The New Testament Church, Part I
Taped by John Greene, transcribed by Mary Kay Lynd
Bible quotes are from NKJV unless otherwise stated.
We're going to finish up Acts Chapter 2 because of what we see here at the conclusion of Peter's sermon, as we have looked at Acts 2:38 and 2:39 and went into a little bit of explanation in detail about the Holy Spirit. Now we're going to see why all of this is put together because that's the most important part to understand. The reason that God does things is not because He's a chaotic God who doesn't understand what's going on, nor because He just has a whim and says I think I'll do this today. He's not human; He's God, and He is under control. He's a God of order, He's a God that explains in detail what He does. He has a purpose and a plan, and the whole reason for all these issues being brought together and understanding how they work together is to feel our emotions come into agreement with what the truth is and to look at all these details as part of God's plan, to see what part we play in it, because here we have on the day of Pentecost a very specific, well laid out chronology of what happened. But it is a beginning, it is not the apex when one speaks in tongues.
You know we have some people in Pentecost that walk around as if they have arrived because somehow they were given the gift of the Holy Spirit and speak in tongues. That is far from the truth!! That is so far from the truth that it is ridiculous and their pride is what ends up being the avenue that the enemy can go into God's throne room and say, "Hey God, look at that individual. Look at that pride. They say that because they have this gift of your Holy Spirit that they're above everybody else. They're somehow special." And that is not why the gift of the Holy Spirit was given on the day of Pentecost. We've already looked at that in some detail. And Peter and the writer of Acts, who was Luke, is now going to sum everything up and give us some details about this beginning and where it leads to.
Here we have in verse 40 "And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, 'Be saved from this perverse generation.'" Man, that's Peter! His sermon didn't just stop when he said, "Hey the gift of the Holy Spirit is for all believers." He didn't stop there! He went on and he exhorted them more. His sermon, so to speak, you know we call it a sermon, but I don't really want to call it a sermon. I would rather say that what he was doing was testifying of what God was doing in him, what God had done through many of the other disciples, what Jesus had taught them for 3 ½ years and just related those bits of information as they now understood it because with the Holy Spirit many times comes enlightenment, comes insight into what's happening. And here we have the basis of everything. Now let me just say one thing. This is the church! But notice in this passage of Scripture the church is Jewish. The church isn't Gentile. The church isn't some fat cat sitting in some fat happy little church in the United States. That's not the church. The church is Jewish. One hundred percent of the people in the church here are Jewish. Every one of the disciples were Jews. These people had experienced and come in contact with the King of Kings. And now the Holy Spirit has been sent and it (church) can go forth and bring, as a result of the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, the truth of the Kingdom to everybody.
Wherever they go they are to preach the gospel. And so the Holy Spirit is for that purpose. And Peter continues what he has been testifying about, because I'll be honest with you. Yes, Peter was taught and all of that for 3 ½ years with Jesus but so were the rest of the disciples. The rest of the disciples all 120 of them were filled with the Holy Spirit with the evidence of tongues. So Peter wasn't any different than any other of the 119 disciples that are here. But what we have here is the focal point being on Peter for a moment because he stands up and lets them know that hey, what just happened is not something unusual and it's not something that is detrimental to the world, but it is for a purpose and a part of God's plan.
So now that we have, in the next verse 41, we see 3,000 souls are added to the church. So now we have 3,120 people in the body of Christ, the church. Look at what it says, "Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved." Here is what we are all about. Ministering! We are all about the Father's business. We're all about the great commission. The whole plan of God has always been the same from the very beginning with creating Adam. And that's to have a genuine, honest relationship with his creation. Sadly, sin separates us from having an honest relationship with the Creator. Jesus died for that sin. And now the disciples are to go forth and spread the good news that repentance brings that sin under the payment of Jesus Christ who is, according to John in one of his epistles, the propitiation of our sin. Jesus paid it all. There is no need to pay anything else. You can't earn your salvation. You can't do X number of deeds and say there I'm now righteous, none of those things. We stand in a complete contradiction to God until repentance and then Jesus washes away our sins and our sins are under the blood.
When sin is under the blood it then becomes testimony. That's what is going to be taken place in these verses. That's what we've got to see and understand because the great commission wasn't about, again, going out and getting people saved. The great commission is about discipling, make disciples. How do you make disciples? Well you keep teaching and keep testifying and keep witnessing. These are all key words that we've seen since we started this little series. We see the church is responsible because of the Holy Spirit to be witnesses everywhere, that was Acts 1:8!! That was by the power of the Holy Spirit. We see Jesus in the beginning of Acts 1 saying wait until you've got the Holy Spirit. We see the Holy Spirit falling at the beginning of Acts 2. We see each one of the gospels giving their part of the great commission. And its clear the church is to be steadfast, steadfast in what the apostles taught. Why? Because the apostles had spent 3 ½ years with Jesus. What they learned from Jesus in 3 ½ years were vital details to living where we live. They saw how Jesus handled somebody caught in the act of adultery who was trying to be set up. They saw how Jesus looked at people that wanted to set Him up and He loved them, but He dealt honestly with the situation.
We saw how Jesus handled the persecution and criticism. We saw how Jesus handled all those things. We saw how Jesus used the power of the Holy Spirit to cast out demons. These disciples had spent 3 ½ years with Jesus. So there is no misunderstanding. Partaking in what the disciples had been taught was vital. That's why the commission says make disciples of all nations. It doesn't say get people saved. How do you get somebody saved? I've never had anybody answer that question. Well, the people who really want to confound me and speak all of their wise words to me always go back to Daniel and say, "Well, he who wins souls is wise." What does that have to do with the great commission? Sure, but how do you win a soul? The great commission is putting your life on the line to preach the truth, to teach the truth, to live the truth. That's what a disciple is all about, and to continue learning the truth. Paul tells us in Philippians that it's a growing process. It begins at the time we make our first commitment to Christ when we repent and it ends when we meet Christ, whether it's going to be in the rapture or it's going to be in death. Therefore, when we really look at this a little closer, we see that those people who think of eternal security and once saved always saved as being hogwash. Because this totally throws it out. Because you cannot be discipled unless you use something to disciple, and if somebody is a stunted person in that disciple process, they then are open to the attack of the enemy without much for an arsenal to defend themselves and what they'll end up probably doing is being spiritually aborted because we as disciples have not done our job. And there are actually denominations out there that have twisted the Word enough that they don't have to do anything. They sit in their church that has four pillars out front, big white pillars. You walk into this brick church with four pillars out front, you sit there, you listen to a dead sermon, you sing some dead song, then you leave dead. And they're always telling you you need to be saved. Well big honking deal!! What's that got to do with what Luke is writing here?
We're to continue steadfastly in the apostle's doctrine. Because the truth of God's Word is what challenges us, what exhorts us, what pushes us into an area that we may feel uncomfortable about. Another thing that they have in here about the church, fellowship. Fellowship is critical. How do you have fellowship or koinwnia/koinonia? I remember a well-known tele-evangelist that did a series on that and believe it or not he was from one of these dead churches. But his teaching on koinwnia/koinonia was actually very well done. I received a lot from it and appreciated the fact that he did it. Am I saying that somebody who goes to a church that's not like me is always dead? No. Am I saying they're not saved? No. What I'm saying is we need to get into correct doctrine and when we have the apostle's doctrine and fellowship, having all things in common, we will have things in unity. Remember here at the very beginning of this chapter, they said they were in one place in one accord. We've already gone over that that they were in obedience to God and they were doing what God wanted them to do. Because of that they were open to the blessing and the power and the revival of the Holy Spirit. When we're not in that position God can't move. He is limited to what He can do because He does not, contrary to what some people teach you, He does not take away your desire to do whatever you want to do. He lets you have that desire. You want to be rebellious? He lets you be rebellious. You want to be stubborn? He lets you be stubborn. You want to not partake of the things of God? He allows you to do that. Going to church once a year on a holiday doesn't mean that you belong to the body of Christ. But just because you can point back and say, "God look I went to church," that doesn't mean that you were part of the body of Christ. It only means that you did something and you're looking at your works to say, "Hey my works justify me!" And that's what Paul went on in Romans and talked about.
No, works don't justify us. Works confirm the attitude of our heart. Not wanting to fellowship is an attitude of heart. Not wanting to be around people who are growing in Christ, who will challenge us, who will correct us, who will exhort us, who will teach us the truth, not wanting to be around hot, alive and on fire believers that reveals what's in our heart. We break bread together. When we're in the right place at the right time and in prayer look at these things: the apostle doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer. Wouldn't that be wonderful if those dead churches looked at this one verse one more time and said let's do these four things? The early church did it. I'm sure some of you have heard, "Let's get back to being a New Testament church". Well hopefully those people who are saying that, are talking about specifically this passage of Scripture because this is what a New Testament church did. They were steadfast in doctrine that was pure and holy doctrine. They did fellowship with one another. They had things in common. They were in unity. They came together because they looked at Jesus Christ. One of the problems that we looked at with the Corinthians was that they had divisions. You can't expect God to bless a church of a hundred people that are going a hundred different ways. God won't. If you have 100 people in the church, and they're in unity looking at Jesus, speaking the same things in Jesus, then you're going to have that fellowshiping. Then you're going to be open to the breaking of bread together, having supper at one another's house, having breakfast together once in a while, going from house to house sharing your love as a person for the other person!! Remember we're told by Paul that we are to look at the other more highly than ourselves.
One of the things that Jesus taught was how to look at people. When we are breaking bread together we take down those walls, you know the stereotypes, the bombs that sit there on the table ready to explode, we difuse them, because in breaking the bread instead of having that general statement out there or bias sitting on the table, we are able to have communication and the walls begin to come down. This is a wall of divisiveness when we don't break bread together. There are some churches that outside of that church those people have never talked to each other before. This is a New Testament church!
And of course prayers. Not "Father, bless me," but "Father, bless the other person! Father, your Will be done in this community." What do we need to do to reach out to this community, the community where we live in, because the church is to reach out?? Look at what happened because of those four details. It says, "43Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles" Because they were in obedience to the Holy Spirit, listening to His guidance, doing what Jesus had taught them for 3 ½ years. God, according to ... look back at Mark and what he recorded as the great commission. You'll see that God confirmed with signs and wonders all correct and proper preaching and teaching of the Word of God. Whenever the truth is taught God will confirm with signs and wonders with an open vessel there available to do so. The apostles were open vessels. It doesn't say the apostle Peter. It says apostles. All twelve of them, including Mathias.
"Now all who believed were together." Isn't that great? You had some people in the church that were rich. You had some people in the church that weren't so rich. You had some people in the church that were poor. Some had things extra. Some didn't. They came together and those that had extra said, "Hey, you need this? You've got it." They shared with one another. They came into a unity of the faith, and they said, "Hey what's mine is not really mine. It belongs to God. It's not mine. It's not my house. It's God's house. It's not my car. It's God's car." And so they came together and in the unity that the apostles had already established at the beginning of Acts is being continued and passed on.
One of the things that you can see whether somebody is faithful, remember Paul told Timothy to pass on teaching to faithful men? Well, one of the ways to tell whether those men were faithful is that the teaching is actually passed on. If somebody is faithful they'll be faithful to what it was that they were called to be faithful to, and in this case they were called to be faithful to pass on the teaching of Jesus Christ, to disciple all nations. Well if that's the case then what's going to happen is those being discipled are going to have the same God, the same Jesus, the same Holy Spirit, with the same attitude. So the disciples that are now the ones discipling, they're going to bring into the fold because of their obedience, because God used them as a vessel, they're going to bring into the fold more disciples. And a disciple is somebody that looks like and talks like and acts like the one that's doing the discipling. Well in this case because this is God's plan for the whole world, the disciples always look like Jesus.
Because a disciple is no better than the one discipling one and the one discipling them is no different than the one being discipled. The same truth of God's Word is the one thing that they have in common. And because that is being passed on faithfully, we have these guys coming together with the same attitude, the same love of God, the same desire, the same hungering and thirst, and they go on and on sharing their possessions, wanting to be a blessing to other people, not hoarding things up but being a blessing.
Paul was telling the Romans I believe in Chapter 1, he said that when he came to Rome he wanted to be a blessing enough to perfect something that they may not have perfected, he wanted to be able to come to them and if they didn't know a specific area in the Kingdom of God he wanted to be able to bring that to them. That's the kind of attitude we should be in. We should be learners as well as teachers. We should be discipling as well as being discipled. Not everybody's a preacher. But in this plan of God's Kingdom for the church the plan is quite clear, We are to go forth and make disciples. When we do that, we're going to have people continuing daily with one accord in the temple, that's gathering together, that's coming to a place that is in a community, in this particular case the disciples got together at the temple daily. Not on the Sabbath, as some people will teach you, although that was one of the days of the week. They got together daily. Why did they get together? Because they had a love for God. They wanted to gather together to pray. They wanted to gather together to worship God. They wanted to gather together to exhort one another, to lift one another up. They wanted to gather together to preach and teach the Word of God. Other Jews went to the temple because they had to follow Moses' law. Well these disciples, these 3,120 people, they're now turned on excited Joses for Jesus!! And because they're excited for Jesus Christ, because they have that attitude and love for God, they too, not just the 120 and not just the 12, were given the great commission. And some people want to tell you the great commission was just for those 12 apostles.
It's quite clear that the great commission is for all of us, and it's to do a purpose, and it's to bring us together. And we're to continue to gather together daily with one accord, breaking of bread from house to house. They ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart. Simplicity of heart is a technical term meaning they weren't doubled minded. They weren't deceitful. They weren't trying to connive their way into somebody else's pocket. These people were doing exactly what God told them to do, praising God and having favor with all the people. And because they were doing the plan of God it says "and the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved." Were being saved. Looking at salvation from the perspective that God looks at it, God sits in eternity and He sees the end just as much as he sees the beginning. So salvation isn't something that you have. Salvation is a complete process. Commitment is what you have. Discipleship is what brings that commitment to a new level. So don't walk away from God. Don't give up on God. Do what the great commission says. Do what the early church did. This is a New Testament church in revival.
Peter, John, and the rest of these some people call them a ragtag group had the responsibility of the church now that the Holy Spirit has fallen and the power of God is in the church. Let's have that same power today. Let's have that same movement of the Holy Spirit today. Because this is why we have the Holy Spirit. Not for somebody to say, "Oooh I speak in tongues." That's important because that's the evidence that somebody's received, but the genuineness is as we've already looked at. The gift of the Holy Spirit will be evidenced by tongues and the baptism. The gifts of the Holy Spirit will be by the Spirit's decision, according to His assessment and manifested through His choice of vessel or vessels. The Spirit-filled life without control as described by Paul, will not allow God's Will for the church, the loss in His character to be blasphemed and judged outside of the truth. God's Will is All to know Him through a genuine repentance, yet immaturity and sin will bring a believer to the pigpen. Let's be the New Testament church!!