5/28/23 The Early Church - Part 2
The Early Church – Part 2
Acts 2:42-47
Being Memorial Day weekend, I decided to do a little research on the internet to see where the most popular places are in the USA for someone to be filled with a sense of ‘Awe’.
According to one website, here are the top 10….see if you agree.
1) The Grand Canyon
2) Niagara Falls
3) The Statue of Liberty
4) The White House
5) Redwood National Forest
6) Waikiki Beach (Or basically anywhere in Hawaii)
7) Yosemite National Park
8) Yellowstone National Park
9) Glacier National Park
10) Mount Rushmore National Memorial
What do you think?....Do you agree with this top 10 list?
Personally, I was thinking Mt. Rainier in Washington state or Pike’s Peak in Colorado are deserving of being on this list.
The New York skyline is also an amazing sight to behold.
There is a feeling one gets while walking through Arlington National Cemetery that cannot be duplicated anywhere else.
The WWII and Vietnam War memorials on the National Mall in Washington DC also leave one with a sense of awe and immense gratitude.
We are so blessed to live in a country that is packed full of places containing immense beauty and important symbolism – places that leave us with a sense of awe and wonder.
No wonder the lyrics of “America the Beautiful” resonate with so many of us:
O Beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties, above the fruited plain. America! America! God shed His grace on thee, and crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea!
There’s an important word in this song near the end of the refrain that speaks to the overall theme of today’s passage of scripture. That word is Brotherhood.
In fact, all 6 verses of today’s passage describing the early church deal with the idea of brotherhood. In the text, Luke describes the members of the early church as being ‘together’ and in ‘fellowship.’ These words convey the same sense of unity as that of the word brotherhood.
As we saw last week, the intense brotherhood of these early Christians motivated them to devote themselves to 4 things – remember what they were?
1) The Apostles teaching.
2) Fellowship
3) The breaking of bread
4) Prayer
We discussed the importance of these four characteristics from verse 42, and if a church is going to be healthy, it will also need to be devoted to these four things.
Today, we are looking specifically at verses 43.
This verse begins to describe some of the natural byproducts of a church that is devoted to the attributes disclosed in verse 42.
The first few words of verse 43 tell us that “Everyone was filled with awe.”
Who was filled with awe? Everyone.
Not just a few people. Not 50%. Not 75%. Not 99%.....100%! Everyone.
This is significant because it reveals a uniform level of commitment to God. People were united by a common response of immense gratitude and thanksgiving to God for the plan of salvation accomplished through Jesus Christ on the cross.
Everyone was filled with awe.
The Greek word for “Awe” is Phobos and actually refers to a sense of reverent fear or even holy terror – It is what man experiences when he realizes that the presence of God is near.
When people encounter the presence of God in the pages of scripture they always react in reverent fear or holy terror! Just ask Moses or Isaiah.
One time when I was around 13 years old, I was driving a small tractor (A Farmall H) with a wagon full of hay down a steep field road. Just as I crested the hill, the tractor popped out of gear. Those of you familiar with these old tractors know that this just turned into a very bad situation. To make things worse, there was a sharp turn that would need to be negotiated at the bottom of this hill, otherwise I would be going through a fence right into a steep forest.
As I began to lose control of the tractor, I actually considered jumping off but then I heard a voice say “Stay On”! In the moment, It made no sense to stay on the tractor because I knew as I picked up speed there was no way I was going to be able to make this corner at the bottom of the hill…I really thought I was going to die.
But I listened to the voice….I stayed on the tractor. What happened next is really a blur, kind of like in that Carrie Underwood song, Jesus Take the Wheel. I remember at one point turning the wheel and somehow as I was pumping the breaks, the tractor speed began to slow – and it eventually decelerated to a speed where I was able to make the corner and come to a complete stop.
Sitting there on the motionless tractor with my heart pounding and my shaking hands still clutching the steering wheel, I cried out to God in gratitude like I had never cried out to Him before. I knew that I had been the recipient of His grace and it overwhelmed me….to put it another way, I was filled with AWE.
I was experiencing God’s direct, intervening presence - and it terrified me!
It terrified me because for the first time in my life I realized just how much I was indebted to God for His amazing grace. In fact, this would be the first time in my life that I would realize the extent to which God’s grace really is amazing!
The word awe (Phobos) is translated as fear in Acts 5:11 when describing the reaction of the church upon witnessing the immediate demise of Ananias and Sapphira after learning that they had lied to the Holy Spirit.
Luke chapter 7 recalls the story of Jesus raising a widow’s son back to life, after which the crowd was “Filled with awe” and praised God (Luke 7:16)
Whether it was a positive event or a negative event, people were filled with awe when the presence of God was tangible.
One last thing about awe. Do you notice that the community of believers were NOT filled with awe over something they had done or had accomplished regarding the church – it was always a response to something God had accomplished through the church.
The people were not filled with awe over the building where they met (many times, they simply met in homes)
The people were not filled with awe over extensive programs or ministries of the church.
People were filled with awe over who God is and what God is doing.
Let’s ask ourselves an important question – are we as a church filled with this kind of awe?
Another important question: Are you personally filled with this kind of awe? Do you begin each day with the realization that God deserves your complete worship and obedience?
Brothers & Sisters, we serve a powerful God – and He is worthy of our complete allegiance.
Jesus reminds us in Matthew 22:37 that we are to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
The remainder of verse 43 in Acts chapter 2 tells of great & miraculous signs and wonders performed by the apostles.
This is the way in which God chose to reveal His power and presence and instill awe in the new body of believers – as well as those outside the church.
In fact, these signs and wonders performed through the apostles were designed to attract attention from those outside the community of faith. This would have undoubtedly directed people to consider the claims of the apostles, and by extension, the legitimacy & truthfulness of the gospel message.
Remember the name Tabitha? In Acts chapter 9, we read of a disciple named Tabitha who lived in a town called Joppa. Tabitha became sick and died. Peter happened to be preaching in a neighboring town, so they sent for him to come to Joppa. Peter eventually arrives at Tabitha’s house and goes upstairs where her lifeless body was lying on a bed. Peter gets down on his knees and prays that God would bring this devoted disciple of Christ back to life….and that is exactly what God chose to do.
Verse 42 of Acts chapter 9 tells us that “This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord.”
Miraculous acts such as this one involving God bringing Tabitha back to life through the apostle Peter resulted in many people coming to faith in Jesus Christ.
Another reason for these apostolic signs and miracles was for God to make it abundantly clear to everyone – those inside and outside of the church – that the apostles spoke for God.
Remember, the New Testament had not yet been written, so there needed to be a way for people to know without a doubt who was speaking God’s truth – who God’s inspired messengers were.
God still performs miracles today (I know a 13-year-old kid from 38 years ago who can verify that!) but the most amazing miracle that He performs is that of changing people’s hearts.
Sometimes we are not filled with the proper amount of awe in response to this amazing miracle.
To take someone who is living a consistently sinful, selfish lifestyle and permanently change their heart to one that desires to serve God and serve others is nothing short of miraculous!
Folks, we shouldn’t need to see people raised physically from the dead in order to believe in Jesus because we see God raise people from the dead around the globe every single day!
Don’t get discouraged by some of the things we see around us here in this country right now – Christianity is thriving and growing by leaps & bounds in other places in the world.
In fact, according to Wikipedia, over 100 million people worldwide convert to Christianity every year.
2.4 Billion people - over 25% of people living on this planet - profess to be believers in Christ.
Brothers and sisters, God is moving. He may not be moving on a scale that we would like to see Him move here in our country right now, but He continues to draw people to Himself – and that should give us incentive and motivation to tell others around us about Jesus Christ, and what he can do for them in their lives.
Maybe you need to hear that message this morning.
Maybe you haven’t made that decision to fully commit your life to Christ. Maybe you’re on the fence.
Maybe you can’t decide if it’s worth giving up the things of the world to become a servant of a Jewish Rabbi who walked the earth 2,000 years ago.
I get it – at first it may not sound that appealing…especially when you have it “pretty good”, right?
Maybe You have a comfortable life of following your desires wherever they take you. Maybe you like to get a little crazy with your friends on the weekend Maybe you enjoy that private sin in your life because you think that it ‘takes the edge off’ of life.
I friend of mine named Joey Klitzke has a powerful testimony. Before coming to the Lord, he was a well-off business owner living the high life….or so he thought. That was until God pulled the rug out from under him. The market dump in 2008 resulted in the liquidation of his business as well as his house, the dissolving of his marriage, and the tarnishing of his reputation. One night he picked up the phone to call his son and say good-bye as he planned to end his life that very night.
His son, who was living on the East coast at the time, made him promise to talk to a local pastor the next day.
Joey agreed. The next day he went to see the pastor who just happened to be an acquaintance of his. A short time later, he gave his life to Christ.
Today, Joey will tell you that he is happier than he’s ever been in his life. He doesn’t have the millions of dollars or the big fancy house. Instead, he has the love of a wife who knows the Lord, the essentials of life, and a vibrant relationship with his Lord & Savior Jesus Christ.
To some of you, maybe Joey’s story sounds somewhat familiar. Maybe its very close to your own story. Maybe God needed to introduce you to a place called ‘rock bottom’ in order to get your attention.
In our Sunday night Bible study, we just wrapped up looking at the Parable of the prodigal son. Maybe that was you. Maybe you needed to find yourself face down in “pig-poop” before realizing that the things of this world aren’t all they are cracked up to be.
Maybe for others of you, by God’s grace, you were drawn to Christ before having to lose everything you had in this world.
Either way, God took you from having a desire to live for yourself – to having a desire to live for Him. As a follower of Christ, you now have a desire to serve Him - and to serve others.
Let me tell you, there is no better feeling in the world than to lay your head down on your pillow at night knowing that you lived for God that day rather than living for yourself.
This is what we were made to do. Our purpose was never to serve ourselves, but to serve God. I guarantee you that Adam & Eve were MUCH happier before they decided to disobey God than after they chose to partake of the forbidden fruit.
So it is with us. We are much happier when living in obedience to God than when we are living in disobedience to Him.
When we give our lives to Christ and begin to change from self-ish to self-less, we begin to realize and experience our original purpose as human beings.
We begin to be filled with AWE.
Let’s Pray.