christ was central and Christ as defined and known in the Apostle's teaching. The fellowship and unity of the new community must rest on the foundation of truth found in Jesus Christ.

We cannot sacrifice truth for unity. And as we focus on him and are awed by him, this community will be realized and grow. Of course, the is not just cold orthodoxy, as the religious teachers of Jesus Day found out. You can learn all about God, but know, but not know him at all. The 2 have to go together.

Being devoted to the apostles teaching must be linked with prayer as we seek him, as we seek to know him. So unity rests on truth as taught by the apostles, but we must be wary of the 2 errors. We should not use truth to create division, but neither should we abandon truth to promote unity. Now this takes wisdom and knowing what issues are primary and what are not. Secondly, truth must lead us to know the lord Jesus.

Learning about him must lead us to knowing him. And as I've said before, these verses, the Apostle's teaching is linked very closely with prayer It's easy to gain lots of knowledge about him, but never relate to him. And that may be something for our community groups. It's very easy to have your study and then set that aside and then prayer your needs, but I think we need to get into the habit of studying the scriptures and then worshiping and praying what we have heard. God say to us.

So first, the goss the, gospel community grows through the teaching about Jesus Christ. Secondly, it grows because of grace from Jesus Christ. Our unity rests on the fact that we all stand side by side in this 1 thing, we all need grace. Rich, poor, of noble birth, or common birth, academic, or practical. These things often divide people, but in Christ's we can fellowship because we are all alike in that none of us deserve to be here.

As it is written, none are righteous. No, not 1. And this is of course why we take communion or as they say here, the breaking of bread they probably had meals at homes. And then at the end of that, they took the lord's supper. We receive in that, ceremony, the gifts of his body broke open for us and his blood given for us.

And we and that's why we pray. It reminds us constantly that we are just beggars showing other beggars where to find bread. As Paul said, let the poor person take pride in his high position. He is poor in the things of this world, but he is saved by god through grace. Let the rich person, take pride in his humble position.

He may be rich in the things of this world, but he's humbled by the fact that he needs grace as well. That's why the church and the new testament side by side, you had master and servant united in this 1 thing. So a community or culture or nation built on Christian foundations as this country has been will be a good place to live. No doubt it's why many want to live here, but it will never be anywhere near perfect. But a community given life by the spirit through the gospel of grace is what we have always longed for.

So the foundation of the new community is truth and grace issuing in selfless community life. So what can we learn from all this? The first thing is to ask, do we really realize what is happening when we meet here? As I said before, to is it's very, interesting. It's not prescriptive.

It's not describing a formula for the perfect church. It describes the kind of community god himself creates by his spirit through the gospel of his son. And god's purpose in describing this covenant community at this point in the scriptures is to prove that god's end time promises have begun to be fulfilled on the day of pentecost. Ever since the first people broke fellowship with god and have lost community with each other. No scheme of man has been able to restore that community.

What we could not do, god promised to do. He promised that the dwelling place of god would again be with mankind. He promised Abraham, a new people, a new place under god's blessing. The promise was imperfectly seen in Israel, and in the, and in the Bernacle and later the temple as god dwelt among his people, but not perfectly. And now, the invisible god makes his presence on earth known through the church.

Our meeting to get may look insignificant to the world around, but it is in fact the culmination and focus of god's work through history to restore mankind to his proper relationships first with god and with each other. To restore Eden and more than Eden is begun in each church gathering. So do you realize what you're part of? Human beings dream are forming new communities on the moon or on Mars. There is no future there.

They will not succeed any better than other attempts have been. The future lies in the church, in the little church gatherings all over the world. They are the beginning of the people, the new people that will 1 day dwell with god in the new earth. Second, the last days have begun that they are not complete. It's interesting that the picture in verse in these verses in acts 2 described a situation that actually seems rather short lived.

The new testament church in the scripture seems far from this, the New Testament letters deal with division and deceit and error. Well, we have to be honest about that, and that's true of many current churches, and it may we will run into the problems in this church. But like our Christian growth, we long for fulfillment. We know it's coming, but we wait for it patiently. And the third the key to growing.

The key to community is not dreaming of community, but knowing Christ in the gospel more and more and worshiping him through listening to the apostles' teaching and prayer and the lord's supper. And this has to do with root and fruit. The key is getting the roots firmly in place and keeping them there. If they that is true, then the fruit will come. Only the person secure in the gospel can learn to live selflessly.

Only if I know my riches are in Christ. Can live sacrificially and share my wealth. Only when I know god's love for me in the gospel, can I serve you without trying to prove something to you or to gain something from you? Only if I can am securing Christ, can I learn to stop demanding from you what you are unable to give, what I should be seeking in Christ? Those who dream of community someone has written will Droy community.

Those who worship Christ and love those around them will produce community. Thanks, be to God, for his word.