Now That They Are On Their Own

The faster the world changes, the more tightly we must cling to Jesus

Last week we completed our 34 week study of Paul’s 1st letter to the church at Corinth.

It amazes me how the Lord leads us to scripture just at the right moment to show us very clearly who we are

And who He is - and how much grace He gives to us

And how He loves us so - so much so that He will love us gently like a compassionate Father

As well as discipline us like a loving Father

In order that He might hold us close all of the time and we will cling tightly to Him.

For the next 3 weeks we’ll be in the book of Acts and then we’ll head off into a high adventure.

Probably starting in January, we will dive head first into the 40 chapters of the Book of the Exodus.

I believe we’ll end up amazed at the number of parallels between the gospel and the Exodus of Israel from Egypt.

If you are a note taker, get your notebooks and pens ready for a very exciting adventure.

Our text today is Acts 2:42-47.

While you are looking it up, Kids, here are your three words for today.

The first is unexpected.

The second is two words - kept going

And the third word is basics.

Remember, when you hear me say one of those words, you need to mark that down on your Kid’s guide

At the end of the service, there will be someone at the Kid’s Kart with a prize for those who listened and marked their sheet.

If you are our guest today, we are grateful the Lord led you to First Baptist.

If you are looking for a perfect church, enjoy your visit and go somewhere else next week, cause we aren’t that.

But if you are looking for a place that holds the scripture and the Lord in high regard, and you are looking for a people that will love you regardless

You might want to keep checking us out.

We are glad you are here.

So, you should have found Acts 2:42-47 by now

Hear now the Word of the Lord from Acts 2:42-47

Acts 2:42–47 ESV

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God.

For those of you who track such things, I did preach this very same scripture on 9/11/2022.

This is a different message.

I did new research, I used a new outline.

This is a new message.

Now this begs a question, how can you have a different message from the very same scripture?

Did my interpretation of the passage change?

No - I changed.

My sitz-im-leben changed.

That’s a seminary term - it’s German and it means our situation in life.

The world has changed in the last 12 months - my world has changed.

YOUR world has changed.

What do we do with that?

Renee’ and I went to a event hosted by the Wellness Group of the Georgia Baptist Mission Board.

Those guys are working so hard and the conference was really good.

On the second day they had a guy speaking, Tod Bolsinger - he is a professor at Fuller Seminary in California

He’s written a number of books but the most special to me right now is “Canoeing the Mountains.”

And he said something that made me feel so good.

When Covid hit, a few weeks in, a top name pastor, consultant, pod caster, blogger sent an email that said

“Here’s how you navigate through Covid,” and that infuriated me.

I said to anyone who would listen, there is no way anyone knows how to navigate through Covid because no one has ever faced this before.

And Tod Bolsinger, in his introduction said the same thing - only stronger.

He said, “Anyone who says they know how to navigate through the time we are living in is a liar.”

And I whole heartedly agree.

In my lifetime I’ve never experienced anything like this.

Let’s inventory.

In 2019, Covid - shut down the world - only it didn’t.

Churches and small businesses had to shut down.

But liquor stores and big box stores were OK to keep going - as long as you didn’t buy seeds to plant in Michigan.

We were told there was no cure - that wearing masks wouldn’t help.

Then masks would work and Anthony Fauci said he lied to us so we wouldn’t run out of masks for healthcare workers.

Doctors told us that hydroxychloriquine and ivermectin were ineffective

Until recent research said, “Opps, my bad, they are effective.”

My trust, I don’t know about you, by my trust in science and the medical establishment is at an all time low.

In 2020, we had a presidential election that absolutely polarized the country.

We watched as things that never happened in my lifetime - who stops counting ballots in the middle of the night?

No one - ever.

And at this point, it doesn’t matter what party you belong to, everyone says everyone is cheating.

The second wave of the sexual revolution started.

What the Boomers started in the 60’s has followed it’s logical path to open up the LGBT+ movement.

Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Hamas and now Hezbollah and Syria have all invaded Israel.

Iran is sitting with twitchy fingers on a possible nuclear device that the US made possible for them.

We are as close to World War 3 as we have been at any time since the 10 days of October in 1962.

Illegal aliens are streaming over the border - many are young, fighting age men.

A few weeks ago we were having lunch at a restaurant in Milledgeville and, walking through the parking lot, I passed two large families

Speaking Spanish.

I’m not saying that’s wrong, I’m saying 20 years ago that was a novelty.

Now it’s everyday.

All of the big box building supply stores have their signage in both English and Spanish now.

And the fuel to a lot of this fire is social media.

Which we have found can’t be trusted because people are working tirelessly to censor or cancel voices they don’t want anyone to hear.

And that’s in the last 4 years.

It is very rare for a society to experience such rapid and unexpected change.

And there is your first word kids, unexpected.

That means we didn’t see it coming.

It’s coming so fast and so furiously, no one knows how to navigate it.

And those who say they do are either naive or liars.

There is no road map to this, it’s never happened before.

Oh sure there has been change.

I suspect some of you remember when Jones County High School was the W.E. Knox center.

Kids would leave school and go to the Handy Andy for a coke and a candy bar.

I remember when Ingles was nothing but a giant field of red clay.

I remember the Tastee-Freeze and Ace being in the shopping center.

There was a Hardees where Pickle Barrell was

The Taco Bell was a shopping center with a Fish and Chicken restaurant in it.

Walgreens wasn’t there along with a lot of other stores.

But those changes took 30 years to happen

30 years for us to get accustomed to.

30 years to think about the good old days while we sit in the drive-thru to get some chicken strips and a milk shake from Jack’s.

But lately, we’ve packed 40, 50 years of change in 4 years.

The world changed unexpectedly

And listen, we know this, but let me say it out loud, life is never going back to what it was before 2019.

Bury that thought and put flowers on it’s grave.

It’s done.

The world took a very rapid, unexpected change - and we have to deal with it.

But how?

There is a model to help us.

Because there is a group of people who went through something very similar - a very rapid, unexpected change.

Sitz im leben - the situation in life of a bible passage is important

Reading the Bible is great and I hope everyone reads at least one verse a day but you know

Sometimes we read things and the time gets skewed.

We start reading about the Last Supper in Luke 22 and then 2 chapters later Jesus ascends into heaven.

Keep reading what Luke wrote in Acts and 2 chapters in you are where we are.

5 chapters - maybe 15 minutes of reading but have you ever thought about how much time actually passed?

We know the sequence - but how long did it take and imagine how this affected normal people’s lives?

One Bible commentator assigned a date to Jesus crucifixion.

He says it happened on April 3, 33 AD and he very well could be right.

A lot of things fit to make that date a real possibility.

So let’s use his date for perspective.

We all know Jesus taught for 3 years, so He started somewhere around 30 AD

Before 30 AD life was normal right?

We know the history.

But starting with Jesus’ baptism, things happened.

I mean at His baptism, the voice of God was heard.

People could see the Holy Spirit descending on him.

He preached to the masses that God loved them and wanted them to follow Him.

He railed at the religious leaders who knew how to lead but didn’t know how to follow God.

He healed the sick, raised the dead, fed thousands with barely any food at all.

He broke every social norm imaginable.

He spoke to women in broad daylight

Touched lepers

Ate dinner with tax collectors.

He unexpectedly changed society.

But on April 3, 33 ad, it all caught up with Jesus.

The Jewish leaders convinced the Romans to execute Jesus on the cross.

Because dead Messiah’s can’t cause change and everything will go back just the way it was - only it didn’t, because it can’t.

The world was changed.

On April 5, 33 ad, Jesus was raised from the dead.

The real deal, seen by over 600 people, touched by I don’t know how many.

On May 14, 33 ad, 40 days later, Jesus ascended into heaven.

And a mere 10 days later, on May 23, 33 ad, Pentecost occurred.

The Holy Spirit was poured out on Jesus’ followers just as Jesus had promised it would be.

And on that day, as we sing in the song King of Kings, “And the Church of Christ was born, Then the Spirit lit the flame.”

Prior to May 23, 33 ad, there was no church of Jesus Christ.

Sure, there was group of God’s people who worshipped God.

But not a church of Jesus Christ - because Jesus had not been resurrected yet.

Jesus had been the hoped for Messiah.

Now He was the proven Messiah.

In 3 years and 50 days, the apostles went from normal life to hoping they had found what the Jews had been anticipating for several thousand years.

To knowing they had found the Messiah, to having him disappear - ascend into heaven right before their eyes.

There world, like our world, turned upside down in 3 years and 50 days. And

Now that they are on their own

What do they do now?

Nobody had ever lived through the Messiah coming.

Now that we find ourselves in a similar situation with our world literally turning upside down in just over 3 years, what do we do now?

What do they do now?

The answer is simply said, but executed with difficultly

They kept going

They didn’t yearn for yesterday.

They didn’t spend inordinate amounts of time mourning what they will never have again no matter how hard they try.

They kept going

They knew the basics of what Jesus taught them - they knew what they had seen and heard

So they kept going.

Kids - this is your second word and let me say this to you kids.

You are going to be very tempted to give up some very important things in your lives.

You don’t understand that yet but some of you older guys do.

Don’t give up - keep going

It will be hard, but here is how you do it - it is one simple sentence.

Devote yourself to the basics

The word devote here isn’t powerful enough - Acts 2:42 “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

They devoted themselves

Devote - you can hear the word devotion, right?

It’s what you cut out when you are running late to work.

But devote means to persist.

They persisted in listening to and following the apostles teaching.

What you are seeing is the first elders - that’s what the apostles are.

An elders primary job, their number one thing to do is to preach the gospel and care for the saints.

The they here aren’t just people who had seen Jesus - it was anyone who had heard the gospel of Jesus and became a follower.

Think guys, in just a very few chapters in Acts, people who follow Jesus are going to be beaten and executed.

Jesus changed things and the establishment didn’t like the changes.

They wanted things to remain like they were - but they couldn’t

Because the world changed unexpectedly and when it does that, there is no turning back.

You must, we must keep going.

They persisted in doing the basic thing of making sure they heard the message of the apostles and the apostles persisted in teaching and caring for the people.

These first elders preached a pure, unadulterated doctrine

Jesus was the Messiah foretold in the Old Testament.

He died according to the scriptures and was raised as we were told.

He has changed our lives and He will change yours too.

They persisted in fellowship - look at verse 46 Acts 2:46 “And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts,”

They attended the temple - Together.

They wanted to hear the Old Testament taught - they could now hear Messiah in those words.

But it was unpopular for them to be there - they weren’t the most welcome - because they believed in Jesus.

So they - they - the group persisted together.

Then they broke up into small groups and ate dinner together.

Verse 46 again says, “And day by day...” but I don’t think that means they all went every day to someone else’s house to eat.

They had family and jobs and school.

But regularly - day by day - different groups met at different folks houses.

They ate a meal - “with glad and generous hearts.”

Glad means joyful.

Generous means humbly - They all realized how hard life was and how quickly, how unexpectedly fortunes can change.

They thanked God for their daily bread

And they shared the Lord’s Supper - it was a part of the meal - the last part.

Because there is nothing more important to do when the world changes unexpectedly.

We must cling to Jesus

Jesus conquered death - He can certainly handle anything else that comes our way.

There is no one more powerful for us to cling to

There is no one who wants us to cling to Him more than Jesus does.

And there is no one who knows the way other than Jesus.

Look at verse 42 again Acts 2:42 “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

These are the four basics - kids, there is word three - I’ve already said it a couple of times and I hope you caught it.

The basics are what you do when you know you can’t turn back and you have to keep going.

We persist in following Jesus.

We persist in loving and helping our brothers and sisters.

We persist in loving each other and remembering Jesus together.

And we persist in praying, in praying that the Holy Spirit will lead us.

The result of persisting in the basics is the salvation of people’s souls

Look at verse 47 Acts 2:47 “praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”

They didn’t have fancy plans and programs - they persisted in the things Jesus had taught them to do.

The word saved has the sense of “a safe return.”

It’s being delivered from danger.

Apart from Jesus we are in constant peril.

We don’t know where to go and we don’t know what to do.

We think we do - but that’s the worst kind of dangerous.

We crash the plane because we ignore the instruments and follow our hearts.

But when we trust Jesus - and I mean really trust him

I mean really rely on Him knowing that without Him - well, Jesus says it best John 15:5

John 15:5 ESV

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

We can give life our best shot with every step being in mortal peril.

Or we can abide - live in - follow Jesus

Desperately clinging to Jesus and we will be rescued from danger.

I’ve tried them both and I just don’t see why we do anything other than follow Jesus.

I pray you will follow Jesus today.

Let us pray.