This is a portion of a sermon preached at Calvary Church Pacific Palisades on Oct 22, 2023, where I am currently serving as the Intentional Interim Pastor..
We are six weeks into our Family of God series and the purpose of this series is to explore four essentials and four expressions that define what it means to be a part of Calvary Church.
- The 4 essentials that we have looked at are the Church, the Bible, the Trinity, and the Gospel.
- The 4 expressions are Worship, Community, Mission, and Formation.
Today we will be considering a passage that will be very familiar to many of us – Acts 2:42-47… “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 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, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”
Today we will spend most of our time looking at v. 42. It would be my contention that v. 42 contains the basic ingredients of A Devoted (Biblical) Community and that vs. 43-47 are the fruit or outgrowth of our whole hearted devotion.
Before we get into our text for today, I think it’s important that as we consider the concept of A Devoted Community, that we see (or remember) that the God we worship is a God who has eternally existed in community. The Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit have dwelled in perfect unity, love, and joy for all eternity. And this triune God created this world and humanity to invite us into A Devoted Community.
Both C.S. Lewis and Tim Keller liken the Trinitarian community to a Divine Dance. In his classic book Mere Christianity Lewis refers to the Trinity this way, “God is not a static thing…but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost…a kind of dance.”[1] Tim Keller picks up on Lewis’ metaphor of a dance and elaborates on this concept in his book The Reason for God where he devotes a whole chapter (14) to what he calls The Dance of God.[2]
First off, it is essential for us to see that A Devoted Community is not just a NT concept but that it’s rooted in the Divine Dance of eternity—which we have been invited into (not as gods, which would be the Mormon heresy, but as family – sons and daughters, brothers and sisters).
With that said, here’s the big idea for today: Biblical community is our shared devotion to our common life in Jesus Christ, which seeks to reflect the love of God to a broken world.
Let’s turn our attention to Acts 2:42: They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.
For the remainder of our time let’s take a (hopefully) refreshed look at the five overlapping concepts in this verse: Devoted, the apostle’s teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. We’ll spend the most time looking at the apostle’s teaching and fellowship, but let’s get started…
Devoted. This word is a fairly accurate transliteration of the Greek word (“continued steadfastly”). Nevertheless, the verb “devoted” (προσκαρτερέω) has several shades of meaning in the original language. It’s worth taking a moment to consider the aggregate power of the word.
- To adhere to
- To persevere
- To show courage
- To be in constant readiness
That’s a bit of what this word is conveying. Their allegiance to this church was not a convenience, it was a commitment. It was a matter of ultimate concern. This is where we need to stop and ask the question, if you’re a Jesus follower, what is the current state of your devotion? And if you’re not a believer, you should know what you’re being invited into.
Apostle’s Teaching. There is a 1-word summary statement for the whole of the apostle’s teaching and that word is gospel. What do I mean when I say the gospel is the 1-word summary statement?
I mean that the gospel is not simply the entry point into the Christian life but it is also the foundation and the power that shapes ALL we do as active and intentional followers of Jesus Christ, both in our daily lives and in our experience as A Devoted Community of believers.
The gospel is not only the fire that ignites the Christian life but also the fuel that keeps us going and growing each day. The gospel is the gloriously great announcement of what God has done when Jesus condescended to leave the Trinitarian communal perfection and majesty of heaven and come down into our brokenness to live the perfectly obedient life that we could not.
What this gospel gift provides for the repentant believer…
- A free and perfect righteousness
- Unrestricted access to a perfectly holy God (availability for intimacy)
- The empowering gift of the Holy Spirit
- The free gift of eternal life
- A coming renewed creation that will be free from decay, disasters, disease, evil, sin, and death
The gospel is not what God requires. The gospel is what God provides! The gospel is not good advice – it’s good news! (You are fully known and fully loved).
Martin Luther famously said we need to preach the gospel to ourselves every day. Why? Because our souls are like musical instruments. During any given day or week our souls can drift out of tune with the glorious gospel. This is one of the most important reasons to make church a priority – so that we can remember and be refreshed by the gospel.
Fellowship. The Greek word is koinonia and signifies a deep and honest sharing of ourselves. It is a shared life with others who have a passion for Jesus, the Son of God. Koinonia is embracing honesty, humility, transparency, and authenticity in a world that is more comfortable with an “image-is-everything” mentality. My own definition is to break off a piece of yourself (the real you) and share it, asking, when you encounter the real me, in both my beauty and my brokenness, will you still love me, accept me, and forgive me?
For us to engage in biblical koinonia we must be passionate about creating safe spaces for people to share their woundedness, brokenness, fears, doubts, and holy longings. Calvary Communities are the best place for this to occur.
Larry Crabb a Christian psychologist and author wrote a book entitled Real Church in which he said, “A real church aims toward spiritual community where souls connect, where shame weakens, where sin surfaces, where failure meets grace, where irritations soften, where holy desire grows.”[3] Would you like to be a part of a church like that? I would…
In order to affirm the need for safe spaces, I’d like to offer a few prescriptive thoughts about what a safe and hospitable space that can foster biblical koinonia looks like…
A safe and hospitable space allows grace and space for mystery, doubt, and respectful theological interaction. There’s a maxim that both denominations and churches adhere to which states, “In the essentials, we must have unity; in the non-essentials, we must have liberty; and in all things, we must have charity.”[4] Our essentials are listed above. It is also commonly held that the essentials of the faith include the doctrines related to salvation.
So, a safe and hospitable space has boundaries at the edges with enough structure and guidance to provide security, stability, and support as well as enough spaciousness and flexibility to provide freedom for growth and change. A safe and hospitable space understands that we don’t change each other. We provide people with space and timely “exhortation” (cheerleading; more than confrontation) and God does the changing.
A safe and hospitable space is also created when we view evangelism as a conversation rather than an event. 1 Peter 3:15 “…always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence.”
And finally, I’d like to suggest that we begin to adopt what’s called a “Post Worship Hospitality Radar” (PWHR). A fine-tuned PWHR picks up all new or distressed people within a radius of 10 or 20 feet, at the conclusion of a service. If we all looked for someone, this place could be electrified with post worship gospel hospitality.
Breaking of Bread. This phrase almost certainly has a double meaning. In this first century church, smaller groups met in homes and shared meals together. It was an opportunity for both broken and redeemed people to find connection and belonging. Breaking bread together also indicates they celebrated the Lord’s Supper together regularly. The Lord’s Supper is a celebration of the gospel – a regular remembering of what Jesus Christ had accomplished on the cross and in the resurrection.
It’s thought that this practice has become more formal over the years. Certainly, we don’t need to wait for the Lord’s Supper – or Communion, (which comes from the same root word as community), to be celebrated at a Sunday service. You can celebrate it in your Calvary Community, or you can also celebrate it with friends, or your spouse, and even with your kids. It’s a great way to both remember and teach your kids the gospel.
Prayers. In the Greek, the definite article occurs before the word “prayer.” So, the literal transliteration is actually, “the prayers” (ESV).
Luke, the author of Acts, is likely referring to specific prayers and likely specific times of prayer as well. Most of the new converts were well-versed in the Jewish Scriptures and they were also well-versed in stopping what they were doing several times a day to pray. I think we can also assume that the prayer Jesus taught the disciples to pray was also making its way into “the prayers.” In any case, being devoted to prayer is about fixing or realigning our attention on the Person of Jesus Christ. Some years ago, Eugene Peterson (MSG paraphrase) wrote a book entitled Answering God[5] and in it, he makes a strong case that we only pray well if we are immersed in Scripture. He said we learn our prayer vocabulary the way children learn their vocabulary—by getting immersed in language and then speaking it back.
As I mentioned earlier v. 42 is WHAT they did and vs. 43-47 is the FRUIT of what they did.
V. 43: There was a strong sense of awe. The Greek word for “awe” is the same word we get our English word phobia from, so there was a definite holy attentiveness to God working in and through this newly forming devoted community of believers.
V. 43: Wonders and signs were taking place. In other words, the supernatural life and power of God was being poured out regularly in their midst.
Vs. 44-47: We see the activity of biblical community in action, including…
- Mutual identification in the gospel Equality and unity within social classes and ethnicitiesEnthusiastic joyPraise and adorationFavor among the unconverted (“You don’t have to advertise a fire! –Leonard Ravenhill)
- V. 47: Salvations
Epistle to Diognetus—a letter to a friend explaining why Christianity was growing so quickly. It has been dated between 130-200 AD… “Christians busy themselves on earth, but their citizenship is in heaven. They live in their own native lands, but they live as aliens. For every foreign country is to them as their native land, and every native land is as their foreign country. They marry and have children, but they do not kill unwanted babies. They share their table with everyone, but they don’t share their bed with everyone. They love everyone but are persecuted by all. They are poor and make many rich. They are short of everything and yet have plenty of everything. They are treated outrageously but behave respectfully. They are mocked and blessed in return. When they do good, they are attacked. When they are attacked, they rejoice as if being given new life.”[6]
This is how authentic Christian community affected the world in the first couple of hundred years of our existence…
Fear and doubt are contagious. And by God’s empowering grace, so is faith. It is essential that we surround ourselves with people who will help bolster our trust and growing faith in Christ by being devoted to Christian community.
[1] Mere Christianity: 136.
[2] The Reason for God: 214-221.
[3] Real Church: 152.
[4] This statement is often attributed to Augustine, yet it (apparently) cannot be found in any Augustinian text. Upon further research, the quotation has been found to be a common tenet quoted as authoritative in several Christian traditions, expressed in various ways, and attributed to various authors. A 17th-century date is provided by Philip Schaff in The History of the Christian Church (Eerdmans Repr 1965, Vol. 7: 650-653), which traces the authorship to Rupertus Meldenius a relatively unknown theologian and author of a “remarkable” tract in which the sentence first occurs.
[5] HarperOne, Reprint edition 1991.
[6] Epistle to Diognetus. Dated between 130-200 A.D. The anonymous author of this Epistle gives himself the title Mathetes, which means “a learner, pupil, or a disciple.”
Gregg A. Caruso 