The Original Model of the Church

When we go through the books of the New Testament, I always find it fascinating that if you took the book of Acts, a study I've always wanted to do, is you take the book of Acts and then you take all the other books, which are basically letters, most of the rest of the New Testament are letters, and you take the book of Acts and you place the letter into the place of book of Acts where it was written.

Because it's very interesting in that the church started on Jerusalem and then expanded out and they started congregations all over the place. And then eventually there's these letters going to all these specific congregations, and letters going to ministers in these different congregations. And they're all congregations with issues, you know, and that's the problem with the New Testament. There wasn't any letters sent to a congregation that said, wow, you have no issues. Because why would they send the letter?

So we only get the negative letters, right? The first and second Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, Colossians. And they're all like, oh, you people have problems. And we look at these different congregations, and sometimes we see ourselves in those different congregations, but it's fascinating to see them for what they are. Groups of people, you know, the Galatians probably never knew the people in Philippi. The people in Colossae probably never knew the people in Rome.

They didn't have the benefit of communications like we have. So they were very isolated at times. And, you know, a letter would show up from Paul or from Peter or from James, and boy, that was something to have. And it was read over and over and over again and studied over and over and over again. Because sometimes it's the only contact they had, maybe, with people of other congregations. And that's what's so interesting about Revelation 2 and 3. You have seven churches, plus Colossae, which is too far from there.

You have all these churches that are real close to each other. And so they would have probably known each other to a certain degree. Many of them were within a day's ride by horse, going from each other. So there was some contact between those people. In Acts 2, we actually have the first description of a New Testament congregation. And it was the congregation in Jerusalem. And it's very interesting, because the first description we have of a congregation is, everything was good. Now, by the time we get to Acts 4, everything isn't good anymore. There were issues. There were problems. They had issues with taking care of the widows.

It's one of the reasons why they ordained into an office what we call deacons. They created this office of deacons that helped take care of widows and situations that weren't being taken care of. There's all this tension. The churches inside the church in Jerusalem, there's this tension and this sort of break that's happening, this warfare between these two groups.

And they're both Jews. One just happens to be from a Judean background, and the other are called Hellenists. They're from a Greek background. But they're all Jews. But they're still having conflict within their congregation. So when we look at that first description of the congregation, what we have, and it's very fascinating, is we have, here is the model of what a congregation is supposed to look like. Now, except for maybe about a month, maybe not even that long in Jerusalem, no congregation has exactly looked like that ever since.

But it does give us the model. This is what we're supposed to look like. Because a congregation is a whole lot more than just a group of people to get together on the Sabbath. I gave a sermon a month ago. How do we get the most out of Sabbath services? I made the point. We have to be more than just 150 people to get together on the Sabbath.

There are people, probably 15 people or so, that are part of our congregation that aren't here today, but they're on a hookup. And those people would like to be here. The Mignares would like to be here. The Carruthers would like to be here. The people up in Kerrville would like to be here, but they can't. Now, we have this modern convenience where we can connect, but we understand, as we all know, it's only been the last, what, five, ten years that that was even possible.

First by telephone and now through computer. People were isolated when they couldn't come to Sabbath services. When you don't, aren't able to come to Sabbath services, you begin to understand the importance of it. But we have to be more than just a group of people to come together on the Sabbath. What does it mean to be a congregation? Because one of the things, when you look through the New Testament letters to churches, remember they're congregations, except for Timothy. First and second, Timothy and Titus are all the congregations.

They're writing the people who came together to be Christians. They were individuals, but they came together. As they came together, that group of people took on a certain personality. They had their own issues. The issues that they had in colossing are different than the issues they had in Corinth. The issues they had in Corinth were different than the issues they had in Rome. They had the environment they lived in, the type of people that were coming in, or the leadership that they had. There were a lot of different things. But we still go back to Jerusalem and we say, ah, here's the first Christian congregation. And we have a description of what it was at its absolute best. Now, Paul wrote, before we go to the book of Acts and look at these characteristics of the earliest church, I want to look at something that Paul wrote to the church of Ephesus in Ephesians 4. Ephesians 4. Verse 1.

This is a statement that's filled with a lot of emotion.

Paul was a motivational person because he was motivated. You know, people who are highly motivated tend to help others be highly motivated. He says, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you. He's beseeching the congregation in Ephesus, and he was very close to the congregation in Ephesus. If you read through the book of Acts, he spent a long time. He spent years here in Ephesus. He was very close to these people.

He says, I beseech you that you to walk worthy of the calling which you were called.

He says, I've been trying to implore you, I'm beseeching you, I'm begging you to walk according to the calling that you have been given, the calling to follow Jesus Christ, the calling to become a child of God, the calling to the truth that you know what the truth is, you know what the Scripture says. So he's beseeching them to walk this way. And he says, with all lowliness and gentleness, with long suffering, bearing with one another in love. Now, he didn't say, I beseech all of you now to just be the best Christian you could be and leave it at that. I've met many people over the years who believe that Christianity is such a personal experience that you could just stay at home, keep the Sabbath yourself, listen to some tapes, and you don't have to be part of a congregation. That is not the New Testament model. It just isn't. That's not what it is. Remember, every letter except for three, written by Paul, were written to congregations. We also know that James, 1 and 2 Peter were written to all the congregations. That's why they're called the general epistles, or general letters. And so, you can't just say, it's being a new God, because the development of what it is to be a Christian is enhanced by being part of a congregation. Now, some people can't be part of a congregation. I understand that. And that's tough. When you're home by yourself all the time and you can't be part of a congregation. But, I've known a lot of people over the years who choose that, believing that they're a superior Christian. And that's not the New Testament model at all. So, he says, you've got to walk worthy of your calling and love one another.

So, part of our walk with God is to love one another. In fact, in verse 3, he says, "...endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." The unity of the Spirit here is he's talking about the relationship between those who are walking together and following God. Now, endeavoring, you have to work at this.

When we look at the model of the Jerusalem church, we'll find that it took a lot of work for these people to be what they were, to set the model that we have. That God wants us to be as any congregation. He says, there is one body, one spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all.

So, he stresses here that in our calling, part of our calling is to be part of a group. So, here we are as part of a group.

So, there's no independent Christian. It is a very immature Christian, or it's a very self-righteous Christian who says, I'm totally independent.

That doesn't exist as a healthy Christian. As a healthy Christian, we participate in a congregation. Sometimes it's easier not to participate in a congregation. Sometimes it can be actually easier not to, but God didn't call us to the easy life. He called us to become His children. You can't look at the person who's next to you, who is also a child of God. You can't look at them and say, I don't want to be part of this family. What does that make you then? What are you stepping out of? I don't want to be your family member.

So, we all have the same God, the same truth, same basic doctrines.

So, then we have to become this family. So, let's go to Acts 2, and let's look at some of the characteristics of the very first church when it was at its best.

The Day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit has just poured out on these people. They all are excited. All of them have received the Holy Spirit. There were miracles of all theness. People could see what looked like fire come down upon them. They were speaking in tongues.

And you have all these people now gathered together in this unique unity. And all the rest of the New Testament, you would never have people as unified as these people were.

Like I said, it's only a couple chapters. It's only a few weeks later that they already begin to have some issues. But at the very beginning, they give us the example. And it says this in verse 41. Let's look at verse 41. Then those who gladly received his word, Peter had just finished his sermon there on the Day of Pentecost, were baptized in about that day. Three thousand souls were added to them.

And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship. Let's stop for a minute. Let's break this 41 in the first part of 42 down. It's two points. Peter preached the word. People responded. They already had a group of disciples. The disciples had received God's Spirit. If you read Acts 2, people would come to see what all this commotion was about. It says they were amazed because they heard people speaking in their own languages. Peter gets up and says, this is from God. His Spirit is being poured out.

People say, we want to be part of this. And he says, you have to be baptized. If you read the few verses before this, he says you have to repent and be baptized. And so guess what happened? Immediately, people began to repent and be baptized. And they began to come in to the group. Now, the group had gone from about 120 to over 3,000 in one day. Now, that's enormous growth. That's very exciting. Although, like I said, all you have to do is get to chapter 4, and it created all kinds of problems, too. It would have been nice if 500 new people walked through that door next week, and all asked to be baptized. And we just said we would just baptize them here, just run through as fast as we could. How long do you think it'd be before we have problems? An hour?

No, I want to be baptized first.

It's just human nature, because even with God's Spirit, we're still fighting human nature. So, they had problems. But you can imagine being part of this remarkable experience, this remarkable growth. And here they are.

So, these people are coming in, and they're being baptized. And in this baptism, this acceptance of Jesus Christ, if you read through Acts chapter 2, the sermon, you understand, he taught him. The core of what he was saying is, Jesus is the Christ, and He died for our sins. You must repent and be baptized, and the promises of God are going to be poured out upon you.

They're being baptized. And then it says the next thing, and this gives us our first characteristic of this earliest Church. They continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrines. Now, you and I have a benefit that they didn't have. You know what we have? We have the writings of the Apostles. They didn't have the writings of the Apostles. All they had at this point was the Old Testament. There wasn't one book, one letter of the New Testament written yet, not one. They didn't have any of the Gospels. They didn't have any of the Book of Acts. This is the very beginning of the Book of Acts. They didn't have any of the Apollos' writings, James, Peter's. They didn't have John's writings. They didn't have the Book of Revelation. They didn't have anything. So what they had is the Apostles' teachings. They took the Old Testament, and they expounded it to them so they could understand them.

But again, they had problems. If you just start reading through the next few chapters of Acts, chapter 4, they have a major controversy over taking care of widows and organization and leadership problems within the Church. You get just a few more chapters, and you find that they really weren't taking the Gospel to the Gentiles the way they were supposed to, because basically they didn't like Gentiles. And so God had to perform a miracle to get Peter to get to Cornelius. And then He had to go back and tell the leaders who were supposed to go to the Gentiles. Well, they already had been told to do that. Jesus had told them, you're going to go to Jerusalem, Judea, and to the world. Okay. And they were very happy to stay in Jerusalem. And they were happy to be there. They had their congregation, and they were happy. And their congregation kept growing with people from Jerusalem.

And He said, no, no, no, this is bigger than even your congregation. So then He had to do that. We also see that as soon as they started to have more people then, and more leadership, there was even conflict between the leaders. Barnabas and Paul argued over John Mark.

Then they had problems over doctrine. By the time you get to Acts 15, they're bringing in all the elders from all over Judea into... because now they had congregations expanding out, they had to bring all the elders in to fix a doctrinal problem.

In other words, they had all the problems that we have today, or that any, you know, the church of God has had since that time.

But what's amazing about the Jerusalem church is when you read through what the Scripture says about the Jerusalem church, you don't... you always see them staying true to God, and their congregation always stayed together.

They stayed true to God, they stayed together. Finally, Saint got to it in 70 AD by shoving them out of Jerusalem. He forced them out. But they stayed there, and they did what they were supposed to do.

And they stayed loyal to the scriptural teachings. They weren't bent by every wind of doctrine that came down, every wild-eyed idea. And of course, today we face with the Internet, it is amazing what is out on the Internet, that some of it is absolutely bizarre. And yet it seems so right, just to read, oh, that must be right. Sometimes it's flat-out wise.

Or something is somebody just made up, but it looks good on YouTube.

And so people buy into it. There was a stability there. And I'll show you how strong that stability was in their belief, in the basic core doctrines, and they stuck with them. Acts 8. Acts 8, verse 1. This is where the Apostle Paul comes along. And before he's the Apostle Paul, he's persecuting the church. And it says, now Saul was consented to his death. This is the death of Stephen. At that time, a great persecution arose against the church, which was at Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and some area, except the apostles. And development carried Stephen to his burial, made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison. Therefore, those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the Word. Satan tried to destroy the congregation of Jerusalem, and all he did was spread it. It's like, what, was that horror movie, The Blob? It's like a hammer, and you break it up into little pieces. Now all the pieces are moving, right? You can't stop this thing.

Even under persecution, the church, those people, kept living God's way. They kept telling others about God's way, and they kept bringing people to God. That was their dedication to the apostles' doctrine.

And so the first thing we see about this church is that they were a learning church, a repented church, and a scripturally-based church. They were a learning church, they were a repented church, and they were a scripturally-based church. Any congregation that's going to survive has to have those elements to it. The Ephesian church was the same way. Ephesus is remarkable among all the churches that were started by Paul, because we have such a history of it, and we can go to the book of Revelation, and it's 95. Paul starts Ephesus in the early 50s. We end up at 95 A.D. in that time period, and John is writing, and there's still a church in Ephesus. And it was a bigger church. Unlike some of the churches that met in people's homes, they had to go rent an auditorium for the Ephesian church. And it's an amazing church, because it kept going. Generation after generation, the Ephesian church stood strong. So did the church in Jerusalem. It stood strong. It didn't mean it didn't have bad times. But they stayed with God. So we see that they were a learning church, a repentant church, and the church is loyal to Scripture. Now let's go back to Acts 2.

Acts 2, in verse 42, the last part of it, it says, "...continues steadfast to the apostles' doctrine and fellowship in the breaking of bread." Fellowship and the breaking of bread.

This was a church that had meaningful relationships between the people in the church. Now, just like you have to work at point one, you have to work at point two.

You have to work at having meaningful relationships. I've seen people come alone throughout the years, live on the fringe of the church, sometimes for a decade. I've seen people live on the fringe of the church for a decade, and then walk away and say, I didn't have any friends there. Those people were all just mean. Those people were hypocrites. Those people were. And they never made really friends with anybody. They never really interacted with anybody. They just waited for everyone to come to them. They just waited for everyone to come somehow fellowship with them. This church was a fellowship in church. They knew each other, and they cared for each other. And it's very important in breaking bread. They ate together. They ate together. They had meaningful relationships. If you skip down to verse 44, it says, Now all who believe were together, and they had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need. Now some have said, See, the church should be a communist society. We should all live in communes.

There's no place in the Bible where this is commanded. And it doesn't mean they sold everything they had, because we could go to Acts chapter 5, and see where Paul told Ananias and Sapphira, who pretended to sell everything they had. You didn't have to sell anything. What it's saying here is these people had such a generous spirit that people were selling things that were important to them, and sharing with others. Remember what happened in Acts chapter 2? It says people would come from all over the world, and the Holy Spirit was poured out upon them. And guess what happened? They didn't go home. They didn't go home. Three thousand people that came into the church in one day. How do you help those people? They're being kicked out of Judaism. They're still a Jewish sect, as far as the Jews are concerned and the Romans are concerned. But already, if you read through Acts 2, Acts 3, Acts 4, they're already being kicked out. They're already being persecuted. The leaders are being jailed.

That's pretty tough. You know, if you were one of the three thousand people that got baptized, then the next day or the next couple days later, Peter gets jailed. He's like, well, maybe I joined the wrong group.

You know, maybe this isn't a good group here.

I mean, we just found out he did a seven-hour deposition.

Poor Henrietta. I'm sorry. I just can't believe it's that long. It is. I know it is.

I mean, I just can't believe it. I know it is. I've talked to people who've done that. It's mind-boggling to me. Anyways, what we have here is people who have these meaningful relationships.

To live on the fringe of the church is to be an incomplete Christian. But I guarantee you, when you jump in the middle, something happens. It gets messy.

You find out other people's faults. They find out your faults. You find out who's groping and who's not. You find out who has marriage problems.

You find out all kinds of stuff. Now, I've seen entire congregations where people have told me, we have no problems in our congregation.

And I go there. And the truth is, it appears that they have done.

It appears that they haven't. They're not close enough. They put up walls between each other so they don't know the reality of life. So everybody's alone in their problems, alone and trying to overcome their sins, alone in their anxieties. They have nobody to share anything with.

They're alone in those things. I've seen entire congregations like that. Now, I'm not saying you share everything with everybody. You pick who you share certain things with. But if you jump into the middle of a congregation, as most of you have, you know all kinds of things about people, some of you wish you did know. But you choose to stay together because that's where God placed you. You either believe God placed you someplace, or you go find a place where God places you. But you have to believe, if you are here, that God placed you here. If I did believe that, I wouldn't be here. I'm here because God placed me here.

I mean, I'm here because I love all of you. But what I mean is, I would be living probably someplace else. I came to San Antonio because I believe God placed me here. Now, it's home now. This is my home. I feel like it's home. It's difficult to leave home. But there was a time when San Antonio wasn't home to me. But I believe God placed me here, so I came. And I know for the last 17 years he placed me here. This is where I was supposed to be. God put me here. We were together because God did that. So you have to realize, if you can't believe that, I don't know what you can believe. Because you won't be committed to anything. And there are people who aren't committed to anything. They just... There are people who go from church to church to church because they're never committed to anything. And I committed to people. The other people that God has called.

These people shared. We have to share. And it has to be not because it's organized. It has to be because it's who we are. I've used this example before, but I learned this very early in life when, you know, at least once a month my dad said, hey, come on! I'm 10 years old. And we'd get in a car and we'd go visit all the elderly people that were in the church within a driving distance. You know, we do that... Well, it would be a couple times because we'd go visit one or two people, then one or two people another time. All the people who were within driving distance of our house, we would go visit. And we'd spend an afternoon with, maybe on the Sunday, or an evening with, for an hour. And we'd go visit. It wasn't because it was organized. It's because it's who he was.

He had a relationship with those people. And he would go sit and they would talk, and they would tell stories. And I got to sit there and listen to this. Well, we do it because it's who we are. We do it because we're connected to each other. You see, this is the model. It's a remarkable model. They ate together. There may be something, you know, no more important than building relationships and eating together. Now, let's go back. Ephesians 2.42. I mean Acts 2.42. It says, breaking bread. And the next thing it says, and in prayers.

The third characteristic of a healthy Christian congregation is that it's a praying people.

You can't move forward in anything in life except on your knees.

We forget that. We can't move forward in anything in life except on our knees because it takes God to do it. Now, when Paul says he prayed without ceasing. Do you ever have a time in your life where it seems like maybe you're in a crisis or something, or maybe it's just you feel particularly close to God and you find yourself just sort of praying all the time? It's like in your head. It's like you just keep praying and you're somehow connected to God. Paul was like that all the time. He was connected to God all the time. And he told people, pray without ceasing. Be connected to God all the time, no matter what you're doing. At work, at play, there's times you pray. There's times you thank God. There's times you ask for guidance.

There's times you pray for the person you're talking to.

But we need to be on our in prayer all the time. A healthy church is a praying church. Acts 12 is very interesting because here Peter was put in prison, and it's a well-known story where God helps him come out of prison. But I want you to just look at a couple verses here. Verse 1 of Acts 12. Now, about that time, Herod the King stretched out his hand to harass him of the church. So the church in Jerusalem is going through its trials, its problems. That he killed James the brother of John with the sword. And because he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to seize Peter also. Now, it was during the days of the 11 bread. So when he had arrested him, he put him in prison and delivered him to four squads of soldiers to keep him, intended to bring him before the people after Passover. Peter was therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church. They prayed for each other.

Now, you want to have a more intense relationship with God and with each other. Here's something you need to do. Take that address book that all of you have and get on your knees on a regular basis and pray for the people name by name to that book. Now, some of you don't know, go know them.

If you get somebody that you don't know what to pray about, go ask them.

So this is a part of our culture. Our culture is to be very stoic and pretend.

That's our culture. It's not real, and it's sure not what your Jerusalem Church was. So pray for each other.

Sometimes we're so intent on looking good for each other, or showing each other how much knowledge we have, or making people believe we have no problems, that we don't actually pray for each other.

Take that book and go pray. It'll also help you get your mind off your things. It'll help you get your mind off of, you know, okay, you might have had a problem today, but at least you have an ID card. Okay? Think about it.

You can go into McDonald's and prove you should get the 50 cents coffee because you're a senior. I can do that because I have an ID. Without my ID, I can't do it. Pray for each other and in prayers. Verse 12, when Peter is supernaturally delivered from prison, what does he do? Verse 12. So when he had considered this, he came to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose surname was Mark, where many were gathered together doing what? Praying. Now, I know people over the years say, oh, we need to get together and pray. So everybody come over to my house and we'll pray tonight. That usually doesn't work well. But you can't ask people to pray together if they don't want to pray together. And a lot of times people who do that really aren't interested in each other praying. You're interested in leading the prayer. Okay. But there is a time to say, let's pray. There's a time to say, let's pray. There's a time for everybody to take a turn praying. Peter was in prison. Now, I sure hope if I ever get really sick and it's announced here that a bunch of you all get around together and take turns praying for me. I sure hope you do. Just the sincerity of prayer, not a show, not a public thing, but people praying. Or you just get by yourself alone on your knees before God. But they were a praying church. And it's mentioned as one of the characteristics of their church in prayers. Now, we go back to Acts 2. We find the next of these characteristics. Verse 43, Then fear came upon every soul. Fear. You think, well, the last thing they would be suffering is fear. And I do want to give a sermon on fear in the next couple of months, because there's two kinds of fear in the Bible we need to understand. But the fear it's talking about here is they had absolute all. They looked at God as they were amazed at God. They saw what God did. They had seen healings. They had received God's spirits. And they were amazed by God. And they were afraid of the consequences of going against Him.

Of who much is given, much is required, and much has been given to us. And therefore, much is required of us.

God requires a lot of us because we've been given His spirit. We've been given His truth. We've been given His Scripture. We've been given a congregation. You've been given elders.

You've been given what has to happen for a congregation to be, to exist.

Of who much is given, much is required.

Got to talk to somebody who lives 300 miles from any congregation. Now, what's that like? It has an electronic wave, maybe, of ever connecting. Who only sees people in the same faith with the Feast of Tabernacles.

That's a hard way to live. They would trade every little argument you have with each other.

They would trade just to have one good, oh, good, I get offended by that person today. They would trade that any day of the week.

They would trade getting on somebody's nerves or getting, you know, somebody bothering them or someone calling them when they were watching a game because they were upset over something. They would trade that in a heartbeat, not to be alone. Not too much is given, much is required.

Do we fear the consequences of living as half Christians?

It's very interesting. If you go through Acts 5, where it talks about people were selling what they had, they were selling property, and they were giving money to the church. They'll take care of the poor, so this church could get started. So they could, you know, they were doing all kinds of things. They were trying now to reach out throughout Judea, and they had a work they were going to do, and they were going to preach the gospel, and people were selling things. There was all this excitement, and Ananias and Sapphira lied. They gave money to the church and pretended that they had sold all their property. Peter says, Tim, you didn't have to sell all your property. You didn't have to give anything if you didn't. What to? But you lied. And God killed them. And then it says, fear came upon the church. Fear of God, the proper fear of God. Do we have the proper fear of God?

Or are we living sort of in the half-light? You know, we're children of light when we live in the half-light, sort of in the shadows, not in the light, not in the dark, we're just living in the shadows. We can't live in the shadows. And so this church feared God. They loved God.

They didn't want to disappoint God. They understood the consequences of going against Him.

The next in the list is in verse 44. Well, the last part of verse 43.

It says, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. There are many wonders and signs through the apostles. Now, as the church would go on, you would see less and less of these miracles done in public. Miracles were done in public in order to get the church started.

You know, 50 years later, you don't see the record of this many, you know, dramatic healings and fire coming down. You just don't see that happening 50 years after this in the New Testament. I mean, you see some, and we've seen healings here. Now, we talk about why doesn't God heal? There's people here who can, we can talk about lots of healings. We can talk about how Mrs. Borthink should be alive. We can talk about lots of healings in this room right near here. So, God does heal today, but it's usually done in this big dramatic way in front of a thousand people. It's privately alone between the person and God, and then the congregation gets to know, and we get to share them. But many signs and wonders. To put that in the modern context, this was a church where things were happening. These people did things. We have to do things. That's why we have an outreach committee. You know, we have socials not just so that we can have a good time. We don't have a social committee just so that we can have, or, you know, people in charge of the socials, just because we want to have a good time. It's because we want to be this church. We want to have fellowship.

If we have too many of those things, then we just become a social club. So, guess what? We have other things, too. We have an outreach committee where we reach out to others. You know, why do we do our little turkey drive every year at Thanksgiving? Is it because it makes us all feel good about ourselves? That doesn't. It's our little way as a tiny group. It is, you know, 150 people. It's our little way of doing some little good to some people. See, you and I should be doing good to our neighbors around us all the time. Well, yeah, well, we do that because the church, well, I'll do it when the church organizes it. Then you're doing it for the wrong reason.

If that's the only reason you do it. If we only do it because somehow you don't get my church, you know, we do it for PR reasons. We'll do some good for somebody, but then we'll have to give them a little card. Hi, I'm from the United Church of God. We should do good to others because it's who we are.

We should be a people where things are happening.

Where things are happening. Now, I don't mean just having activities for activities sake, but I mean we have internal activities. That's one reason I have so many Bible studies. I've had Bible studies where 35 people were there. I had a Bible study once in Austin a number of years ago where there was a family of six and two people from the Living Church of God.

And I did that Bible study for months from one family of six and two people from the Living Church of God because they said they wanted it, they needed it, and I did it. I can't do that anymore. I can't have as many Bible studies as I used to. But why do I have Bible studies? Because we get together, we study the Word of God together, and that does something between us.

Now, I've been cutting down on some Bible studies over the last six months, because it will last a year, because I just can't do all of them. Nobody can do it. I've got too many of them going, okay? Nobody can do all the Bible studies. And I was going to cut down some more anyways here in the next couple of months, because I just... It was getting to the place I realized I had too many Bible studies. But that's okay. There's been years where I would cut back on Bible studies, and I'd sort of had them all over again, different places, in-home Bible studies. Why? Because it was something happening that was good. You know, the Sogges house, we had Bible studies there, what, for six months one time? Went through, I forget, the Book of James, 13, 15 people. But for six months we got together, we went through the Book of James, and something happened. Something's happening, right? That has spiritual value. We had the inverted canons, and had Bible studies there for a while. Something's happening. Where we come together, we study the Word of God, God's Spirit is there, and it produces them. This is the kind of church they were.

Verse 46. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple, stop a minute, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, this church was a church that worshiped together. It worshiped together. We come together every Sabbath, and during the Holy Days, to worship together, to come before the Almighty God. The next part of verse 46. And breaking bread from house to house, ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart while they're eating together. Many people like to eat. But what really is important here is, in this fellowshiping, it says something else about them. Gladness and simplicity of heart. Gladness and simplicity of heart.

These were basically happy people. Now, I don't know about you and I, or you, or you, but I know for me, I've been a pretty happy guy all my life. But I have to admit, the last few years, it's hard to be happy in a world that seems to be going crazy. Plus, I used to play basketball for an hour and not even feel bad. Now, I pull a muscle crawling out of bed in the morning. It's not quite the same.

These were happy people. They had a positive outlook of life. Now, I'm not saying they didn't suffer distress. You can see there's lots of cases where they suffered distress. They suffered depression. Paul talks about that. They suffered discouragement. There's a number of the letters where Paul says, look, you're going to have to deal with this discouragement. Yes, they suffered those things. But they went through them. And people's basic outlook of life at this beginning was very positive. Now, it wore down over time. It would have been interesting to see what their outlook was at 70 AD. But we have the bottle of the church. They were positive people. And there's two things here. If we put all this together that would have made them positive. One was their relationships with each other. Remember, we look at it. Look how this is based in how it's couch here. It says, breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart. They fellowshiped in gladness and simplicity of heart. So, one of the ways that they had happiness was in their relationships. Well, there's their family relationships, their marital relationships, their relationships with each other. But this group of people found happiness with each other. If you can't find happiness with each other as the people of God, you're not going to find happiness anyplace.

You're just not going to find it anyways. If we can't find it with each other, who the word are you going to find it with? I guess you go find it. You could go back into the world and go back to your drinking buddies. Boy, that was a lot of fun, wasn't it? But it's not just that. If we put all this together from verse 41 through verse 47, there was a happiness. There was a joy that came because of God. Look at Romans chapter 15. It's an interesting little verse here that Paul writes to the Church at Rome. And it's in the middle of a bunch of other things. So, it's easy to just sort of read through this and miss this one verse. But this one verse says so much. Romans chapter 15 verse 13.

Now, may the God of hope. You know what's so hard about hope? We were going to do a television program on hope. We haven't finished it yet because we all started to realize, you know, it's easier to talk about faith. Faith is a reasoned response. Hope is an emotion.

Is the whole line easier to discuss a reasoned response than it is to talk about an emotion? He is the God of hope. May the God of hope fill you. Okay? Fill us. It's something we don't have.

If we're an empty vase or an empty vessel and we need hope. So, we have to go to the God of hope. You know, hope is an expectation of the future, a positive expectation. We have a positive expectation of the future and you say, well, how can I have a positive expectation of the future? I've lost my job. My car broke down. My wife left me and the dog died, right? We're living a country music song. And we say, how can I have hope? Well, in some ways and sometimes in life, there is no hope right away. In the physical sense, so we go to the God of hope because we're an empty vessel.

And that emptiness is this despondency. And he says, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abounded hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I thought, if I read through that last night, I thought I could give a whole sermon on that verse alone. The God of hope fill you with joy and with peace in believing. In other words, because of this hope, we have faith. We believe, and the belief helps us have more hope. And as we have hope and faith, we can now have joy and peace. These early people, this earliest church, why did they have so much joy? Well, they had just received the Holy Spirit. They had just experienced fire coming down upon them. They had just experienced speaking in tongues. They had just experienced having 3,000 people baptized in one day. They had just experienced, many of them had known Jesus. Many of them had watched Him be crucified. And many of them had seen Him after He was resurrected. That's pretty exciting times.

They're filled with excitement and joy. Now, Paul's writing to the church in Rome decades later. It's a little harder for the people in Rome to have this than living in the center of the beast power. It's a little harder to have this kind of joy. They have this kind of outlook on life.

So, we have to go to the God of joy, or the God of hope, like an empty vessel sometimes. And we have to say, fill me. Fill me with joy and peace in believing.

Give me the faith I do not have.

Give me what I cannot have. Give me what I cannot produce. Help me be what I cannot be. Sometimes you never get the breakthrough until you go to God and you actually throw yourself down saying, I can't do this. He says, I know that. I know that. It's like a child tries to tie their shoe. Let me help you. No. Let me help you. No. Then they're sitting there crying with it all in a big knot. But you have to pick them up and say, you know, here, here, no. I knew you couldn't do that.

Let me help you tie your shoe. Sometimes it's only when we go to God and say, I am an empty vessel. I can't have peace by myself. I can't have joy by myself. I can't have hope by myself. You must fill me and go write this down. Take this verse, put it on a card, put it where you can read it regularly. Make this your prayer. Now, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace and believing that you may abow in hope by what? Because you read a good book on how to have high health self-esteem. Because you read the new book on, you know, self-help book, no, by the power of the Holy Spirit. There's no way I can tell you because there's no way I know how to have that happen except go ask God to give you the power of Holy Spirit because I can't generate the power of Holy Spirit and neither can you. I can't make that happen. Only God can make that happen. So, you go ask for it. Fill me. I am an empty vessel through the power of your Spirit.

And then we become like these people who had gladness and simplicity of heart. We're so... our lives are filled with such complexity. Such complexity.

I looked at my wife the other day and I said, you know, it seems like lately I feel stressed every moment. She says, I do too. It's so complex. It can't be this complex. God didn't make it this complex. We're making it this complex. It can't be this complex. We have to go back to this gladness and simplicity of heart. Now, let's go back to Acts 2.47, the last couple of points here. 47 says, praising God. They were a thankful church that goes back to this gladness and simplicity of heart. Until you learn to be thankful, you can never be happy.

Done of us. Until we thank God for what we have. Until we can look at what we have and say, wow, thank you for this and this and this and this. I'm glad I have this and this. I'm glad I have food on the table. I'm glad I have clothes to wear. I'm glad I have a roof over my head. I'm glad I have running water. Until we're thankful for what we have that we just take for granted, we can never truly be happy. We must look for every day, what can I be thankful for right now? What can I be thankful for? They were a thankful people. They praise God all the time. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Then it says, the last part of verse 47, and have in favor with all the people. Now, that's a very interesting little statement.

You know, the same thing is meant in the same statement is made about Jesus in Luke 2 52, that he found favor with God and men. You know, I've seen people sometimes think, they seem to think that God will consider them a better Christian the more people they can offend.

The more obnoxious you could be to other people, you know, the better Christian you are. Because, look, they're all unconverted, all those people out there rebellion against God, and they just treat people with this obnoxious ways.

The Christians, and it's very interesting, the Christians were persecuted, not because people thought they were mean, not because they thought they were bad neighbors, or dishonest, it was because of what they believed.

People like them. They generally like them. They like them because they're honesty. They like them because they always were willing to give a helping hand.

They like them because they weren't violent.

There's a letter that was written about 100 years after, less than 100 years after the New Testament by one of the Roman governors. And he says, I know I'm supposed to persecute Christians, but I'm not sure why. Because, for the most part, they just seem like pretty good folk.

And he was writing to a superior, and the other Roman writes back to him, tell you what, for the most part, just leave them alone, unless someone brings them up on charges. Don't go hunt them down. I can't find anything wrong with either, basically. Just don't go hunt them down. Just leave them alone, and someone brings them up on charges you have to.

But let's just leave them. Let's not make a big issue out of this.

Now, there's a letter between two Romans. What are we supposed to do with these people? They're really not bad folk. They're really not bad people. They haven't committed any crimes. Like the one guy said, the only thing I can find is that I tortured two deaconesses. And the only thing I can find is, they get an early warning before set up so nobody can see them. They sneak off and have a church service, and they sing songs. And their church service seems to be about how you should be honest and good and non-violent. So I can't figure out what the issue is. Isn't it amazing? I can't figure out what the issue is.

That was the law of the land, so you've got to go persecute them.

That should be how people see us, even when they persecute us. They found favor in the sight of all the people.

You know, their religion sure is weird, but they seem to be nice people.

Those people that go to church on Saturday next door, that's sort of weird.

But they're pretty nice people. They don't let their dog bark all night.

Their fence fell down one day. They came over to apologize and paid me and fixed up their fence.

When I left town, I was able to call them and say, hey, we're going to be out of town for a week. Would you watch my house for me? And they did.

Weird religion, though.

Found favor. The last point is the last part of verse 47.

And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved.

You and I can't add to the church. We can't bring new people in, even though we're supposed to be this wonderful example. We're supposed to preach to people. We're supposed to be a church where things are happening.

Only God can bring people. Only God can call people. God will bring people into the church community as he sees fit. But here's what's really important. Nobody can come in and become part of the community. Unless we are prepared, the more we're like this community, the more God can bring people into. The more we're disciples of Jesus Christ, working together, serving, loving each other, doctrinally sound, following the local leadership, following the way on our case, we're privileged. We're part of something bigger than our local leadership.

That's nice, too. I would not want to be just an independent pastor with my little church. I'm glad I'm part of something bigger than that.

We have 12,000 people to take care of. That's not very many, is it? That's what God's given to us. I read the other day, I didn't realize this. We now have 700 people in the Philippines, in the United Church, yeah.

And we're starting to grow a little bit here, a little bit there.

I'm glad to be something bigger than that. I'm glad that I know that my tithe's money, some of it goes over to help the churches in the Philippines. I want to be part of something bigger than myself, or just us. We have a nice privilege. The church in Jerusalem did, too. They were motivated people to go out and start churches.

And the more Satan tried to scatter them, the more churches they started. Until, if you read through the first few chapters of Acts, they had churches all over Judea, all started by people fleeing Jerusalem.

Then they went into Samaria.

Well then, God calls Paul, it's okay, let's start one of the Antioch. And they just keep, well, actually, we had one in Antioch already. There was one in Damascus already. He couldn't stop them from growing. And Saul was going around trying to kill them. He couldn't stop them from growing. They were motivated people.

Motivated to share with others what God had given to them. They weren't complacent about it.

You and I have to be more than a group of people that simply meets of the Sabbath.

It is a group of people called to come together to be God's family. When we look at the book of Acts, we see that over the years the Jerusalem church experienced a lot of things. A lot of spiritual growth, at times physical growth. At times that church became so poor that you find in two or three other Paul's letters, they had to collect money just to send there to feed the people. That church became so poor at one point. They actually had to collect money from all over the world to send to Jerusalem just to feed the followers there. That'd be sort of hard, wouldn't it? Wait a minute. Jesus was here. We knew Him. Here it is a couple decades later. We had Peter. He was here. James was our pastor at one time. Even Paul used to come visit here once a while. He's running all over the world now. Now we're so poor that we have to take money from Mesopotamia. We have to take money from other churches just to feed ourselves. That'd be sort of discouraging, wouldn't it? The important thing is they were still there.

They just kept doing what God wanted them to do.

And they were there for generations.

And what we have here in Acts chapter 2, then, is a bottle. A bottle of the very earliest church, the very first church. And really, it's a bottle for all of us and what we should be in our congregation.