Community in the Church

“COMMUNITY RELATIONS”

Acts 2:42-47

Michael Green in his book Thirty Years That Changed the World writes: “Why should God add people to his church until there is something warm and loving for him to add them to?”

That is a great question and one certainly worthy of our attention.

We live in a time in which there are numerous tools available to the church.  Millions and millions of dollars are spent each and every year by churches trying to market themselves to their communities, to project an image that the community will find attractive and appealing.  There are door-hangers you can pass out, media campaigns you can buy.  You can build web-sites and do a mass mailing of oversized postcards with all sorts of clever messages on them. Unfortunately and to the dismay of many sometimes they simply don’t work.

It may surprise us to know that Christ has his own marketing program.  But instead of cleverly designed materials His marketing program consists of a time – tested and reliable method.  When correctly implemented the Lord’s program will be effective, but the degree of effectiveness is determined by his sovereign will.

If we will be obedient to the Lord’s plan and if we will be patient to the Lord’s plan then we as a church – as a community of believers will be the kind of warm and loving place that He would be pleased to add to.

This morning what I would like to do is to once again return to Acts 2 and unpack the details of those things, those activities that the Holy Spirit produced in the lives of the believers.

Since community is all about relationships I want to look at how this group of believes were related to each of the activities described for us.

I.  The Communitiues Relationship to the SCRIPTURES

First of all Luke says that they were devoted to the Scriptures.  To be devoted means to be persistent in, to persevere in.  They were steadfast and single-minded in their relationship to the Scriptures.  The reading, the studying of the Scriptures was a priority in their lives.  Not in a legalistic way, but in a Spirit empowered way.  Remember that we saw last week that what Luke details for us in these verses only happened after the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Their relationship to the Scriptures was created by the working of the Holy Spirit in their lives.  They were hungry for the Word of God; they couldn’t get enough of the Bible.  Being filled with the Spirit and being filled with God’s word go together.

"And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,"(Ephesians 5:18-20ESV)

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."(Colossians 3:16-17ESV)

These believers because they were filled with the Holy Spirit had a hunger for the Scriptures.

This is characteristic of new believers.  They have such a hunger for the Word of God.  Unfortunately over time unless we are careful to continue to feed our appetite for the Scriptures we can begin to lose our appetite for God’s Word.  It can happen so subtly, we miss a day here and there.  We get busy, we get distracted, perhaps we go on vacation, we change a job, the holidays come and before you know it, days, weeks and yes sometimes even months come and go and we have not fed ourselves on the Scriptures.

Here is the danger that we face when we don’t guard and protect our relationship with the Scriptures.  Our flesh, will find plenty of other things to use to try and fool us to think that we don’t need the Scriptures.  John Grisham novels become more interesting to us, we just can’t put them down.  My favorite author is David McCullough, the problem with most of his books are that they run about 700 pages and once I start I don’t want to quit.  Or we get hooked on a television series and that seems to be enough for us.  Or time with friends becomes a substitute.  So we feed our selves a steady diet of fast food, it takes away the hunger pangs in the short run, but leaves us severely undernourished in the long run.

How can we avoid this? Through accountability by practicing what the book of Hebrews tells us to do.

"not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near."(Hebrews 10:25ESV)

This group of believers were rightly related to the Scriptures in both publicly and  privately.  They met in the Temple, and they met in homes and when they did they were in the Scriptures, they were being taught from the Scriptures.  They had a hunger for knowledge of Christ, and it was this continual, persistent intake of the Scriptures that led to them being able to practice the kind of fellowship they did, they kind of worship they displayed and the favor they had with the unsaved around them.

Unfortunately in our day the Bible is de-emphasized, the Scriptures have been traded for pop-psychology or current events or the ever present how tos!  But the Scriptures teach us over and over again that the backbone of a healthy Christian life is a consistent intake of the Bible.

"Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation—"(1 Peter 2:2ESV)

Notice what Peter says here, “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk.”  He is not saying that they were spiritual infants, they were maturing believers and what is his instruction to them?  To be like that baby that wants its milk!  Long for it, desire it, and make a fuss until you get it!  Why?  So you can grow up into salvation.

If you have no longing for the Word of God you need to examine yourself and see what the problem is.  Don’t take it lightly, don’t brush it off.  You may spare your own soul if you will just be honest with yourself.

2.  The Communities Relationship to EACH OTHER

When we as a community of believers are filled with the Holy Spirit, when we are empowered by the Holy Spirit not only will we be rightly related to the God’s Word we will be rightly related to God’s people.  We will be in right relationship with each other.

God says that they were devoted to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship.

What does this teach us?  It teaches us that the church’s life is more than preaching and as we will see in a few moments that our relationship with each other has a direct effect on our testimony in the community.

What is fellowship?  It is so much more than punch and cookies or church pot luck, those things can be a part of fellowship, but they are not the essence of fellowship.  The most basic meaning of the word fellowship is sharing.  But sharing what?

"And all who believed 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."
(Acts 2:44-45ESV)

• What is fellowship?

From these verses we see that fellowship is costly.  The fellowship that these believers shared cost them.  When someone had a need those who had the ability and the resources to meet the need sold whatever they had and met the need, or they gave from what they had to meet the need.  Just in case you are wondering the Bible is not advocating socialism or communism here.  The believers retained ownership of what they had, they didn’t sell everything that they had and put it in a common pot that everybody lived out of.  They kept what they had but when a need arose they sold what they needed to help meet the needs of the community.

The principle here is that fellowship, true Biblical community is going to cost us.  It may cost us money, it may cost us some of our possessions, but that would be okay because most of us have way too much stuff as one commentator said “Let’s value people over possessions.”

Probably for us today the cost is going to be ourselves.  Time is the most valuable currency of the day.  In order for us to experience the kind of community that Christ died to make possible for us we are going to have to give ourselves in the pursuit of it.  We are going to have to make time for each other.  I know what all of us are thinking, where am I going to find the time?  Probably we are going to have to give up something else in order to spend time with each other.  We are going to have to examine our lives and see what other less important activities we can cut out in order to spend time with one another.  Perhaps it’s watching T.V. I’m sure all of us could cut out some T.V. time and put it to better use.

When we begin to spend time together what should we do during that time?  Notice that the Bible says that they had all things common.  Therefore the focus of our fellowship should be on what we have in common with one another.  Regardless of our backgrounds, regardless of our ages, regardless of our jobs all who have been born again have a Jesus Christ in common.  Our fellowship, and I’ll be the first to admit that this can be very difficult for us to do, but our fellowship should center around Jesus Christ.  Think of it in this way.  Unfortunately many times when a group of people get together if they are not careful the conversation will begin to drift towards talking about other people.  Right?  Try this little experiment some time.  The next time you’re in the grocery store and two people are stopped in the aisle and they are talking, just go past them slowly and listen to what they are talking about.  (Now you see why my kids don’t like to go to the store with me!)  Most of the time they aren’t talking about the price of milk and eggs, most of the time they are talking about someone else.  Try some time, just don’t get caught!

But when we get together as Christians our talk should center on Christ.  You have a problem, something you’re struggling with talk how Christ and the Gospel can be brought to bear on your struggle.  You have had answered prayer.  Talk about how Christ has answered your prayer.  Talk about what you have been reading in the Scriptures and tell how you have seen Christ in His Word.  I know it can be uncomfortable to speak of spiritual things, but if we don’t talk about them with each other who are we going to speak to them with?

Now, I want you to know that you do not have to generate this kind of fellowship on your own.  This kind of fellowship, is just like a hunger for the Scriptures is produced in us by the Holy Spirit

"The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all."(2 Corinthians 13:14ESV)

3.  The Communities Relationship to GOD

When we as a community of believers are empowered by and filled with the Holy Spirit we will be rightly related to God’s Word, God’s People and God himself.

Day by day whether publicly or privately they were praising God.  When you are in the Scriptures consistently and you are consistently hearing what God has done for us through Christ and you begin to experience the kind of fellowship that is costly but so rewarding you can’t but help to praise God.

Do you know why our praise and our worship at times is so weak and so cold?  Because we haven’t really spent much time reflecting on what God has done for us through Christ.

When I realize that I was a natural born enemy of God that I was the object of God’s just and holy wrath.  That I was as Jonathan Edwards said like a spider being suspended over the flames of hell and eternal judgment and the only thing that was keeping me from perishing was the hand of God and solely because of God’s great mercy and love and grace that He took on human flesh and came in Christ and lived a 100% law abiding life and his reward for that was to be made sin for me, to take my punishment, to endure God’s wrath for me sin and he has granted me the gifts of faith and repentance and now he has adopted me into his family and promised me that I will live forever and I can and will experience his unending blessing how can I do anything but not praise God?  How can my worship be cold and devoid of heart!  Think dear people; think of what Almighty God has done for you through Christ!  And then how can you keep silent!  How can you do anything other than praise Him?

If that doesn’t light your fire then your wood’s wet!

4.  The  Communities Relationship to the WORLD

When we as a community of believers are empowered by and filled with the Holy Spirit we will be rightly related to God’s Word, God’s People, God himself and finally we will be rightly related to the world, to all those who are not believers in Christ.

The way, the lifestyle that these believers lived was so radical, was so different that it made an impact on those who were witnessing it.  As I said before, they way they lived was attractive, the way they lived with each other and for God commended Christianity to them.

Please understand that their lifestyle alone was enough to bring anyone to saving faith.  What their lifestyle did was to create an opportunity to verbalize what others had been seeing.  In other words the way that they lived provided them with the opportunity to as Peter says to give a reason for the hope that they possessed.

One thing is certain: unless people are impressed by the Christian lives they see, they are not going to want to go any further and examine the truth of the message of Christ that we have to proclaim.

Think of the kind of questions this kind of living could possibly generate.  In a world where nobody can get along, there is a group of people who do get along, who do spend time with each other, who do sacrifice for each other somebody is going to ask sometime, somewhere “how is this possible”.  Then you have an opportunity to share Christ with them.  To tell them that it is only because Christ has brought us peace that we can live together in peace.

People need to see God at work!  How are they going to see that?  That is what the church is to be, the church is to be a visualization, an illustration of God at work.  When the unbelievers saw the early church living together in community they were in awe!  They were a powerful demonstration of God at work.

Michael Green writes “I am persuaded that nothing but transformed lives will be able to intrigue and attract a generation that is bored with religion and cynical of pious talk.”

We have the power to live the kind of transformed lives that will be an attraction to those who need community, and want community but can’t find real community.

• CONCLUSION

The Philadelphia Phillies won the World Series this year.  One of their themes, their rallying cry was simple but powerful.  “WHY NOT US?’

Grace Community Church I say to you “WHY NOT US?” Why can’t we be the kind of church that is seen to be a body of people who love each other very much and very sacrificially?  WHY NOT US?  Why can’t we be the catalyst that God can use and I believe He will use to change our community’s perception of Jesus Christ, His Church and His Followers?

I say to you, I challenge you “WHY NOT US?’ "