Word of Salvation – Vol.51 No.18 – April 2006

 

A New Testament Church

 

A Sermon by Rev Albert Esselbrugge on Acts 2:41-47

Scripture Readings:  Psalm 66; Acts 2:36-47

 

Brothers and sisters, young people, boys and girls.

Many of us are concerned, perhaps even worried, about the church in general and the state of Christianity in the world. Some of us are concerned over the state of the Reformed and Christian Reformed Churches, especially some particular congregations and where they are headed – doctrinally and in worship practices.

It will be good for us to have a look at the New Testament Church.

For many today, the church is more about being a gathering for spectators waiting to be served, and it’s not hard to see that some churches are more interested in methods and public image and size than about the message of the gospel and serving one another.

The New Testament Church was dynamic and explosive – and we want to have a look at what made that church then, different. As we do this, remember one thing: this church was new. It was fresh. It was made up mostly of people who had only in recent days been brought to the discovery of faith and life in Christ Jesus. They will in a very large part have been the same people we meet on the streets of our city every day – people with marital difficulties; people with massive debts; people suffering personal tragedies; depressed people; and many with huge questions about where life was taking them. And suddenly, we read here, three thousand of them were converted. Life was given purpose and direction. Their guilt over marital infidelity was taken away, their life threatening diseases, their aching joints, even if not taken away were put into a new light and purpose. They had a totally new perspective on life. The burden of sin and their former rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ were removed and they knew they were in a new relationship of love with God the Father.

As we look at how this happened here in these verses, we see in the first place that this was a mighty work of God, and we need to take in the entire sequence of events from Jesus’ ascension into heaven as it’s told to us in chapter one. There the Lord commanded His disciples to make more disciples, to teach those new disciples all that He had commanded and to baptise them. But Jesus also sent the disciples, those gathered there on the mountain to witness His ascension, back to Jerusalem to wait the coming of the Holy Spirit. In that amazing event of the Day of Pentecost we’re told how the Spirit of God came upon them – how they were therefore able to preach the great gospel in all the languages of the people who came to see the commotion of what was happening with them – and then we have this wonderful and great sermon of the apostle Peter.

What do you think of that? Here is what I think. Here’s this man Peter, and the record of his life is the record of a man with sin in his heart. A man given to a short temper. A man of rash action. An impetuous man, and yet the Lord used him to preach a mighty sermon. Why would God use a man like Peter? It’s a comfort to me that He does. Why would He use someone like me to preach His holy Word, when my own heart is in as great a need and perhaps even greater need of the Word compared to those I preach it to? But God uses the foolish, and the perishing, the weak and the despised, so that His power is made to stand out and His glory is seen above everything, so that no one can boast.

So here we have this great sermon of Peter. The people listened to it, and their hearts began to burn with guilt and shame, and they cried out “what shall we do?” And the one and only response God gives people who seek Him is: “Repent”. Repent and be baptised, and your sins will be forgiven in the cleansing of the Lord Jesus.

This is the message and the burden of the 120 disciples who were gathered there for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Peter’s sermon is recorded for us here, but he wasn’t the only one witnessing. All 120 were witnessing. We see that back at the start of chapter 2. “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit enabled them”, and the crowd that gathered asked in bewilderment, “How is it that each of us hear them in his own native language?” Peter was the main preacher, but they were all preaching, witnessing, telling the gospel in an awesome event.

Why don’t we see that sort of thing today? Why don’t we see new converts joining our church every week? I believe it’s because we don’t witness the way the Christians witnessed back here. We’re a bit reserved and careful about our faith. We don’t want to make waves or seem over the top, and so put people off.

Being careful isn’t bringing anyone to Christ either. Now I’m not saying no one witnesses to their faith here. Just simply being a Christian can be seen by people. You don’t have to tell people that. They soon enough figure it out. That in itself is a witness to the changed heart God has granted us in His grace. Nor am I saying that no one here consciously seeks ways of sharing their faith. I know many who do, but what we see here in the New Testament Church was that the people were more driven and deliberate about witnessing and telling and sharing their faith and above all else – communicating the love of God over sin and the sending of His Son to conquer sin and death and hell.

This world is in an immense need of the gospel, and it’s up to us to respond to that need. Let’s see if we can intensify our efforts at communicating God’s love.

There’s another thing we see about this New Testament church. Its worship was simple and yet intense. There were no designated worship leaders who led in singing. Nor were there gowns or candles and the like. The people met together wherever they could and they opened the Word of God. There was a hunger about them that brought them together time and again to feed on the Word of God. They studied it. They listened with open hearts to the teachings of the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of their own day. I have said it before, but I simply don’t grasp how a person can profess to be a Christian, and survive spiritually on a diet of God’s Word that only an ant could live on. If we want to live life on an even path and survive even when we go through the deep troughs of trials and spiritual lows, we must feed ourselves on steady and generous helpings of God’s Word. This is our strength and the foundation on which faith is established and laid out. We won’t grow or find the resources we need to survive well in the newspaper, or in the wisdom of our own minds, or the minds of others. Our faith, our worship, our life, our living and dying and all the tools and resources we need for all of that are given to us in the Word.

I find it interesting that when we read the Old Testament, one of the features about worship in that time that stands out is that of singing and trumpets and cymbals and mighty praise songs to the Lord, interspersed with times of deep sadness over sin.

When we get to the New Testament, however, little if any singing is spoken about. The outstanding feature of worship in the New Testament is a gathering around the Word of God in order to be strengthened for the hard days to come, and to be refreshed again in the remembering together of what God’s people have received in Christ Jesus.

That’s the other thing that stands out about the New Testament church – their loving of the people of God, their sharing the table of God and the time they spent together in prayer. Their worship was orderly, but not formalistic. It was alive, faith-building worship that refreshed people.

Many of us think about worship only in terms of what we are personally comfortable with, or what we enjoy the most. We impose our own preferences. Some will say that worship is all about celebration, and so it must be all about noise and raising a shout of praise to the Lord. Others will say that worship must be about silence. But worship in Scripture includes both. Worship is about coming into the presence of the Lord, before whom we bow in reverence in recognition of His majesty. Before whom we plead the forgiveness of our sins, and at whose feet we sit in order to hear Him speak to our hearts and before whom we rise to raise a mighty shout of praise for His mercy and grace and the great things He has done in Christ His Son. These are the things we see worship to be when we look back at the Old Testament church and the church which followed it, the one before us here.

Another aspect that is often given a high priority amongst Christians today is that of fellowship. And that is certainly something we see very clearly among the people of the New Testament church. The people loved each other. In fact if we go on reading we find that such was the warmth and love among the people that they lived for a time in what we today would call Christian socialism. Those who had more than they needed sold their abundance to give to those in need. Everyone shared everything they had. We see that this wasn’t a sustainable way of life. In this world of sin such wonderful and ideal conditions can’t last. But the people were so excited by their new found faith and so awed by the love of God that for a time, God made it possible for them to experience a taste of heaven.

But they didn’t only just care for each other in the material way. They responded to each others’ cries for help in times of crisis and sickness. They consciously put away the divisions and tensions that form a part of any group of people. With a sense of the awe of God and with glad and sincere hearts for what they had received in Christ Jesus, these people were bonded together under the Word, under Christ, in the grace of God.

These are features I believe are evident among us by the Lord’s grace to us. We struggle and trip from time to time over the issue of putting aside tensions between us, but by and large, love for one another and fellowship among us is good. What I am picking up, however, is that this is something we must be alert to. It’s so natural that the various language groups gather together and speak in that comfortable way together, but it does exclude and isolate others from the fellowship.

The lesson I believe from the New Testament church is that all of these things we’ve mentioned, the witnessing, the worship, the fellowship, must be equally present in the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ today. What we see happening all the time is that one aspect is stressed above another. Perhaps a congregation thrives on evangelism, or another will have awesome fellowship, but they are poor in the Word. What we must seek to strengthen among ourselves is all three. This New Testament church literally exploded in growth, and where all three were present the church did well. But when one was emphasised above the other, it broke apart and was scattered.

It was when all three were present and strong that the church grew and the community around her respected her and took notice of her. And of course, all three are the product of the powerful work of the Holy Spirit in their midst.

Here’s our model then. This is what we are to measure ourselves against, and to become more like. We must pray that the Holy Spirit will continue his work of transforming us to be like this. And we must also take responsibility ourselves, in dependence on Christ, to work towards our church becoming more like this.

May the Lord lead us to be a humble, obedient and loving people.

Amen.