“A Wonderful Way to Start the Week”

“A Wonderful Way to Start the Week”

Text: Acts 20:7 “Upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight”

Introduction: If you had a choice of how you would start your week, how would you start your week? When Paul was on his way back to Jerusalem after his third missionary journey, he stopped for a short time at Troas, located on the northwestern shore of today’s Turkey, to spend some time with the believers. Scripture records in our text some details of the church service that was held while Paul and his companions were at Troas.

FIRST—THE DAY OF THE SERVICE

“Upon the first day of the week.” Many things changed after Christ arose from the grave on the first day of the week. The Jews had Saturday as their Sabbath and religiously kept that day separate from the other days of the week. But the believers, after Christ arose on the first day of the week, kept the first day of the week for their worship time. This is the clearest verse in the New Testament which indicates that Sunday was the normal meeting day of the apostolic church. It is a special day because of Christ’s resurrection. Coming together to worship Christ on the first day of the week is a wonderful way to start any week. But few people are interested or devoted to Jesus Christ and prefer to use the first day of the week to sit and do everything else but go to church. I know the Pandemic has changed our lives dramatically. However God has been to good to us for us not make adjustments to worship and praise Him. Just because we are not able to do only what we knew to do is no reason to reminisce on the past. Make the necessary adjustments and continue to worship and praise the Lord. When people turn away from Christ the first day of the week becomes like any other day. But in Troas, the first day of the week was the time when the believers came together to honor and worship the Lord.

SECOND—THE DETAILS OF THE SERVICE

“To break bread … preached.” Two parts of the service are spoken of in our text. There may have been other features of the service but these two are especially noted.

• Communion. “The disciples [believers] came together to break bread.” The terms “break bread” refers to the communion service which commemorated the “Lord’s death till he come [again]” (1 Corinthians 11:26). There is nothing in Scripture which says we must have communion every week or that it must be on the first day of the week. But Scripture instead emphasizes the character of the service (1 Corinthians 11)

• Communication. “Preached.” The main part of the service was given over to preaching. While observing the Lord’s supper (communion) is a good practice, it must not take the place of preaching. Some churches put more emphasis on communion then communicating or preaching. This has led to many doctrinal problems. Our focus is on mundane aspects of the ordinance instead of the biblical intent.

THIRD—THE DURATION OF THE SERVICE

“Continued his speech [sermon] until midnight.” Those who insist on a twenty minute sermon would not have stayed to hear Paul’s lengthy sermon. But the people at Troas were eager to hear the Word of God, and the more they heard the better. About the only time we can get people to stay for a service till midnight is a watch-night service and it must have fun and games and films to attract people. Yes because the church is not an attractive place and a few hardships  Are you eager to hear the Word of God, how does hearing the word resonate in your hearing? The struggles we are going through ought not cause us to lose our focus and collapse under the pressure. Its no time to fall asleep or allow these times to retard us stop functioning with a wait and see what is going to happen mentality. We must work and do what we can now for when the night time comes we will not be able to accomplish much.

Closure: Nothing can be more exhilarating and useful to the believer than starting the week off worshipping God with the mindset of continuing in the Word of God. And watch this even if we sank down and fall asleep to the cares of this life, fall down from into the clutches of sin which leads to death, there is somebody who can and has already covered us and holds us in His everlasting arms. Just like Paul bent over this young man and gave him back his life, Christ has given us life. The text say this young man was taken home alive. What a way to start off your week knowing that one day we will rise and be alive in eternity, because of the sacrifice made on Calvary.