No Matter What
Sermon Notes
Recap
Day of Pentecost
Following the death resurrection and ascension of Jesus
Terrified and confused followers huddled in a room
Suddenly experience the presence and power of God
To bold, powerful street evangelists
Establishment of a new covenant people
Diverse but unified
Among whom God dwells directly
They were the house of God
The body of Christ
Peter’s sermon
Of course, most of the people gathered that day didn’t understand what was happening.
They were amazed
They were incredulous (the last people you’d expect to be doing something like this)
They were skeptical
So, Peter got up and explained what was going on.
A new age had begun
The Kingdom age inaugurated by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Who now sits enthroned about the world as its rightful King
Extending mercy (the Kingdom age is an era of Jubilee, as opposed to the judgement they expected)
Lavishing (pouring out) the gift of the Holy Spirit
And this Kingdom, this gift of the Spirit, was available to anyone who wanted it, even the people who had crucified the Lord of glory.
They responded in droves
3,000 people repented, were baptized, and received the gift of the Spirit that day.
I know we don’t get it because it’s in a style that we’re not used to reading, but this is an absolute page-turner. If you weren’t already overly familiar with the story and you were reading this for the first time in the 1st Century, you would be on the edge of your seat. Jesus is risen, he ascended into heaven, he sent his Spirit to empower a new community, they—the least qualified people imaginable—took the city (where Jesus had been crucified by storm) launching a movement of thousands overnight. What happens next?!?
42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. (Acts 2:42-47)
A devoted community: what happens next is they get together and, in community, start acting as if everything Peter just said was true, like there was a new King and Kingdom and, therefore, a new reality, a new world order, a new way to live. They form the most unique, counter-cultural, radical, compelling community imaginable.
Nothing that happens here is as “ordinary” as it seems (again, we’ve become so accustomed to much of this language that it doesn’t strike us the way it should)
Apostles’ teaching
What do you suppose they taught? The Gospel.
Jesus as the fulfillment of the Scriptures
The way of life that Jesus modeled for them
Ordinary people became serious students of the Word of God (ordinary people can, by the power of the Spirit, be serious students: sheh afilu goy vi’osek ba torah cicohen gadol.)
Life-long students began to see the Bible differently through Jesus (Paul’s awakening after his encounter on the road to Damascus)
Devotion to teaching doesn’t just mean knowledge; it means living differently. Most radically, they lived differently.
Fellowship
The most boring word of all time. Potlucks and prayer meetings
In Greek, the word is koinonia, and it’s not boring at all.
It means communion. They were practicing what Jesus told them to do in John 13, what he prayed for them in John 17
They devoted themselves to living life in communion with one another.
What’s so remarkable about this is who “they” were, a completely diverse community
Linguistically
Culturally
Socio-economically
This radically diverse koinonia is why Christianity took the Roman Empire by storm. There was no other religion that had anything that compares. There still isn’t.
Breaking of bread
A cruciform community, living their lives daily in light of the cross.
Losing their lives to save it.
Carrying around daily the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus might also be revealed in their bodies.
In deep, mystical union with Jesus.
Prayer
Now, this might not seem all that radical. I mean, this is what Christians do or are supposed to do.
But what’s extraordinary about their prayers is what happened as a result.
Signs and wonders
Not just that they prayed but they saw God answer.
This tells me that they prayed in a way that anticipated, that expected an answer: with faith and confidence and intimacy.
And signs and wonders followed, the external evidence, to the Church and the world, that Jesus is who they said he is (the King) and is doing what they said he was doing (giving his presence and power to his subjects). In other words, these were signs that the Kingdom of God is at hand (meaning here and now available).
Radical generosity
We’re not talking about a tithe here. They had moved way beyond that. Breathtaking generosity.
This is people selling ancestral land for the sake of one another, a true preferring of one another over themselves.
That temporarily ended the problem of poverty within their community.
Devotion to worship
They took every opportunity to celebrate the goodness of God.
God is so good they had to get together and celebrate his goodness (praising God).
This played itself out in…
Large groups in the temple, with liturgy and paid ministers.
And in small groups in homes over a meal (an agape, a love feast)
Nothing about this community was ordinary.
And nothing was easy (they devoted themselves)
The Bible doesn’t just say that they did these things but that they devoted themselves to these things. They persisted stubbornly in these things.
This means that, in the face of opposition, they continued to do these things.
None of these activities are “natural” (in a fallen world); they all require effort and are all met with resistance. To see them realized in a community requires intentional, persistent, effort.
This passage is all about people who are stubborn about the Kingdom of God.
This was a no-matter-what community.
Why did they do all of this? In response to what they believed to be true.
Jesus is King
The Spirit is with us
The Kingdom is now
This a new age, a new world
And the result of their devotion to the work of God among them was world-change.
3,000 people added on the first day
Daily people coming to know Jesus
5,000 people within the next couple of weeks
Within 30 years, the Gospel had reached the heart of the Roman empire.
What about us? My question is: do we believe that kind of impact could happen again? In 21st Century, post-Christian America? In over-subscribed, over-worked, over-entertained, over-spending Orange County?
I’m going to be honest. I’ve never seen anything like this.
I have seen some beautiful stuff in ministry but never anything quite like this.
And neither has the world, not in quite some time.
Why not?
Well, from God’s perspective nothing has changed.
Jesus is still the King
The Kingdom is still now
He still lavishes the gift of the Spirit
Jubilee is still on
What has changed, I believe is the devotion of the Church to this reality.
We haven’t seen anything like this impact because we haven’t seen a church like this one and neither has the world.
So many people today say, “I don’t like Christians. I don’t like church,” and I want to respond, “You’ve never seen church before.”
You’re telling me you experienced that and you didn’t like it? Of course you haven’t! Neither have I!
But I want to! What’s the key? Devotion.
They devoted themselves, wholeheartedly to the Lordship of Jesus and the reality of his Kingdom.
And everyone wanted to be a part of it because who wouldn’t! Wouldn’t you want to be a part of something like that? Wouldn’t your family and friends, even the ones who don’t know Jesus or don’t like religion or the church want to be a part of something like that? Don’t you think the people driving by on the street right now would want to be a part of something like that? Of course we all would!
The question is: do we believe it can happen again? Do you believe the existence of a community like this one could make a difference in the world? Hypothetically speaking, if such a community existed, what would happen?
I’m here to tell you that this is the only way we will see that kind of an impact.
We’re not going to be able to make a meaningful impact on this post-Christian culture unless we follow their example. We’re not going to see this stuff without a similar devotion. We’re not going to make an impact on the world without persisting stubbornly in our study and application of the Word of God, in our commitment to one another, in our identification with the broken body and shed blood of Jesus, in our expectant prayer, in pursuing of signs and wonders (I don’t think we can reach a post-Christian culture without them), in radical generosity, in our feasting and worshipping (enjoying the bounty of God with one another and gathering to tell the stories of his goodness.
In order to reach a community like this one, we need a community like that one.
And, if we go after it, if we go after Him, like they did, I absolutely believe that we will see the same kind of world-changing impact they did.
So many times in church leadership, we are busy strategizing how to get people to come to know Jesus. Notice, they didn’t do that. They, as we will see in the next chapter, spent all their time strategizing how to care for all the people God brought to them. Our question is, “How do we get lost people to our church?” Their question was, “What do we do with all the lost people showing up to our church?”
They didn’t have to strategize how to get lost people to their church because Jesus already gave them the strategy: one with me, one with. each other, then the world will know.
The community was the strategy. Their worship and devotion to teaching was mission. Their expectancy in prayer was their power. Their radical generosity was their witness. Their love for one another was their apologetic. The community is still the strategy.
Do we believe it’s possible? Do we want to see it? Are we willing to do what it takes? Devotion. Stubborn persistence. No matter what.