Word of Salvation – Vol. 27 No. 39 – July 1982
Still Together
Sermon by Rev. A. I. de Graaf on Acts 2:42
Scripture Readings: Ps.133; Acts 2.38-47
Psalter Hymnal: 234:1,4,5; 288:7,10; 442:2,4; 204:1,2,5; 386:1,2,3: 334
STILL TOGETHER! That’s what I’d like to put above this sermon. That sounds a bit like the story of people who fell in love and married and managed to hang on to their marriage in a time of High Divorce Rate.
Still together!
God and His Christians, Christ and His Bride – His people – are still together.
Romans 5:5 tells us that when we think of the Spirit we may and must think of the LOVE OF GOD!
“The Love of God which is poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit!”
You see the Love of God is there in the creation and the endless care of the FATHER – but that is still OUTSIDE of me… it can feel so FAR AWAY!
The Love of God came closer ― tremendously closer in the Son who came from heaven and gave Himself for me in the death of the cross!
But even that is 2,000 years ago, 13,000 miles away! It can be so far!
But when the SPIRIT comes, that love of God comes close!
It comes into our hearts… where… says Paul,
it is not just trickling in, or even running in,
no it is a FLOOD; IT IS POURED OUT INTO OUR HEARTS!
That was the love affair of God with His people on Pentecost Day and forever after.
His love was POURED OUT into our hearts
― ― ― ― ― ―
But love is more than an affair.
Love is more than falling IN love,
More than a sweet conquest.
Falling in love in God’s book
is followed by the commitment of MARRIAGE,
and yes, that is a long-term affair.
Some people don’t like long-term things,
some people are too fickle for commitments.
But God’s Son isn’t and he doesn’t want His Bride to be, either.
The story of Christ and His bride is no cheap little paperback novel
where it ends with the wedding,
and then: “they live happily ever after”, but of that you never hear.
No, that’s when the story really BEGINS!
And there still is today what there was at the start:
the love of God is poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit is the Power by which He holds the Body of His bride together,
but He does that in a structured way.
Things He DOES together with His bride,
things we DO together to show and develop that love,
the Spirit using MEANS works in our hearts and lives.
It is just like in a good marriage – love-making rests on life-making,
the sharing of the tenderness comes from sharing of chores.
― ― ― ― ― ―
Doing things together, making a living together, makes it all richer.
Just like a vacation-day is wasted when you just laze away and do nothing,
but it becomes a beautiful thing when you fill it with something
and do something.
Here in Acts 2, at the very end of the Pentecost story –
of which it is part –
we read of the things the early church did.
If things are well they are the things the church of Jesus still does today… together.
These are the elements of the worship of God’s people after the Spirit came.
And if you look around in a cold world for the work of the Spirit,
then you can look for His FRUITS in the individual life of the Christian:
love, joy, peace
patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness and self-control,
you can praise God they still grow in our day and age.
In the life of God’s children TOGETHER,
in the life of the CHURCH
you still find these elements of Acts 2:42:
“They kept going in the apostles’ teaching,
the fellowship,
the breaking of the bread and
prayer!”
When you look for the work of the Spirit,
the love of God poured out into hearts –
it does not make sense always to look for DIFFERENT things.
Just as in a marriage
suddenly to go and expect that the husband or the wife
is going to walk on his head or hang from the light fittings
or do some other spectacular thing
that isn’t going to make things all that much better.
If you want to see the love of God at work through the Spirit, the special gifts may be there, the extraordinary manifestations that make the headlines…!
Nice as these extras were in New Testament times,
and I am not saying God could not decide
to throw something like that in by way of extra when He pleases…
But THE LOVE SHOWS ITSELF and
KEEPS GOD AND HIS PEOPLE TOGETHER
in things like those mentioned in our text:
Spirit-driven diligence…
Spirit-taught education…
Spirit-bound fellowship…
Spirit-consecrated bread… and
Spirit-borne prayer.
― ― ― ― ― ―
-1- Spirit-driven diligence
They devoted themselves… they persisted!
That is love!
To be there again tomorrow! AND the day after!
That is love: to be counted on, yes,
with the danger of being taken for granted,
all right, that is then the risk we run.
Just to be THERE… come rain or shine, hell or high water.
It doesn’t sound all that romantic.
But it’s what holds the thing together. To stick to it,
Plain old faithfulness, commitment is what is needed.
― ― ― ― ― ―
Then comes number two:
not only were these early Christians always there,
always at it, sniffle or no sniffle, cold or no cold,
No look at what they then did together.
-2- Spirit-taught education
THE TEACHING OF THE APOSTLES
That is: Bible reading and sermon.
What has God said, what has Jesus done?
What does it mean??
They delighted in that, these early Christians,
because it meant to them the story of their liberation,
the love-story of how God gave them hope,
how their lovely Lord is renewing the earth,
and how at last the prophecies were going to come true!
Mind you, that didn’t mean people couldn’t fall asleep during sermons THEN!
The New Testament tells us of a young fellow
who did just that when Paul went on and on and on!
Maybe it also was necessary in that time
for concerned elders to say to preachers
that they’d better watch the time a bit,
what with all those youngsters in church.
But through the ages the church has done this very necessary thing:
remember the Word of the Bridegroom,
listen to the Shepherd’s voice.
They stuck to the apostles’ teaching
and applied it to their day, their age.
Confess that truth in the midst of the world,
so the members of the church knew…
WHAT to pass on to those around them
when “holding forth the Word of life!”
How can you hold forth what you do not know??
― ― ― ― ― ―
As we saw: Spirit-driven diligence,
Spirit-taught education!
But then also…
-3- Spirit-bound fellowship
The Greek has the word Koinonia there,
which means – literally – sharing.
It is the sharing of our money and our goods
as the early church had it
we still do it. Do we do it enough?
It is the sharing of time and of gifts,
each as we can contribute to the body,
in service to each other
so together in the world we can serve better our lovely Lord!
Koinonia – it is a word that sounds like a commune,
and in this little list of things preaching, sacraments, prayer… diligence
we have at times overlooked this thing a bit – have we not?
But the love for the Lord grows
when we begin again to develop this body-life,
this sharing,
this “being ready for one another”.
This way we can call on one another without embarrassment.
We get out of our little self-contained fortresses
and just share:
Here you are, what’s mine is yours!
Share and share alike!
Oh the security of it!
To have a group of people that really love you,
warts and all,
and you can fall back on them always. That is Koinonia.
Oh the joy of it:
I, too, am needed;
there is a community that wants me with my gifts,
I am no longer locked up in myself.
That is what our text means by Koinonia.
Do you think, we can learn this better again?
― ― ― ― ― ―
So that was – Spirit- -driven diligence,
– Spirit-taught education,
– Spirit-bound fellowship… sharing,
And now -4- Spirit-consecrated bread!
Ordinary bread…
but the Spirit makes it into something special.
But in the New Testament you never QUITE know
where eating together becomes… the Lord’s Supper.
That’s the kind of thing we did later
when PRIESTS had to do the consecration,
and the Lord’s Supper became so awfully different from a common MEAL!
But to break bread in simpleness of heart
and in the joy of shared salvation
becomes sharing love with Christ and each other even at home.
There is thanksgiving (in Greek: Eucharist!)
and the Lord is right there among them.
Yes we do that in church. We have done it throughout the ages!
It was always special, as Paul said:
Remember it is the Body of the Lord!
But breaking bread at home has some of that thanksgiving,
some of that eucharistia, too.
Where 2 or 3 are together in Christ’s Name, there HE IS!
Christ is really present: the Love of God is poured out….
let us celebrate… UNTIL HE COMES!
― ― ― ― ― ―
And so there is that fifth element:
-5- Spirit-borne prayer
Prayer is not only to ask for things
but it is also to praise and glorify the Lord!
Prayer is not only the way it is spoken
but also the way it is SUNG!
It is supplication and exaltation!
And through it all that prayer we always pray
in these Last Days after Pentecost,
that Prayer we also pray for a Synod when it works for a pilgrim church,
that prayer Jesus’ bride-church
cries out around the Table of Togetherness with Him is:
“Lord Jesus come quickly!”
You poured out Your love in our hearts through the Holy Spirit!
We long for you,
with your people throughout the ages!
We praise you that You have still held us together!
And we pray and trust You always will,
till our faith shall be sight,
and we see our glorious Lord… as He is!
Amen.