Fellowship

Acts 2:42-47 “Fellowship”

When I was in seminary, Emily and I lived on campus in these apartments called the “new” apartments. They were clearly new at least 30 years ago. Anyway, we had an upstairs neighbor who liked to run. He would run marathons. But that wasn’t the interesting part. It was his daily training schedule. He would run 8 miles in the morning and then run 8 miles in the evening. I like to run. But if I attempted that I would be preaching to you from a recliner or bed. One day this guy went for a run during one of our hearty Midwestern thunderstorms. His wife went out in her car to find him, being concerned for his well-being. She found him running in the downpour, but she couldn’t convince him to get in the car. This guy was devoted. He took his running seriously. I think he also may have attended classes occasionally.

This evening in Acts 2, we will find that the early church was devoted to a few important things. And this devotion had some amazing results.

Read Acts 2:42-47

We must remember that the church had just begun. Christ had ascended into heaven, and told his followers to wait in Jerusalem. Soon he sent the Holy Spirit to empower them. Peter preached a sermon about Jesus and 3,000 people got saved. Awesome stuff. Now we find ourselves in our text. My two main points tonight are: 1. The devotion of the church and 2. The fellowship of the church.

1. The devotion of the church

A. First, they were devoted to the apostle’s doctrine or teaching. This is simply the Gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed by the apostles. It was their teaching about Christ from the O.T. Today, we devote ourselves to the whole Bible. At the core of the Bible is the message of Jesus Christ that was proclaimed by the church from the beginning.

B. Second, they were devoted to the “the fellowship.” The idea of fellowship is sharing something together or having something in common. The text expands this, so we’ll cover it in our second main point.

C. Thirdly, they were devoted to the breaking of bread. This could simply mean eating food together- that’s what the expression means sometimes. But in this context it refers to communion. Look at verse 46: they break bread a part of their eating together. As we find in I Corinthians 11, in the early church, communion was observed around a meal.

D. Lastly, they were devoted to the “prayers.” This could refer to set times of prayer following the Jewish tradition. Or it could be prayer as they met together…or both. The key is: they prayed.

What the result of this devotion? Fear. Awe. The surrounding community in Jerusalem stood in fear of this growing group of disciples. Part of this was due to the miracles done by the apostles (vs 43). People noticed the disciples and respected them. Their devotion to these 4 simple things made an impact on the people around them.

2. The fellowship of the church
What is fellowship? I remember attending a wedding reception with a good number of unsaved people. There was another pastor there who was asked to pray for the meal. In his prayer, he asked God to bless our fellowship together. There was conversation. There was food. There were also jokes told that would make a sailor blush. And other things happened that made us book it. I’m pretty sure that was NOT fellowship in the biblical sense.

Fellowship is having something in common. It is sharing life together. Spending time together is a part of it. Eating is also. But Christian fellowship is based first on what we have in common- and that is Jesus Christ. He holds us together in fellowship. What then, did this fellowship look like in the early church? These are saved people sharing life together. Today we would call it “community.”

A. Giving
People sold their possession and gave to those in need. This was a special time in the church…and we could go into more detail on what this sharing looked like and why it was especially need at this time. But, Christians have always been marked by generosity toward their fellow Christians.

B. Meeting together
The Christians met together in the temple. Yes, these were Jewish Christians, so it was natural to do this. But it was also the only place that could fit the thousands of believers. They also met together in their homes.

C. Eating together
They ate meals together and remembered the Lord’s death as they gathered in their homes. Carry-in lunches and potlucks are biblical!

D. Praising God
As they gathered together they praised God. They ate with joyful hearts.

Look at the result. They had favor with all the people. In 5:13 it says the people held the Christians in high esteem. This was not to last because persecution would soon break out against the church.

This is a beautiful picture of fellowship…of community. It was an irrespirable community. Life together as Christians should look like this. This is the picture I want us to have in mind as we meet together. This is the kind of compelling community that we should build together around Jesus Christ.
1. What are we devoted to as a church?

Verse 42 is instructive for us today as a church. It is very easy to get side tracked by good things that are not best for a church to do. We can easily run around like crazy managing programs, events, and activities, and have no time or energy for what is essential. We live in a busy and confused culture. Let’s not model that as a church. There is certain sanity to doing church God’s way. Yes, the church will do other things besides what is found in verse 42. But he Word, prayer, communion, and fellowship must form the core of what we do as a church.

I’m very grateful that this church has organized itself in such a way to keep these priorities.

-We meet together to hear God’s Word. We have SS, morning and evening services, and prayer meeting. Four opportunities to hear God’s Word.

-I am extremely grateful for our prayer meeting. We don’t have prayer meeting Wednesday night because we think the church members are bored stiff and there’s nothing good on TV. No, I’m sure prayer meeting was started because prayer must be a top priority for the church. Yes, it is a tradition. But it is a tradition full of life and power.

-We devote ourselves to communion. Twelve times a year we set aside to remember Christ’s death for us, to break bread. My hope is to devote the Sunday evening communion service 6 times a year to teaching and meditating on communion in different ways.

-We devote ourselves to fellowship. The benevolent offering is one way share together. It is a blessing to have this fund to help those in our church who have needs. We also eat together as a church. We work together and sing together. We get together in each other’s homes for meals and conversation. Churches share life together inside and outside the church walls. This is the reason we are having a church fellowship time after the evening service tonight. We live in community together. As I mentioned before, communion was celebrated around a meal, and this fellowship time is built on the model.

2. What will the Lord do?
I left off the last part of verse 47: and the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. God used this group of brand new Christians, devoted to the things of the Lord, living in community together to draw people to himself. What if we devoted ourselves to these things? What would God do? What is we purposed to live in community together? What would happen? We must remember that Christianity is not magical. We may be tempted to think: “If we devote ourselves to these 4 things, people are going to get saved in droves!” No. The Lord saves. The Lord adds. But we would be mistaken to think that God works apart from the church’s devotion to the Word, prayer, and fellowship. Yes, he uses these things to accomplish his purposes.

I want to call us to a church like this. But I also want to call us to wait on the Lord to work as we do the things he has given us.