Gospel Centered Community

Acts 2:37–47 ESV

Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. 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.

INTRODUCTION

Well I used to love going to my grandma and grandpa’s house. It was always full of family, and laughter, and joy, and life. It was a place where I first understood my value and that I belonged to a community. It’s where I first realized that I was a part of something bigger than myself.

I knew that others were committed to me and I was committed to them no matter how messy we were, because we were family. And all of us need a place like this. A place where we can understand our value and purpose and that we belong to something more than ourself.

We were created for community.

And so many of us are looking for a perfect community. Some sort of utopia. Free of messiness and free of pain. So much so that we would rather not commit, just in case something better might come along. We are committed to these communities as long as they are benfitting us.

We try to find these perfect communities through making the right friends. We try to bring it into existence by the way that we vote. We try to find it in the schools that we put our kids in. We try to find it by the sports we let them play and the teams that we allow them to join.

But in all of those communities, commitment is required. You are actually not allowed to join them if you do not commit in some way.

This is why we do membership here. We want commitment from our body and commitment from our leaders that we will stick with it even when things get hard.

Because you can’t have the fruit of real community without the root of real commitment.

And even though the Bible says that the church is actually a foretaste of God’s perfect community, it is rarely viewed through the same lenses. It is a place that we are ok leaving when it becomes hard. If we’re honest, most of us come to church to check off a box, or to find like minded people, or just to feel better about ourselves. Yet nowhere does Scripture speak of the church in such a way. 

In fact we are told that church will be a sanctifying and sacrificial place. And sanctification and sacrifice is always hard. It always requires commitment. Commitment to God. Commitment to one another. And commitment to the gospel and repentance. 

Yet many people are leaving the church and looking for a perfect community elsewhere.

In fact, a recent gallup pole showed that only 3 out of 10 people go to church weekly in the United States.

But 7 out of 10 Americans claim belief in a higher being and an afterlife.

Which means that 40% of our population is inclined to believe there is a God, but they don’t believe they’ll find him in church. Which is heartbreaking.

Because God calls the church His sanctuary, His household, His temple, and the pillar of truth.

So we are forced to ask ourselves the question, why the lack of commitment? Why are people in America leaving the church and seeking community elsewhere? 

I think there’s a few reasons. 

People have been hurt by the church. 

And so many churches have moved far away from the Bible for their teaching, their leadership structures, and their programs. To the point that a lot of churches have become extensions of the world with some Jesus sprinkled in.

But I believe the primary root cause for all of this is unbelief. We have become desensitized to the awesomeness of God. We do not believe He is who He says He is. And as a result we do not believe His church is what He says it is. We might not say that out loud, but it is often how we live. We don’t really believe.

Satan can do mighty damage through our unbelief. And the primary ways that he does this is through separation and division, especially in the church. Because it hurts our witness as believers.

If he can get us out of God’s church and all by ourself He rests satisfied. I have heard so many say that it’s not about religion it’s about relationship, or that the church is not a building, but a people. And I agree with both of those, but what I have found they typically mean by this is that they do not need the local church in order to have a relationship, but they can do it on their own. And that is a lie. We need the church. We need to commit to one another.

Jesus says in John 13:35

John 13:35 ESV

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

He is telling us that if we do not commit to one another in love, through His church, people will not believe that we know Him.

In other words, we cannot go around telling people to believe and trust in God, when we don’t even appear to be doing that.

We need to live like we have a God worth believing and that begins with commitment.

But how do we become more committed?

Well, it cannot just come from us trying harder or doing better. Or we will always be mad at those not trying hard enough or not doing well enough.

Because we’d be operating out of love of self and not out of love of others. 

Our commitment cannot be rooted in ourself, but our commitment must be rooted in our belief of the gospel.

TRANSITION

And that’s what we see in our text today. A beautiful picture of what a committed church community can look like.

We get our vision from this passage.

We get our language of church membership from this passage.

And we get the rhythms you see on the wall from this passage.

It actually appears to be the perfect church.

But we must look at this passage in context to see what is really being presented here.

Remember last week, Peter preached the gospel to this people. And the community that we are seeing today, is the result of their belief in the gospel.

Acts 2:37–41 ESV

Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

This community we are witnessing isn’t a perfect place with perfect people. No, it is a group of messy people that has been so convicted of their sin by the preaching of the gospel, that they repented.

This community cannot come about through our efforts. But only through commitment to the gospel and repentance. 

The reason that more churches do not look like this, in my belief, is because they think receiving the gospel and repenting of sins is a one and done thing. They believe they have moved past it on to deeper things. Which is such a mistake.

Yes we have been justified by our faith in Christ, but we are also continually being sanctified by our faith in Christ. Which means that we have been forgiven of our sins in Christ, once and for all. But because of our indwelling sin, we must continually turn to the gospel and repentance to look more like Christ. Let’s look at both. 

TRANSITION

First, What is the gospel?

Romans 1:16 says that the gospel is the power of God for those who believe.

Our gospel definition at The Garden is:

While we were dead in our sins,

God’s kingdom was proclaimed on earth through Jesus who:

Loved us to make us lovely.

Died for us that we might live.

And rose and released us on Mission, to reclaim the hearts of all who would have faith enough to believe what He has done. 

The gospel changes everything. Moving our identity from sinners bent toward the mission of self, to saints sent on the Mission of God. 

The gospel is the centerpiece of all Scripture. It is not just the means of our salvation, but it is the means of our transformation. 

But even though I am being sanctified to look more like Jesus, I still have indwelling sin that remains in me, which causes me to minimize the power of the gospel, or to “shrink the cross.”

Bob Thune and Will Walker say in their book “The Gospel Centered Life,” 

“When we are not anchored by the truth of the gospel, our love for Jesus and our experience of His goodness become very small. We end up shrinking the cross by either pretending or performing.”

Apart from the gospel we will pretend that we are not that bad, making excuses, comparing ourselves with those worse than us and spinning the truth in our favor.

Apart from the gospel we will try to earn God’s approval through our performance. If we just try hard enough we can merit God’s love and approval. Which minimizes the work of Christ on the cross. 

As we are aware of these tendencies, we must apply the gospel to our unbelief, or another way to say this is, we need to preach the gospel to ourselves. 

We see examples of this throughout scripture, especially through the Psalms of King David. He is always reminding himself of the bigness of God despite his flaws. He’s always talking to himself.

Why are you downcast O, My Soul? Put your faith in God. He is preaching to himself. And he didn’t even the sacrifice of Jesus, we do! How much more should we remind ourselves of the goodness of God.

This morning in my time of reading, I read a prayer from Bernard of Clairvaux who was an eleventh century Christian monk, that perfectly showed a man preaching the gospel to himself.

Read prayer.

This brother is preaching to himself the gospel.

Wherever I think less of God and more of myself, I need the gospel. 

And to really experience the deep transformation God promises us in the gospel, we must continually repent of these sinful patterns.

TRANSITION

Repentance simply means turning away from what is turning us from God.

Becoming more aware of God’s holiness and our sinfulness leads us to repent and believe the gospel of Jesus over and over again. Through true repentance we are constantly turning from our pretending and performing so that we can live as sons and daughters in Christ. 

It’s no wonder people are leaving churches not centered on the gospel and repentance. Because the people there are pretending and performing that they are children of God instead of resting in it. 

True repentance is marked by a few things:

It is oriented toward God, not self.

It is motivated by Godly sorrow, not selfish regret.

It looks to Jesus alone for deliverance.

So repentance is not resolve. Meaning I will work harder and do better next time.

And repentance is not remorse. Meaning I am sorrowful for what I did because it did not produce the results I wanted.

Repentance is a realization of our sin, and an understanding that Jesus is our only hope to do something about it. 

Because of this, it is not something we only do once, or every once in a while when we feel guilty, but it is ongoing. We are not intended to beat ourselves up with repentance, but to free ourselves up with repentance to walk in light of who we are called to be.

We are no longer slaves, we are children of God.

So all that, is leading us to the type of church community that we see in our text today. 

It is a community that is committed to the Word of God and each other because it has received the gospel and repented for forgiveness of sins, through the power of the Holy Spirit. 

And the only way that we can ever experience such community is to do the same. Be a people centered on the gospel and repentance and pray that the Holy Spirit would show up in power.

TRANSITION

So, let’s look at this passage. What do we see this gospel centered people doing with one another? What is their culture? Let’s break it down.

Acts 2:42 ESV

And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

Devotion is the same as commitment. They were committed to the Word of God and each other.

They were committed to the breaking of bread and prayer. The breaking of bread is communion. it is where we remember the grace and sacrifice of our Lord through partaking in the bread and the cup with one another. And prayer. They were committed to prayer. What would it look like if people came up here once a week to pray for an hour before or after work?

What incredible things would God do with such commitment to prayer? 

Acts 2:43 ESV

And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

Awe and wonder came upon every soul. This is their worship lived out in response to His Word. Because of who He is, they stand amazed. Which resulted in miracles happening at their hands. Do you believe He still does miracles through His church? When is the last time you were amazed at who God is?

What incredible things would God do with such commitment to worship?

Acts 2:44 ESV

And all who believed were together and had all things in common.

Unity is not uniformity. Remember this was a people from all over the world that spoke different languages, and the Spirit is building His church by bringing them together. The Spirit’s unity is made more beautiful by their diversity. Let us invite those that are different than us, so that we can see the Spirit build His church through our differences and not our similarities.

What incredible things would God do when our identity as defined by Christ outshines our identity as defined by the world?

Acts 2:45 ESV

And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.

They are giving everything away for the good of each other. When our hearts are focused less on self and centered more on the gospel and repentance, we quit attempting to hold on to the comforts of this world, in joyful expectation of the treasure stored up in the world to come. Are we living with such radical generosity in our own lives, in our households and in our communities or are we worried about hanging on to what we have? Are we securing our kingdom rather than sacrificing for the kingdom of God? Apply the gospel to your unbelief and repent.

What incredible things would God do with such commitment to radical generosity?

Acts 2:46 ESV

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts,

They worshipped at the church and opened up their homes. Are we a people marked by unreasonable hospitality? Our prayer is to move groups into homes in the new year. But even before then, your home is the most incredible missional tool you have. It is the quickest way you’ll ever get to know someone, or allow them to know you. One of the marks of a church leader in 1 Timothy 3 is being hospitable. If a leader won’t open up their home, they won’t open up their heart. Now there is a caution to this. Not just anybody can come over at anytime, but if you are never willing to open your home, apply the gospel to your unbelief and repent.

What incredible things would God do with such commitment to hospitality?

Acts 2:47 ESV

praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

What incredible things would God do through us as we receive the gospel and repent?

What incredible things would He do through a community committed to His Word and one another? Acts 2:47 gives us the answer.

They had favor with all people, and He added to their number day by day those who are being saved.

When we focus on being a missional voice of blessing over a judgmental voice of influence, even the nonbelievers will find us good for the community. We will have favor with all people. And the Lord will continually save people through our existence. He doesn’t need us to accomplish this, but He allows us to be a part of His mission here on earth because He is a good father. This is by grace through faith, so that no church can boast in ourselves, but only in God. 

This church that we are seeing today in Acts is not a perfect community, but they worship a perfect God and they know it. They are centered on His gospel and repenting of all the things that elevate themselves over their savior. 

Jesus tells us in Mark 1:15 to Repent and believe in the gospel.

Mark 1:15 ESV

and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

And John the Baptist tells us in Matthew 3:8 to bear fruit in keeping with repentance. 

Matthew 3:8 ESV

Bear fruit in keeping with repentance.

What we are seeing in this church community in Acts 2 is people trusting these commands. They have believed the gospel and repented of their sins in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And these beautiful rhythms that they are practicing with one another are just the fruit being produced by the root of their commitment. I pray that the Garden church would bear such fruit, but that is only for the Holy Spirit to produce. All that we can do is be committed. Committed to God, committed to one another, and committed to the gospel and repentance.

So many of us are looking for a perfect community. And God’s Word tells us that the church is actually a foretaste of God’s perfect community to come. But it is a sanctifying and sacrificial place. And sanctification and sacrifice is always hard. Commitment is required. Because you can’t have the fruit of community without the root of commitment.

J.R.R. Tolkien says in his book The Hobbit,

“Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. It is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Small acts of kindness and love walked out in community.”

This is how God changes the world. Through ordinary people who trust His extraordinary promises and walk them out through commitment to community.

May the Garden be that place. A community committed to the Word of God and one another. A community centered on the gospel and repentance. And through that may God transform the way we live our lives for our good and His glory.

LET’S PRAY

Titus 3:3–8 ESV

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.

In what ways does Acts 2:42-47 suggest that commitment (devotion) is essential for a thriving church community?

2. What practical steps can we take to deepen our commitment to one another in our church community?

3. How did the early church demonstrate unity among its members?

4. What practical actions can we take to show radical generosity, as the early church did?

5. Pastor Kenny said the community we see in Acts 2:42-47 is one shaped by the gospel and repentance, not pretending or performing. What did he mean by this?

(Some answers if needed)

(Apart from the gospel we will pretend that we are not that bad, or try to earn God’s approval through our performance, minimizing the cross of Christ. Wherever I think less of God and more of myself, I need the gospel. 

To experience salvation we just need to believe the gospel.

But to experience transformation we must continually repent of the sinful patterns that keep us from believing it.

Repentance is a realization of our sin, and an understanding that Jesus is our only hope to do something about it. Because of this, it is not something we only do once, or every once in a while when we feel guilty, but it is ongoing. We are not intended to beat ourselves up with repentance, but to free ourselves up with repentance to walk in light of who we are called to be.)