https://youtu.be/Q6HnFuzSJdQ
This You Tube video is about Nick Vujicic who was born without arms or legs but has managed to figure out how to not only survive but thrive in this life. I watched videos of him skydiving, playing golf and basketball, swimming and doing what he seems to do best, public speaking. He is married with four kids and has published eight books and I can’t imagine what difficulties he has had to overcome.
Living life without arms or legs is not fair. He has to work way harder than most people to do the most basic things in this life and I understand that he tried to commit suicide as a boy but he has forced himself to do what he has to do. He devoted himself to learning how to overcome his disability and make the best of an unfair situation.
He says in his book Life Without Limits, “We may have absolutely no control over what happens to us, but we can control how we respond. If we choose the right attitude, we can rise above whatever challenges we face.” I like that quote but there is more to being able to thrive in an unfair world. I understand that Nick Vujicic is a devout Christian so I know he would agree that, as Christians, when we devote ourselves to doing what God wants us to do, we also have the power of the Holy Spirit living inside of us to help us.
The apostle Paul wrote, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you?” (1 Cor. 6:19) So, when we devote ourselves to doing what we are supposed to do and we choose the right attitude and with the help of the Holy Spirit, whether something is fair or not doesn’t really matter, does it? We can do what God calls us to do even if we are not as well-equipped as somebody else or maybe not as well-equipped as we used to be.
The question is, how bad do you want it? How bad do you want to be obedient? How bad do you want to be blessed? How bad do you want to do what God has called you to do or be? How bad do you want to change the life of your neighbor next door? How bad do you want to change the life of the person you work with? How bad do you want to change the world or even your child or grandchild?
If you have your Bibles handy, turn to the Book of Acts, chapter 2. Acts is after John and before Romans in the New Testament. It is the story of the first church. I have always said that this church reminds me a lot of the first church. It started small. It had some of the most loving and dedicated people. It had a few hoodlums in it but overall it was a world-shaking powerhouse of a church and it should be studied and used as a model.
So, I believe it is appropriate to start our new sermon series right here. For the next six weeks or so, we will look at different churches in the New Testament to see what they did right and what they did wrong and hopefully learn what this church is supposed to do in this weird and unique time in which we live.
Even just two months ago, if I were to study this passage and prepare a message from it, I would have gone a completely different route. But everything has changed in the last couple of months, hasn’t it? People in the church and even outside the church are asking questions about what the role of the church is nowadays. Who is the church? Where is the church? What are we supposed to do and not do? Who is our authority? What can we do? What do we have to do? And the big question is, how do we do it when we can’t even meet together?
These are questions that our parents and grandparents never had to ask. Over the years in the United States, the church has had some persecution. It has been misunderstood and put down and ignored but the church has always been able to meet together and be there for each other and so many of us have soothed our consciences by inviting people to church as we try to comfort them in their difficulties but we can’t do that anymore. That may change tomorrow but we need to know what the role of the church is in these unique times.
In Acts chapter 2, in the passages preceding the verses we are going to study this morning, Peter stands up to preach his first sermon and he hits it out of the park. I remember the first time I preached. It was at a nursing home in Ft. Worth and a little old lady in a wheelchair kept screaming at me, “That’s a lie!” I’ll just tell you, nobody got saved that day. (True story.)
But Peter stood up to preach, yes, that Peter. The same Peter that just a few days before had denied three times even knowing Jesus. But today he stands up and tells them the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ and 3, 000 people got saved. That’s a humdinger of an altar call right there. But can you imagine the questions those people had? Can you imagine the problems and the challenges? I don’t have time to go into it all but if you research the times they lived in, you will see it was not a good time to be a Christian and so you might think that the church would be slow in taking off but it was just the opposite.
Let’s read about that first church in Acts 2:42-47. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the LORD added to their number daily those who were being saved.
How many of you believe that God never changes? How many of you believe that God’s Word, the Bible, is completely true and inerrant in every verse? How many of you believe that God’s overall will for the first church is the same as God’s overall will for the church of today, specifically Christ Fellowship?
Be careful! Are you sure? Are you sure that God wants us to look like this church in Acts? I mean, how can we? We aren’t able to meet like they could. This is not an easy model to follow on a regular good day much less today. Let’s look closer at what it really says and then we will see what we can do. We will see just how close we can get to it in these unique days.
Let’s start at the beginning in verse 42. It says they devoted themselves. They devoted themselves. We could stop right there. Thanks for coming. See you next Sunday. Just devote yourself. Actually, there is more to it than that so let’s go further. What does it mean to devote yourself and to what are we supposed to be devoted?
I always like to look up the main words in my concordance to see what they mean and what they meant to the author and when I looked up this word that the King James translates as “steadfast” it says it means to continue strongly. There are other variations but it always means to continue. To keep on continuing and to never stop. To make it a priority and to keep making it a priority. To stay strongly involved.
Then look at what they were continuing strongly in. It says they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship and to the breaking of bread and prayer. They devoted themselves to what we would call the church. Remember, they didn’t have the New Testament like we do. They were living it and so they were devoted to what the apostles taught. And what did the apostles teach? They just taught what they had learned from Jesus.
The only difference between an apostle and a disciple is that the apostles were actually with Jesus all the time. But even today, we say that a disciple is just one who is learning from Jesus and telling others what you know. They devoted themselves to discipleship. So, the first church was learning from the apostles what we are learning from the Bible. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching which is discipleship.
They also devoted themselves to the fellowship. That Greek word is “koinonia.” It means sharing and fellowship and being intimately together as family, sharing the good times and the bad as they come. How appropriate that our name is Christ Fellowship because think about what happens around here when somebody gets a new job…or loses their job. Think about what happens when somebody gets married or a baby is born…or somebody dies. Either way, the family – the fellowship – the koinonia – comes together and either celebrates or mourns.
I was laughing earlier this week as I remembered one of our infamous game nights where we played spoons and Ruby Wisdom and Trey Pittman were down to the last spoon. If you don’t know, spoons is a card game and I don’t think it is meant to be full contact like we do but anyway, Ruby and Trey were the last two and one of them grabbed for a spoon and the other grabbed at the same time and they went to wrestling and fighting and fell over on the floor and all of us around them were screaming, “Kick him, Ruby! Bite him! C’mon Trey, get the spoon!” And we laughed until we cried at their game of spoons. That is part of koinonia.
But koinonia also means coming together and crying bitter tears when a family member passes away. It means sharing the good times and the bad. It means asking for prayer and celebrating answered prayer. It’s just what family does and I honestly don’t know how people do it that don’t have a church family.
They devoted themselves to the teaching and to the koinonia and to the breaking of bread. We’re still in verse 42 but this passage talks twice about breaking bread, here and in verse 46. Now, I like a church that likes to eat but the words used here are slightly different. They actually come from the same root word and mean basically the same thing. But taken in context, we know that one means to eat a meal. I’m sure, like good Baptists, they had several casseroles and there was always that one dear sister who brought her famous dessert and then there was the bachelor who was encouraged to just bring…I don’t know. Bring some ice or some plates or napkins or something. Right?
The other use of the word means to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. I believe, in context, the first usage means this. They devoted themselves to the Lord’s Supper or Communion. Can you imagine taking the Lord’s Supper from Peter or one of the others that was there with Jesus in the upper room and heard Jesus say, “This is my body that was broken for you”? How powerful that must have been. But there is something powerful about taking the Lord’s Supper anytime because Jesus said to do it and He blesses it when it is done. So, Christ Fellowship does it often.
The last thing in this verse that is says they were devoted to is prayer. They devoted themselves to prayer. They continued strongly in prayer. They believed in the power of prayer. You might have heard the story of the little boy trying to sit through a church service in the south but he was fidgety and talkative and finally his father had warned him for the last time and just snatched him under his arm and headed out the back door with him. The little boy, knowing what was about to happen, hollered out, “Hey! Y’all pray for me now!” That’s somebody that was desperate for prayer and didn’t mind asking for it. That’s how we should all be. I say all the time that everybody we know should probably be at the top of our prayer list.
Now, as I was thinking about what all this means to us as members of Christ Fellowship in April of 2020, I came across a couple of quotes on prayer that I would like to share. The first is from E.M. Bounds who said, “What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more novel methods, but men whom the Holy Ghost can use--men of prayer, men mighty in prayer.” I thought that was so appropriate for what we are living through today even though Bounds died over a hundred years ago.
The other quote I found was from Martin Luther who died nearly 500 years ago. He said, “Pray as if everything depends on God, then work as if everything depends on you.” I believe those two quotes sum up perfectly where we are today. If we are going to be the church that God has called us to be and continue strongly in all the things that the first church was devoted to and continue to minister to the poor, the addicted and the incarcerated as God has called us specifically to do then we have to start with prayer.
We never have been a church of great wealth or lots of people and people have never expected much of us because of it. I remember being told years and years ago, “Todd, you can’t just run 20 people til Jesus comes.” Well, how many people we have is not my big concern because when Jesus talked about the church, He said He would build it and if He wants us to run 20 people that’s okay. Now, here we are in April of 2020 and we can’t have more than 10 people in the building.
So, it’s a good thing that the church is not in this building, isn’t it? You are the church and the church is you and goes with you wherever you go. Now, like the man born without arms or legs, we have to decide how bad we want to do what we are supposed to do. We have some great challenges in front of us because God does not change and His Word does not change and His greatest commandment is still to go and make disciples. We are still supposed to devote ourselves to being the church and doing what the church is supposed to do.
I don’t have any doubt that this virus is not going to affect us forever. Someday, I think sooner than later, we will be able to meet here in this building again and we are gonna have a throw-down, good-time party. Just be preparing for that. Okay? But, honestly, I am thankful for what I have learned from all of this about what it means to truly be a church. I think we have pawned our responsibilities off on the church that meets at 1301 N Main St for too long. It’s easy to think, yes, we are the church but the church meets at this building and if it needs to happen, it should happen here.
When in reality, we have to be devoted to what the church has always been devoted to even if it means doing it off campus. We aren’t going to do anything worthwhile without bathing it in prayer. That’s where it starts. But maybe it leads to having small groups of 4-6 in our homes to watch the Sunday service on Facebook Live. Maybe it leads to having small groups in our homes for Bible study to go over what Ben emails us during the week or maybe something God lays on your heart to share. And, of course have a snack to eat, right? That’s just biblical.
I am thankful for the technology that we have and we are going to continue to use it to the best that we can. I’ve tried to send a few videos out to encourage you the past few weeks and so you don’t forget just how ruggedly handsome I am. 😊 But I don’t want to overdo it either. I am not the church. We are the church and as always, the body of the church is made up of many members. Scripture uses that metaphor a lot describing how each member of the church is like a body with different parts but it’s just a metaphor and the metaphor breaks down when we can’t all be together in one place.
That’s okay, though, because we are still a body with some members gifted to be able to teach or sing or show mercy or give hospitality or any number of other gifts and talents. What is your gift? Where are you talented? Now, how can you use that gift to God’s glory and for the edification of the church but not in the church building at 1301? I thank God for this opportunity we have been given. The church is not closed. It has been set free!
We have challenges today that have rarely, if ever, been faced before and the thing is, it will get worse as the years go on. We will come through this virus thing and we will meet together again but scripture warns us that the church will suffer persecution in the last days so we are able to use this time as a warm up. The question I come back to is, how bad do you want it?
How bad do you want to change the world? Maybe the better question is, how bad do you want to change the lives of your kids and grandkids, Christ Fellowship? Devote yourself to the things mentioned in this verse; to the things of the church. Look, I’ll be the first to tell you that church is not going to save you. Church doesn’t save people. It doesn’t change people’s lives. Jesus does that. But people find Jesus and get power from Jesus and are blessed by Jesus by the church – you.
I heard the story of some friends who were in the middle of a big discussion and they saw the preacher walking by and so they brought him over to help solve the problem. One of them asked the preacher if you had to go to church to get to Heaven and the preacher immediately said “No.” They all laughed and relaxed and one guy said, “See! I knew you would understand how things work, preacher.” And the preacher said, “Well, I don’t understand though. I don’t understand why you would want to go to Heaven if you don’t want to go to church because the only people there are going to be church people doing church stuff.”
The church has changed in some ways in the past couple of months. There’s no doubt about that but it’s not all for the worse. We are able to reach and minister to people that we couldn’t before. And we are given opportunities every day to do what the church is supposed to do every day instead of just once a week in a building. That’s a good thing. What is your role in all of that? That’s the question that you need to ask God in prayer right now.
Let’s bow our heads and close our eyes and devote ourselves to prayer. Maybe you don’t know how to pray. Maybe you aren’t a member of this or any other church. Maybe you don’t know Jesus as a Savior and Friend. I would love to help with that. If you are reading this as a letter or on our website, please contact me and allow me to introduce you to Jesus, my friend. If you see this on Facebook, please reach out and let me know how I or this church can help you.
Being a Christian doesn’t mean you are perfect and it won’t make your life perfect, not by any measure. But with your devotion to God comes a peace and joy in this life that passes all your understanding. And you get the assurance of life in Heaven with all the other members of the body of Christ but mainly with God the Father, through His Son Jesus and all you have to do is believe and allow God to change your life. Do it right now as the music plays.
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