What should church be like?

Please have a seat, and let me start by discouraging you with what a Christian friend said recently. He said, “I’m completely disillusioned with church and Christians” and that’s because he’d just read a report about abuse by a church leader we both know, which criticises Christian organisations we both know, and he’s not going to church anywhere, as a result. Add to that the way Christians are now being told we’re bad for saying that not all choices are good, and you have lots of negativity towards church to deal with. And so did the man for whom the book of Acts was first written. Let me remind you who he was from Acts 1.1-2:

In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when he was taken up [that is, back into heaven after his resurrection]

So the first book there is Luke’s Gospel about Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, and Acts is Luke’s sequel about how the news of Jesus spread and the church grew. And both were originally written for this guy Theophilus who was a high-up Roman, whose friends would probably have been horrified that he’d become a Christian because they saw the church as suspect or even bad. And they’d love to have seen Theophilus get disillusioned with it and drop it. And so in Acts, Luke included some snapshots of the early church so that, instead, Theophilus would get a vision of what church should be like, and get more stuck in. And that’s what the Lord wants for us as we look at Luke’s first snapshot of the early church this morning. So let’s pray for that:

Lord Jesus, Through your written Word, please show us what we can be as your church and work in us to be more like it. For your sake, Amen

So for the last two weeks, we’ve slowed down on the lessons from Luke’s snapshot of the early church at the end of Acts 2. We’ve got two more things to learn from today.

1. How the believers met together

Listen to Acts 2.46:

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

And first up, that shows they met together committedly. You get that from where it says day by day. But unusually for the ESV, they don’t translate two of the original Greek words that Luke wrote. One means they met regularly, faithfully, and the other means they met with the same shared enthusiasm. So I’ve wrapped that all up by saying they met committedly. So here’s the question that shows whether you get the point of that, or not: What’s the difference between going to church (or CYFA or Pathfinders or JPCi or whatever) and going to fill up your car at a petrol station? Some people think there’s very little difference. They think you come to church to get your spiritual tank filled, and then drive off to live for Jesus for another week. And just like it doesn’t really matter whether you relate to anyone else at the petrol station, it doesn’t really matter whether you relate to anyone else at church. That’s the way our individualistic, consumer culture has programmed us to treat church: as all about me.

Whereas in fact, we meet together out of commitment to one another. So it’s obvious that I’ve come this morning out of commitment to you – because I’m here to do something for you. But the same would be true even if I wasn’t preaching and wasn’t leading and wasn’t even on the church staff. Because a big part of the purpose of meeting together is a commitment to encourage and help one another. So for example, we should all be committed to welcoming new faces, helping them meet others, helping them find out what they need to, and so on. And we should all be committed to catching up with one another, listening and finding out about needs, and getting involved in meeting them. And I know there are reasons why some of us can’t get back to this yet, but there’s no doubt that meeting in person enables that kind of looking out for others like nothing else does. And I know there are put-offs for those of us who can come back – like masks, and only singing under your breath, but can I gently ask whether commitment to looking out for others doesn’t outweigh them? So they met committedly. Next, they met publicly. Acts 2.46 again says:

…day by day [they were] attending the temple together

So before Jesus, the temple did for Old Testament believers what a router does today for your laptop. It was absolutely central in connecting people with God because God had promised that he would make himself especially present at the temple. And he provided the temple priests and sacrifices for sin as a temporary way of access to him. But in his Gospel, Luke had already signalled that, now Jesus has come, that’s all finished. Here’s how he describes Jesus dying on the cross (Luke 23.44-45):

It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour, while the sun's light failed.And that was a sign that Jesus was undergoing the judgement we deserve for our sin – going under that darkness for us.And what happened next shows the result:And the curtain of the temple was torn in two.

And that curtain had hung like a ‘No-entry!’ sign – a sign that we can’t have access to God unless our sins are dealt with and we’re forgiven. And its tearing was a sign that they had been dealt with at the cross. So there is no longer any need for priests and sacrifices, and no longer any special place (the temple) where God is ‘more present’ and where you need to go in order to meet with him. So why did these first believers in Jesus still meet at the temple? Because I take it they understood that everything the temple stood for had been fulfilled and finished by Jesus. And the answer’s back in Acts 1.8 (the key verse of the whole book) where the risen Lord Jesus said to his apostles:

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses [first of all] in Jerusalem…”

So step one was to witness in Jerusalem to their fellow-Jews. Which is why, in Acts, you find the apostles meeting and teaching the church in the temple courtyards. Which wasn’t just because there was acres of space for thousands of people, it was because it was public, and would be a witness to their fellow-Jews, and would be a place where their fellow-Jews could come and ‘eavesdrop’ on the Christian message. And that’s why it’s important today that this is a public building and that main church services are public meetings. The very fact that passers-by see this place used is a witness to Jesus. And then if people just bring themselves along, they can start eavesdropping the Christian message. And that may be you this morning, in which case it’s great you’re here. And by opening the Bible publicly like this we’re saying that this is public truth, that this is true for everyone and everyone needs it. And it’s not the case right now, but pre-covid, many a newcomer has said to me on the door, “I was blown away by how many people were here” and that is a witness to Jesus. So they met committedly, publicly. And they met as family. Acts 2.46 again:

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

So who do we eat with in our homes? For those of us who are single, I know the answer is often ‘no-one’, and that it can be hard to match diaries with friends or find the energy to share meals. So I realise not everyone’s going to shout out ‘Family’. But family are the first and obvious people we eat with in our homes. And that’s the point of Luke saying they were breaking bread in their homes. It means they were behaving as the Lord’s family – having one another into their homes for meals, because they recognised that if they shared faith in Jesus, then they were brothers and sisters in Christ – they belonged to a spiritual family that is more significant and longer lasting than biological family.

Do we believe in that? Because one very concrete way to show we do is to have one another into our homes for meals. I know that’s been a casualty of lockdown, but as opportunity returns, we need to take it. So let me say some things first and foremost to the married here – because in a healthy church, I think the single should be getting offers of hospitality from us marrieds all the time. So why not make it a habit to add home hospitiality to all the main church meetings you go to? Why not always have someone back for Sunday lunch – whether you invite in advance, or invite people you meet on the day? Why not always combine home group with a meal? Or if ‘always’ sounds too much, try ‘every other’. And it doesn’t have to be anything fancy – shop-bought pizza will do. And you don’t have to clean and tidy the house or ‘entertain’ – we always say to people, ‘Take us as you find us.’ But the blessing of expressing the reality of spiritual family, especially with brothers and sisters you’ve only just met, is enormous. And for most of us marrieds, it’s no real extra work – unless we were planning to fast. And in my experience, the result is, as Acts 2.46 says, glad hearts all round. So that’s one lesson here, ‘How the believers met together’, and the other is:

2. How the Lord used them to bring more people to himself

So Acts 2.47 says they were:

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

And I know the first thing there – publicly praising God has been another casualty of lockdown, but just as it was a witness to Jesus to eavesdrop the praise of those first believers, so it’s a witness for people to ‘eavesdrop’ our praise, as they join us at church and hear not just what we believe about Jesus, but what we feel towards him, too. One commentary on the Psalms says this:

There ought to be a…vitality and vigour about our praise, nothing cold and nonchalant…There are, doubtless, times to be calm as well as times to be enthusiastic. But can it be right to give all our coldness to Christ and all our enthusiasm to the world? [In The Presence of My Enemies, Psalms 25-37, Dale Ralph Davis, Crossway (page 136-137)]

Isn’t that a good question? Especially for those of us who get more animated about our footie than our faith. Then the ESV translates the next thing in Acts 2.47 as having favour with all the people but I think other Bibles are right to translate it ‘having grace towards all the people’. What’s that saying? Well, the heart of the Christian message is grace – which means God’s acceptance of us, even though we don’t deserve it, even though we’re sinful and need forgiveness and change. So for us to have grace towards all people is to communicate that kind of God-like welcome – to all, whoever they are, whatever their background, whatever they’ve done. Which doesn’t mean accepting all their beliefs and choices, as Stonewall would define ‘acceptance’. It means accepting them as people, welcoming them, and pointing them to the grace we need as much as they do. And I heard about a wonderful example of that, talking to a woman who was new here at church. Because she said to me, “I came along for the first time last week, and I sat through the service thinking, ‘I don’t belong here, this isn’t for me.’ And I was about to run for the door when the woman sitting next to me introduced herself. And she asked me why I’d come, and I blurted out that I’d had an abortion. And I wouldn’t be back here talking to you but for what she said next. Which was… ‘So have I’.’’ And that’s an example of having grace towards all the people. It means accepting them as people, welcoming them, and pointing them to the grace we need as much as they do. And if we do that, just look at the end of Acts 2.47 for how the Lord can use that:

And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Wouldn’t you love to be part of a church where that was happening? We’re nowhere near day by day, but we are seeing people turning to the Lord Jesus and being saved among us. And we thank and praise him for being part of that. So that’s Luke’s snapshot vision of what the early church was like, and what our church could and should be like. And if it leaves us thinking, ‘That’s the kind of church I want to be part of – that’s what I want to help JPC to be’ then Acts chapter 2 has done its work.