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This morning we are picking back up in our study of the Book of Acts.
If you’re new to our church, it would be good for you to know that we practice a form of preaching called “Expository Preaching”.
What that means is we believe the Bible is best taught be taking books of the Bible, and then studying them from beginning to end, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, in order to understand what it means in our lives today.
With that said, we are currently doing that through the NT book of Acts.
A book that was written to tell us the story of how the church started and how Jesus intends for his church to accomplish the mission of reaching the world with the gospel.
So, if you haven’t been with us, I would encourage you to go online where you can listen to all of the messages leading up to today.
Last week, you may recall we finished up chapter 4 as Luke described the family dynamic of the First Century Church.
Because as we learned last week, the church in many respects is meant to operate like a family.
First, to tell the story of the first church, and give us a history of how the church was started and the circumstances that surrounded it.
Second, to give us a spiritual template for how Jesus intended the church to take the message of the Gospel to the entire world through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
And as we’ve seen so far through our study, the early church started out with a bang!
It all started in as the disciples were filled with the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.
An empowerment that Jesus promised would come following His resurrection and ascension into heaven.
Luke writes in :
And just as Jesus promised, In , the promised Holy Spirit came, It happened on a Jewish holiday known as the day of Pentecost as 120 disciples were filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
And now filled with the Holy Spirit, the mission of the church begins as the disciples preach the first message of the Gospel to the holiday crowd.
A preaching event that led to 3000 people putting their hope and faith in Jesus.
From there we moved into chapter 3 as the disciples began to function and minister in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Ministry that led to the healing of a crippled man and 2000 more people putting their faith in Jesus.
Ministry that caught negative attention from the Jewish religious leaders.
And ministry that led to the first instance of resistance and persecution for the early church.
Luke tells us about it in :
:1-
But despite the resistance and threats of the religious leaders, the disciples weren’t about to stop telling people about Jesus.
So, after being threatened and told not to preach in the name of Jesus, the disciples gathered together once again, and asked God to equip and empower them.
Luke records their prayer as follows:
Acts 4:
So, there you have it.
That’s how First Century Church started.
It started with 120 people who had put their faith in Jesus.
It then grew to 5000 within a few days as God empowered the disciples to preach and proclaim the Gospel boldly.
I would say a rather successful church plant.
So, there you have it.
That’s how First Century Church started.
It started with 120 people who had put their faith in Jesus.
It started with 5000 people putting their faith in Jesus.
And despite the resistance and persecution, it started with the disciples relying on the power of the Holy Spirit to help them continue to spread the good news of the gospel.
I would say a rather successful church plant.
So, a good question would be, “How does this all apply to us?”
And as we’ve learned, it applies in much the same way:
First, it applies because the mission of taking the Gospel to the entire world hasn’t changed.
Just like Jesus raised up First Century Church to share the Gospel, Jesus has raised MCF up to tell people the good news of the Gospel as well.
In fact, that’s our primary mission.
Second, just like the early disciples needed the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, we need the empowerment of the Holy Spirit as well.
The truth is, without the empowerment of the Holy Spirit we will be powerless to do anything significant for Jesus.
So, just like the early church, we need to continually seek and ask God to fill us with His Spirit.
Third, just like the early church faced resistance and persecution, we too can expect resistance and persecution as well.
The fact is, the message of Jesus runs contrary to the world.
It’s a message that isn’t culturally, religiously, politically, or Hollywood correct.
That being the case, when we stand up for truth, we’re going to tick the world off.
The world is going to push back against the message and take their frustration out on the messenger.
Jesus puts it like this:
All that to say, not much has changed since the first century.
The message hasn’t changed.
The need for empowerment hasn’t changed.
And the resistance to the message is still something Christians have to contend with.
But the good news is, we don’t have face the challenges alone.
Because not only do we have the Holy Spirit by our side to help us, we also have each other.
Because as we learned last week, the church in many respects is like a family.
A family that takes care of its own.
A family that takes care of its own.
A family where Christians are fully committed to Jesus and one another.
A family where the needs of fellow Christians are met.
Listen to how Luke describes First Century Church:
A family where Christians are fully committed to Jesus and one another.
A family where the needs of fellow Christians are met.
But not only did the early church grow quickly, it also grew relationally.
In fact, as we learned last week, being a member of First Century Church came with a lot of relational benefits.
Listen again to how Luke describes First Century Church:
A family that takes care of its own.
A church where people are fully committed Christ followers.
A Church not only did the early church grow quickly, it also grew relationally.
In fact, as we learned last week, being a member of First Century Church came with a lot of relational benefits.
He goes on to say:
Acts 4:32-
First, if you
Acts 4:34-
Luke says First Century Church was a church where people were on the same page spiritually.
Where people took care of one another and shared their resources with one another.
In fact, according to Luke, some of the members at First Century Church went above and beyond as they sold property and homes in order to meet the needs of fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
One such Christian was a man named Joseph.
Listen to what Luke says this man did:
Acts 4:
Luke says Joseph sold a piece of property that he owned and gave 100% of the proceeds to the church.
Why did he do it?
Did somebody ask him to?
Did somebody force him to?
No.
He did it because he wanted to.
He did it because he saw a need.
So, acting on the prompting of the Holy Spirit, Joseph sold the property and gave it to the church.
All that to say, the early church understood the most important focus in life wasn’t their possessions.
The most important focus was telling people about Jesus and taking care of one another.
Frankly, it’s what God desires the church to be.
Now, does that mean we all need to go out and sell our possessions and give the money to the church?
Of course not.
But what it does mean is we need to be willing to if God asked us to.
In other words, we need to learn to hold our possessions loosely.
To remember three realities about our possessions:
Possessions are temporary
We can’t take them with us when we die.
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