Introduction
The Lord Jesus ascended to heaven to sit at his Father’s right hand side as King over all. The eleven apostles cast lots and Matthias was selected to replace Judas who had killed himself. And so, there were one again twelve apostles to continue the Lord’s work here on earth.
And then the Holy Spirit came on the believers in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost as the fulfilment of God’s promise through the Old Testament prophet Joel that in the last days he would pour out his Spirit on all kinds of people. And when Peter got up to speak, he explained to the crowd who had gathered there that the Lord Jesus, who died, was raised from the dead and he’s been exalted to heaven to sit at God’s right hand. And he has received from God the Father the promised Holy Spirit and he has poured out what they now see and hear. And so, the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost makes clear that Christ is now King over all.
And after preaching to the people in Jerusalem about Christ, the people asked him what they must do. And he told them to repent and to be baptised. That is, they should turn from their sin and unbelief and they should turn to God for mercy, trusting in Christ the Saviour for forgiveness. And they should be baptised, because baptism is the sign and seal of God’s promise to wash away our sins because of Christ who died and was raised for sinners.
And in verse 41 of chapter 2 we read that those who accepted Peter’s message about Christ were baptised. And about three thousand were added to their number that day. At the beginning of the day, there were about 120 believers. At the end of the day, there were about 3,120 believers. It was marvellous. And Christ the King had done it. I’ve said it several times already: this book is not so much the Acts of the Apostles, but it’s the Acts of the Risen and Exalted Lord Jesus Christ through his apostles and by his Spirit. He’s the one who was at work in those days; and he’s still at work today, extending his kingdom and building his church throughout the world.
But what was life like in those days for the early believers? What was the early church like? What did they do? That’s what today’s passage is about, where Luke provides us with a summary or a kind of snapshot of what the early church was like and what the first Christians did.
Now, those days were a special time in the life of the church. For instance, we read about the signs and wonders which the apostles were enabled to do in those days. That apostolic era, with its signs and wonders, is now past. And the believers were able to gather together every day. We’re not able to gather like that now, because we all have responsibilities and commitments and obligations. Most of us have to work, for instance. There are children who needed to be cared for. And so, while we may not be able to do today everything they did in those early days, they are other things here which believers need to do in every generation. And the essential things are summarised for us in verse 42.
The apostles’ teaching
So, let turn to verse 42 and this summary of the essentials. Luke tells us how the believers devoted themselves to four activities. That means they occupied themselves with these things. They paid persistent attention to these things. They attended to these things faithfully. Think of the attention some people give to their social media feeds and how they’ve always got their phone in their hand to check their feeds. Think of how absorbed they are. And that perhaps gives you a flavour of what these first believers were like. They were absorbed by what they were doing. But of course, the early believers weren’t absorbed by their social media feeds, but by these four activities which Luke lists for us in verse 42.
He mentions first that they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching. And as we go through the book of Acts, we’ll get an idea of what the apostles taught. And the letters which make up the New Testament also give us an idea of what they taught. And mostly they taught the people about the Lord Jesus Christ and how he is the fulfilment of God’s promises in the Old Testament to send into the world God’s Spirit-Anointed and Conquering King who would suffer and die for his people before rising from the dead to save us from our sin and misery in this world and to give us everlasting life in the new and better world to come. The apostles took the Old Testament Scriptures and showed the people how they were fulfilled in Christ and that the Lord Jesus Christ is the only Saviour of the world. And since that’s the case, Jews and Gentiles should trust in him and in him alone for salvation, because there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. And so, the apostles preached Christ crucified and risen. And they also taught the people how they should repent and believe and live lives of humble obedience to Christ our King and God our Father in heaven.
The apostles taught these things. And the people were devoted to this teaching. They occupied themselves with these things. They paid persistent attention to these things. They attended to these things faithfully. So, they had a hunger for God’s word and they wanted more and more and more of it. There’s that story in Acts 20 about the time Paul and his companions visited Troas. They could only spend seven days there and on the day before they left, the people were gathered together to hear Paul teach them. And since he was leaving the next day, Paul kept going until midnight. Because of the heat of the room and because it was late, one young man named Eutychus fell asleep and he fell from the window on the third storey onto the ground below and died. Fortunately Paul was able to bring him back to life. But what happened afterwards? Well, they went back upstairs and kept on talking until daylight. Since Eutychus recovered, it’s a funny story and not a tragic story. But the point of it is that the people were willing to go without sleep because here was their last chance to hear Paul the Apostle explain the Scriptures to them. They were so devoted to the apostles’ teaching that they were prepared to stay up all night to hear it.
And, of course, the important thing about the apostles was not the apostles themselves, but it was what they taught about Christ and our salvation. And we still teach the same things today. What preachers preach today is the apostles’ teaching, because preachers today — at least, true preachers today — are still preaching Christ crucified and risen. They’re still opening the Scriptures and showing how they’re about Christ and they’re about God’s willingness to save sinners from their sin and misery through faith in Christ.
Preachers still preach these things today. And we need to pray that we ourselves and people throughout the world will have the same devotion to what is taught. How does faith come? Paul tells us in Romans. Faith comes through hearing — hearing what the apostles’ taught about Christ. So, faith in Christ comes when people hear the message about Christ in the Scriptures and the Holy Spirit opens their hearts to believe. And how are believers built up in the faith? How are they renewed in God’s image? The Holy Spirit works through the reading and preaching of what the apostles’ taught to renew us in his image. And how do we see God’s glory in this life so that we’re gripped by God and enthralled by his glory? We see his glory in the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is what the apostles proclaimed and it’s what we still proclaim today.
Since we’re sinners, we cannot produce this devotion to the apostles’ teaching in ourselves. We can’t create this hunger in ourselves. And it doesn’t occur naturally in us. So, when we stop eating regular food, we become naturally hungry and our bodies make clear to us that we need to eat. But hunger for God’s word is not like that. In fact, the opposite takes place so that when we stop paying attention to God’s word, whatever hunger we once had diminishes and eventually disappears. Any hunger we had for God’s word diminishes whenever we neglect it. And when this happens to us, we don’t even notice that anything is wrong with us.
And so, this hunger for God’s word, this devotion to the apostles’ teaching, must come from the Holy Spirit. And he produces it in us as we listen to the reading and preaching of God’s word. He’s uses the reading and preaching of God’s word to produce in us a hunger for it and a devotion to it so that we want to hear more of it and more of it and more of it and more of it. And so, we should pray for the Holy Spirit to produce this hunger and devotion in us and in people around the world.
Breaking of bread and prayer
Let’s move on now and I’m going to come back to fellowship in a few minutes and move on to the breaking of bread and prayer.
The early believers devoted themselves to the breaking of bread. Luke is referring here to what we call the Lord’s Supper or communion. In those days, the believers celebrated the Lord’s Supper as part of a full meal which they shared together often. And so, they would eat a meal together as part of their regular fellowship; and during the meal, they would break bread and share it with one another to signify how Christ’s body was broken for us and for our salvation. And as well as breaking bread, they shared a cup of wine together to signify how the Lord’s blood was poured out for the forgiveness of our sins. In this way they remembered and gave thanks to God for Christ our Saviour and for the forgiveness of sins and the hope of everlasting life which we receive through faith in him.
The early church was devoted to the breaking of bread. And down through the years, believers have celebrated the Lord’s Supper at every service of worship. Many denominations still do the same today. Some would say it’s one of the weaknesses of the Presbyterian Church that we only celebrate the sacrament four or so times per year, because the sacrament is a kind of visible word by which the Lord confirms with our eyes and with our mouths what we have already heard with our ears, which is God’s promise to forgive us and to give us everlasting life because of Christ. And we believe that the Lord’s Supper is a means of grace. In other words, God graciously works through the Lord’s Supper to build us up in holiness and comfort through faith. Just as he works through his word, so he works through his sacraments. That’s why we should devote ourselves to the Lord’s Supper: because it’s one of the ways the Lord works in us to renew us.
And the early believers devoted themselves to prayer. One of the striking things in the book of Acts is how often Luke records for us the way the believers gathered together for prayer. For instance, in chapter 1 he told us that after the Lord’s ascension, they all joined together constantly in prayer. And then Luke tells us that before they chose Judas’s replacement, they prayed for guidance. And at the end of chapter 4, we’ll see them praying to God to help them to preach his word with boldness. And, of course, the emphasis throughout the book of Acts is on how they prayed together. They joined together for corporate prayer.
Towards the end of 2023 the elders asked me to speak on the topic of prayer. And at that time I made the point that God is independent. He doesn’t rely on anyone or anything outside of himself for anything. By contrast, we rely on him for everything: for life and breath and daily food and for everything else which we need for life in this world. And we depend on him for our knowledge of God, because we would know nothing about him without his self-revelation in nature and in Scripture. And we depend on him for salvation. So, God is independent. He doesn’t need us. But we need him for everything.
And I said that it’s when we feel our dependence on God for everything that prayer becomes natural for us. Just as it’s natural for a newborn baby to cry out to its mother for milk, so it’s natural for believers to cry out to our Heavenly Father, because we know that we depend on him for everything. And when we realise that every good thing we have is from God, then thankfulness becomes natural to us as well.
And so, prayerfulness is a sign of humility. When we know we are nothing and have nothing, and that we depend on God for all things, then we’ll pray. We’ll ask him for what we need and we’ll give thanks to him for what we have received. And prayerlessness is a sign of pride and ingratitude, because people who don’t pray have come to believe the lie that we don’t need God and we can manage on our own. Well, the early believers were humble people. They knew that they needed God for everything and that every good thing they received was from him. And so, they devoted themselves to the prayers and together they asked him for what they needed and they gave thanks to him for what they had received.
There’s a wonderful little book which I first read years ago by John Calvin, the great Reformer, called, The Necessity for Reforming the Church. And of course the church needs to be reformed continually according to the Scriptures, because we’re always going astray because we’re sinners and we start doing things which God has not commanded us to do; and we give up doing the things which he has commanded us to do. And there’s a page in that book which I keep coming back to where Calvin says that God is the source of all that is good in the world and in our lives. In accordance with this, he says, we should glorify him for all that is good and seek all good things in him alone. And then he says that it’s from believing this that prayer arises. In other words, we’ll pray to and we’ll praise God when we believe that he is the source of every good thing.
The early believers devoted themselves to the Lord’s Supper and to the prayers. Since we’ve sinners, we can’t produce this devotion in ourselves. And so, we should pray that the Holy Spirit will produce it in us and in people around the world and that he’ll give us this desire to gather around the Lord’s Table to give thanks to God for our salvation and to look forward to Christ’s return. And we should pray that he’ll produce in us the desire to meet together for prayer to seek from the Lord what we need and to give thanks to him for all his good gifts.
Fellowship
Let’s return now to fellowship. The early believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the Lord’s Supper and to the prayers and to the fellowship.
Fellowship is about what we have in common. And so, what do we all have in common? And what do we have in common with believers in other countries around the world? Since believers have grown up in different countries, we may not look the same as one another and we may dress differently and we may speak a different language and so on. Believers across the world and across time are different from one another in many ways. Think too of the first believers: many of the original 120 believers were from Galilee, where the Lord conducted much of his ministry. But then on the Day of Pentecost, the Lord added to their number about three thousand others. And many of them had come to Jerusalem from other countries and they spoke different languages. They were a diverse group of people. But the Holy Spirit united them together through faith in Christ, And so, that’s what they had in common. The thing they had in common was their faith in Christ which the Holy Spirit produced in their hearts. And that’s what we have in common with one another and with believers across the world. We have in common our faith in Christ which the Spirit produces in our hearts.
So, that’s what we have in common with other believers. And that’s what the word fellowship is about. Fellowship is about what we have in common. And what we have in common is our faith in Christ. Or to put it differently: we all share together in Christ by faith. He’s the one who binds us together and we are bound together through faith in him.
However — as is clear from today’s passage — sharing in Christ by faith means we will share with one another in other ways. And so, look at what we read here. In verse 44 Luke says that the believers were together and they had everything in common. That means they shared everything with one another. And according to verse 45, some of them sold some of what they owned in order to give the proceeds to those who were in need. This doesn’t mean there was no private property. And it doesn’t mean they sold everything they owned. But when someone was in need, one of the richer members might have sold a field or some of his sheep in order to raise funds to help the needy member. One person might have done that one time. And another time, another of the wealthier members did it for someone else. Those who had much helped those who had little. And later in the book of Acts we’ll see how believers in one city raised money to help believers in another city. This diverse group of people were now bound to one another and they shared what they had with one another, because they had been drawn together and united together under Christ by faith.
This is how our church’s Confession of Faith puts it. This is from chapter 26 in the Confession:
All saints, that are united to Jesus Christ their Head, by his Spirit, and by faith, have fellowship with him in his graces, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory….
We’re united to Christ by faith. The Confession continues:
and, being united to one another in love….
We’re united to one another in love. The Confession continues:
they have communion in each other’s gifts and graces and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to [or bring about] their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man.
Because we’re united to one another in love, we have communion in, or we have a share in, each other’s gifts and graces. And we’re to use our gifts and graces to do what we can to help one another. The Confession continues:
Saints by profession are bound to maintain an holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God, and in performing such other spiritual services as tend to their mutual edification; as also in relieving each other in outward things, according to their several abilities and necessities. Which communion, as God offereth opportunity, is to be extended unto all those who, in every place, call upon the name of the Lord Jesus.
So, we’re to worship God together and build one another up in the faith. But we’re also to relieve each other in outward things. That is, we’re to relieve one another’s suffering. We’re to provide practical help when we’re able to do so. And we’re to do this for one another here in Immanuel; and, when the opportunity arises, we’re to help other believers in other places.
But because we’re sinners, we’re sinfully inclined to be selfish and to think only of ourselves and our own family. And so, we should pray for the Spirit to help us and people around the world to love one another like this and to practise real fellowship, sharing with one another as we have opportunity and caring for one another in practical ways. The early church was devoted to doing this. And we will do the same with the help of the Holy Spirit who is renewing us in God’s image.
Conclusion
There you are. The early church was devoted to the apostles’ teaching and to the Lord’s Supper and to the prayers and to the fellowship of believers. And look what else Luke says about them. According to verse 26, everyday they continued to meet together in the temple courts. And according to the same verse, they also met in their homes for the Lord’s Supper and to eat meals together and to praise God. So, before any church buildings or what we call meeting houses existed, they met where they could: whether a public place like the temple or in private homes. Whether they had a building of their own didn’t matter; what mattered was that they could meet together to devote themselves to these essential activities.
And according to verse 43 everyone was filled with awe. I think Luke means that everyone in Jerusalem was filled with awe. Whether they believed or not, they marvelled because it was clear to them that God was at work in the city. And according to verse 47, the early believers enjoyed the favour of all the people. These early believers were highly regarded by the general population.
And the Lord added to their number daily those who were bring saved. There’s something else for us to pray for. We cannot add anyone to the church because we’re not able to produce saving faith in the hearts of anyone. Only the Lord can do that. And so, as well as praying for ourselves that God will make us devoted to the apostles’ teaching and to the Lord’s Supper and to the prayers and to the fellowship, we should also pray for those who don’t believe, asking God to give them a true, saving faith in Christ so that they too might receive forgiveness and the free gift of everlasting life.
Sermons and Stuff 