I hope you’ve all come with your football helmets strapped on this morning, because we’re getting off the bench out of the stands, and onto the field. We’re not just cheerleaders, we’re players.
We’re talking of course about different levels of engagement in the church as we talked about last week, and the fact that as we mature and grow as Christians, we should move into being engaged in the life of the church as it engages in the mission of the church.
Let’s all remember what the mission of the church is that we find in Matthew 28:19-20: go and make disciples in all the world. That is the mission of the church, the reason it was gathered and the reason it exists. When we stop working toward fulfilling the mission, we are in sinful disobedience and if that continues long enough, the church will die.
We want to go and make disciples.
How will we do that? This is what we talked about last week, the vision of Cornerstone church, how we will make disciples.
We want love to be at the core of why we make disciples. We want to be growing up to love God more. We want to be growing deeper in our love for other believers. And, we want to be going out to share the love of Christ with our community. So our vision, how we do the work of making disciples, is to grow up in our love for God, grow deeper in our love for each other, and go out to share His love.
Today, I want to look at a passage in Acts that shows the early church at work. It shows the specific steps that they did to grow up in their love for God, to grow deeper with each other, and to go out to share Christ’s love. This is our action plan. The specific steps we’ll take to do the mission, to see the vision become reality here at this church.
Let’s look at Acts 2:41-47, “So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all the believers were together and had all things in common; and they would sell their property and possessions and share them with all, to the extent that anyone had need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.” NASB
This amazing passage took place on the Day of Pentecost. The Day of Pentecost was the fiftieth day after Easter, and if you look at the beginning of Acts 2, you’ll see that the Day of Pentecost was the day when the gift of the Holy Spirit was given to all those who were believers. The Holy Spirit was promised by Jesus, and He told His disciples that there was much more He wanted to teach them and wanted them to know, but they weren’t ready for it yet, He would send the Holy Spirit who would continue to teach them. The Holy Spirit would guide them into all truth and righteousness. They Holy Spirit would convict them of wrong doing. The Holy Spirit would empower them and gift them with the ability to make disciples of themselves and others. The Holy Spirit would speak for them on their behalf before the Father.
So they waited, and the Holy Spirit was given and then this happened! Peter preached a fiery sermon and three thousand were saved just that day alone. This passage I just read was the work that the church set out to do from day one. This passage shows us the ways that the early church did the mission, how they made disciples, first of themselves, and then others. As we look at the actions that they did, I want us to place these actions into four categories, four basic things that the church devotes itself to doing to do the mission of making disciples: prayer, worship, discipleship, and reaching the broken. I want us to also keep in mind as we do this, that all these things the early church did, they did by relying on the power and the gifts of the Spirit. Without His help and His guidance, this work will be in vain.
So the first thing we see in this passage is that those who believed were baptized. When we look at Matthew 28:19-20, when Jesus gave the mission of the church to the disciples, He told them, “Go and make disciples in all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit…”
The act of baptism is an act of discipleship. Baptism shows a willingness to let the old self die, and let the Spirit create in us a new person. In nearly every single circumstance in the New Testament when a person became a new believer, one of the first things they did was to be baptized to show that rebirth of the soul. It was one of the ways that a person began the process of growing up in their love for the Lord.
Just before the passage I read this morning, after Peter’s sermon was given, this was the response of those who had been listening, “Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what are we to do?” Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” NASB
Baptism is an important part of beginning the work of discipling ourselves.
What else did the early church do? We’re told that they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching. Again, an act of discipleship. Teaching, we’ve learned, is an intentional action. It doesn’t just happen by accident, it must be done with purposeful thought. Teaching requires a plan.
When I look at the wording here, that the early church was devoted to the apostles’ teachings, what I see is that first, the early church believers had a desire to be taught. The word devotion tells me that the teachings of the apostles were something that the early church believers thought were very valuable as part of their relationship with the Lord, and so they desired greatly to learn.
I also see that the apostles must have done this teaching intentionally and frequently. The apostles had to think through all that Jesus had taught then, and then teach these things to the new believers according to their spiritual maturity. And they must have done so frequently, because we all know that you cannot simply learn all that there is to know about being a disciple of Jesus and being made into His likeness in just one sitting. It takes years of intentional teaching to deepen our love for the Lord. So, teaching is an act of discipleship, both for the one who is being taught, and for the one who is teaching.
What did the early church also do? They devoted themselves to fellowship. Fellowship fits into two categories in our chart, it fits into discipleship and reaching the broken. Fellowship is the gathering of believers for the purpose of doing life together. When we meet for a meal, that’s fellowship. When we talk with one another throughout the week, that’s fellowship. When we support one another through life’s events, graduations, marriages, children, even death, that’s fellowship.
Fellowship helps us make better disciples out of ourselves and out of others in the church. Why? As we go through these life events together, we teach others what it looks like to do those things while also being a disciple of Jesus. We learn from other Christians what a Christ-centered marriage looks like. We learn from other believers what raising a family looks like. We learn from other Christians what it means to mourn our lost loved ones with hope. And as we go through those things, we teach others what it looks like to have Christ centered in all those things as well.
Fellowship is also reaching the broken. As we walk through life with one another, we minister to each other’s brokenness. We cry with one another and mourn with one another. We speak hope and truth into the dark places of each other’s lives. We encourage each other in love to repent of areas of sin to be made whole again.
Fellowship is discipleship and reaching the broken.
They were also devoted to prayer. Prayer was done both corporately and individually. That means that they prayed together when they came together as a group of believers, and they also prayed by themselves when they were alone. They were devoted to it. Just like teaching and fellowship, devotion shows that the early church recognized the vital importance of prayer in the life of the church and so they had a great desire to do it.
If you read through the book of Acts you’ll see the role prayer played in the early church. Before they ministered to someone broken, they prayed. Before they baptized someone, they prayed. Before they witnessed to people, they prayed. Before they healed someone, they prayed. Before they did anything that the church does, they prayed.
Prayer is where you position your heart and your ears to be specifically tuned to the voice of God. Prayer is where the Spirit speaks loudly and clearly about His desires and plans because that’s when we’re most listening. Without prayer, we will struggle greatly as a church to hear how God wants us to act and who He wants us to be. This is why we’ve put such an emphasis on our prayer times here, and why I urge you right now, again, if you’re not coming to one of those prayer times, you need to come! Prayer must be at the heart of all we do.
What else happened in the early church? We’re told that they had all things in common and sold property and possessions in order to make sure they cared for one another’s needs. The NIV states it like this, “They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.” This act of giving to those who had need was not limited to the church. This was the going out. They sold whatever they needed to in order to be able to fund the mission.
They gave to those who had need. They reached the broken. Needs aren’t always something that can be fixed with a simple financial gift, so we can understand that what the early church was doing wasn’t just giving away money. They used those funds in various ways to meet peoples brokenness. They traveled to minister to people who were bed-ridden and healed them. They made sure that people were appointed in churches to be responsible for feeding the poor. They would go and visit with widows.
They gave to anyone who had need. They gave themselves, they gave their money, they gave their time, they gave their possessions, they gave to reach the broken.
What else did the early church do? They praised God. Worship. They worshiped Him. We’re told that they did this with gladness and sincerity of heart. They knew who God was, and they saw the mighty ways He was showing up in the life of believers and the early church every day. They couldn’t not praise Him! There was no other way they could possibly thank Him for His Spirit, so they worshiped.
I love this because this shows me a lot about this relationship we have with Him and others. See, as we’re going vertical, growing up in our love for Him, He empowers us to go deeper in our love for His church, and then together we are empowered by Him to go out to share His love with others. And as we see Him working in us to go deeper with each other and go out to reach the broken with His love, we are driven to worship Him and grow up in our love for Him even more because of what we see Him doing. It’s a circle!
We praise Him because He is worthy and we see His power! We worship.
The passage closes by saying that because they devoted themselves to prayer, worship, discipleship, and reaching the broken, all driven by love, because they did this, they had favor with all people, and the Lord was adding to their number those who were being saved day by day.
Because they were willingly and actively partnering with the Spirit to do the mission of the church that Christ had given to them, the Lord blessed their efforts and made their numbers grow.
I know I’ve heard many of you express a desire to see more people come into this church to add to our numbers. I have that desire, too. If we want to see that happen, this is what is required. We have to partner with the Spirit to do the mission. If we don’t do the mission of making disciples, there is no growth. We do these things: we devote ourselves to prayer, both as a body and individually; we worship, not just on Sundays when we gather, but with our entire lives, worship Him by surrendering yourself to Him; we disciple, we teach, we baptize, we fellowship; we reach the broken, we give to them our time, our money, our resources, ourselves.
So the hard truth is this: if you want to see more people being added to our numbers day by day, you…I want you to point to yourself and say “me”…you need to partner with the Spirit and pray, worship, disciple, and reach the broken. You do. Not just me, or the board, or the Bible study leaders. All of us, together.
1. Which of these steps (prayer, worship, discipleship, reaching the broken) excites you the most about how we will do the vision and mission?
2. Which of these steps are you most unsure of and want to learn more about?
3. Again, as we move toward developing these steps, I ask you pray about leading in these areas: men’s group, youth group, prayer group, foundation study group, parking lot ministry.