Community

We are in our last week for our series convictions: What we believe.

We have been trying to answer the question

Do Christians have nonnegotiable beliefs, and if so, what are they?

The answer to this is yes we do have nonnegotiable beliefs.

What are they?

The Holy Bible- The Bible is a book written by man but God breathed. God has breath life into this book. Written over hundred of years that all work together. This book is a prefect gift from God and there is nothing we can do to make it better.

The Trinity- God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. All three of this are the same God. We only worship one God not three.

God the Father- Genesis 1:1 say God created everything. It’s doesn’t read In the beginning God dropped something on accident, and as a result there was life.” Rather, we read, “In the beginning God created…” He set about to do something when he created, which means you have purpose and value.

God the Son- Jesus is the only person to every live that fulled all of God law and rules. He is the only one to live without sin for birth to death on the cross. Only be be raised on the third day and defeat death.

God the Holy Spirit- Jesus promised this gift before he assended to heaven. He told his displies that I will be send someone to guide you. We receive this gift when we become Christ follower not at a later date. God has sent you a Helper who can guide and lead you.

The Fall- The moment sin came into this world. The moment that we no longer had a connection with God. Sin puts a divide between us and God. God did not create people to be sinner to be wicked and evil. Sin is part of the world and there is no hope for the world. Until what we talked about last week.

God’s Grace. God’s grace is greater than any of our sins. Through the blood of Christ we are wished has white has snow. We are made pure and can have the choice to live with Christ for eternity.

We have covered a lot of things over the past 7 week. What will be are last one for this series.

We will be look at community and what that means.

so if you have your bible turn to Acts 2:42-47 or you can follow along on the screen in a few minutes.

Before we loo at the passage today. I have a question for you.

What does the word community mean to you?

the world was going through something unprecedented, at least in most of our lifetimes: a near-global shutdown. People of different religions, socioeconomic classes, cultures, and regions were all experiencing some form of the same thing: quarantine. Quarantines restricted where people could go and, even more importantly, whom they could see and interact with. “Social distancing,” defined as staying approximately six feet away from others, became a common term in just a few months. All of this was because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

LOOK AT COMMENTS

DEFINETION

a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.

a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes, interests, and goals.

God built us to have community with others. He never wants us to be doing life alone. SO that poses a question.

what does a christian community look like? Let look at the early church and see how they handled this new community of believers. We will see what we can learn form them. Join me as I read in Acts.

Acts 2:42–47 CSB

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and signs were being performed through the apostles. 44 Now all the believers were together and held all things in common. 45 They sold their possessions and property and distributed the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 Every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple, and broke bread from house to house. They ate their food with joyful and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

What did the early church do for a community?

in verse 42 we can see 4 things that. Devoted to the apostles teaching, fellowship and breaking of bread and prayer.

Apostles’ teaching

The early church came together to lesson to the teaching. they just didn’t come whenever it was convenient. They devoted themselves. This word devoted is a strong word. You see they were steadfast in lessoning. They did everything they could to lesson to what the apostles had to say.

Fellowship

They early church hung out together. They spent time with one other. They made a point to be around each other. Which lead to

Breaking of bread

this is have meals to together and the Lord supper. The early church made a point to to this. They wanted to spend time with each other. They loved eating large meals together and share with everyone include those who are in need. As we saw later on in the passage they did this day with one other. It wasn’t just a few months here and there. They would do it every day.

Prayer

They also prayed together. Prayer showed their dependence on God, the hope in the future and the willingness to advance the work of God.

What all of this what does it mean for you and I?

What is Christian community look like for us?

its means the same thing it did in the early Church. We should be getting together in person for thing not just worship service but it does start with the worship service.

This a great time to pause for a moment and say. Next Sunday we will be restarting our live in-person worship service. We will be meeting at Festival Place in Sherwood Park. The service will start at 11. So make plans to join us for next Sunday August 29 for worship.

You see we need to do more that just worship has believe. We also have to be willing to study God words the study the bible. we have Life group on Thursday night to for this too.

The Christian life is not solitary

we are called to worship and serve God in a community that glorifies him.

The church is the body of Christ, consisting of believers worldwide. God has called believers to gather in local churches.