Feed the Fire

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Sermon Notes

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Postures

1. On Pentecost, we remember and celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit and the moment everything changed.

   1. The Spirit of God poured out on all flesh.

      1. Each person carrying the same Spirit that led and empowered, Moses, Elijah, Gideon, David, Isaiah.

      2. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead available to everyone who follows Him into the grave.

   2. The birth of a radical new community that would go on to change the world.

      1. 120 people became 3,000 people became 5,000 people.

      2. The Gospel spread in power across Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, around the Mediterranean, and, within 30 years, reached the heart of the Empire, Rome itself.

      3. And, of course, the movement didn’t stop with the closing of the book of Acts but continued to grow ever since. The Church continued to spread outward across Europe, the Atlantic Ocean, North and South America, Asia, Africa, thousands have become millions have become billions.

      4. 2,000 years later, the flame that was lit on the day of Pentecost as the Spirit fell and empowered that small community of Jesus people has now swept across the globe, transforming individuals, families, communities, nations, indeed, the whole world.

2. All of this happened because the Holy Spirit empowered this small group of disciples.

   1. It was His power at work in them that enabled them to do what they could never have done without them.

   2. Traditionally, we call their story The Acts of the Apostles, but a much more accurate name would be The Acts of the Holy Spirit (through the Apostles).

   3. He is the reason the world changed; He is the power of the Church, the heartbeat of the mission.

3. But, as we also talked about last week, they were not passive participants in the process. Instead, they partnered with Him in His work in and through them. He is the fire, but they were the kindling.

   1. As we talked about last week, they prepared themselves for the work of the Spirit.

      1. They submitted themselves to Jesus as King, to obedience.

      2. They committed themselves to the mission of their King, to living as ambassadors of His Kingdom.

      3. They knew that the mission was beyond them, and so they cultivated an attitude of humble dependence.

      4. These were the postures they assumed that prepared them for the presence and power of the Spirit.

   2. This week, we learn that the journey with the Holy Spirit doesn’t stop when you receive Him but continues as we go on receiving Him.

      1. In Galatians, “Keep in step with the Spirit.”

      2. In Ephesians, “Go on being filled with the Spirit.”

4. Here’s what happened after the day of Pentecost:

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They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 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, 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

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1. Practices

   1. What we read here is not different than the four postures we discussed above.

      1. In other words, these are not more things to do in addition to the other stuff.

      2. These rhythms are those postures lived out on a daily basis.

         1. What they experienced prior to the Day of Pentecost (in the beginning of Acts 2) was a bit of an aberration, something other than normal life.

         2. But what we read here at the end of Acts 2 is a new normal. These rhythms are what life with the Holy Spirit looks like.

         3. If the postures of obedience, mission, and dependence are the kindling for the fire of the Spirit, then these rhythms are how we continue to burn. They are how we feed the fire of the Spirit, how we partner with Him in His ongoing work in and through us.

         4. The postures that prepare us for the work of the Spirit become rhythms as we partner with the Spirit in that work.

            1. This, incidentally, is where all sorts of revival movements go sideways.

            2. People come to receive the Spirit. They pray, fast, seek, but then when they receive, they think the job is done. They don’t translate those seeking postures into living rhythms.

            3. We have to feed the fire.

   2. Not just about the rhythms but about “devoting” oneself to the rhythms.

      1. They “gave themselves to…”

         1. They didn’t add these life hacks to their lives. They added themselves to these rhythms. Did you hear the difference?

            1. Most people view the Christian life as something they add to their lives

            2. These people viewed the Christian life as something to which they added themselves.

            3. The river is rushing. You can either take a thermos and grab a bit or you can dive in

      2. In other words, they allowed these rhythms to supersede their normal routines. In other words, they ordered their lives around the rhythms of the Kingdom.

         1. They emptied out all of the stuff that filled their lives and put these big rocks in first.

         2. They made their lives fit into these things rather than making these things fit into their lives.

      3. Required intentionality because the rhythms of the Kingdom are different than the rhythms of the Empire

         1. Not just different than the rhythms of the Empire…

         2. …but in most case directly opposed to the rhythms and values of the Empire.

         3. Countercultural rhythms:

            1. The reason the rhythms of the Kingdom run counter to the rhythms of the Empire is that the desired outcomes run counter.

            2. Countercultural rhythms are necessary when one desires to follow a countercultural King into His redemptively countercultural Kingdom. In other words, if we just do the same things that the world does, we can’t expect anything but the same results. If we want redemption, transformation, we need to live differently.

      4. They “persisted stubbornly in…”

   3. What were these rhythms?

      1. The apostles’ teaching

         1. The whole Bible through the lens of Jesus (the definition of biblical). This is how Jesus taught them.

         2. Not just the Bible in the abstract, but the Bible applied to and live out in the context of a community.

         3. At Canopy

            1. Reading plan

            2. All-together gatherings

            3. House church discussion

      2. Fellowship

         1. Koinonia = common or community

         2. Also related to a word that means “generous”

         3. They gave themselves to the common…

            1. Interest

            2. Mission

         4. Requires self-sacrificial love

            1. Consider others as better than yourselves.

            2. Look not to your own interests but to the interest of others

            3. Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus…

            4. Love your neighbor “as yourself”.

         5. It doesn’t get more countercultural than this.

         6. At Canopy

            1. Invest in a house church

            2. Invest in Slack?

      3. Breaking of bread

         1. The Lord’s table

         2. The practice of remembering who we are

         3. An act of proclamation of a different way of life.

         4. At Canopy

            1. Communion all-together

            2. Communion in homes

      4. Prayer

         1. Devotion to God

            1. Communication is how we build intimacy

            2. Talking and listening

         2. Devotion to one another

            1. The sincerest form of fellowship (of koinonia)

            2. The most powerful and most loving thing we can do

         3. Devotion to mission

         4. At Canopy

            1. Coffee table prayer

            2. Prayer ministry

            3. 24/7 prayer

      5. Signs & wonders

         1. How cool is it that signs and wonders were a part of their rhythm?

         2. Their part in that rhythm, of course, is faith and expectancy.

         3. At Canopy

            1. Seek First

            2. All gatherings (always expect the Holy Spirit to move)

      6. Radical togetherness

         1. See above on koinonia

         2. Caused a radical generosity. In other words, their giving themselves a common interest and mission made investment in their community incredibly important to them (more important even than ancestral land).

         3. At Canopy

            1. We are not asking anyone to sell ancestral land.

            2. We are asking to invest in the work of the Kingdom through this community.

            3. Letter went out

      7. Temple courts

         1. Gathered community

         2. Expectant worship

         3. At Canopy: all-together gatherings

      8. Homes

         1. Intimate community

         2. Lord’s supper

         3. Life around the table

         4. At Canopy: house church

      9. Hearts full of gladness and sincerity, mouths full of praise

      10. God added to their number

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