But this morning, as I read to you from Acts chapter 2, just to give you a little bit of a context, it's after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, after his resurrection, he appeared to his disciples for a period of about 40 days, where he taught them and such, and promised them that they would be filled with the power when the Holy Spirit comes upon them, and that that would happen after he ascended into heaven. Well, he did. And some 40 days later, or on the day of Pentecost anyway, the Spirit of God came to the people of God in an incredibly powerful way, and it kind of turned things upside down, and Peter preached his powerful Pentecostal message, and folks were converted. They say, what do we do to be saved, and he told them to repent, and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and to be baptized, and they would be saved, and they and their children. And that's kind of where we pick up, at verse 41, it says, so then, those who had received his word were baptized, and that day there were added about 3,000 souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe, and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common, and they began selling their property and possessions, and were sharing them with awe as anyone might have need. Day by day, continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number, day by day, those who were being saved. A couple of years ago, in August of 2009, we had a town hall meeting in the church. It was actually a two-parter. We had one during the Sunday school time, and then follow up that evening. And we talked about the fact that our church had been growing and the morning we talked about how the multiplication of ministries had kind of taken place in the last couple of years, and attendance had increased. And we saw that God was adding folks to this church, and we wanted to accommodate what we believed God was doing. We talked about some of the barriers that would keep us from being able to accommodate the people, the visitors and folks that were coming to our church. And the fifth one that we talked about was an emotional barrier. And we talked about this emotional response to growth, that for those who had been around for a while, they rejoiced at all the new people that God was bringing to the church. And there was that sense of excitement, maybe not the thrill of seeing 3,000 converted at one time, but still it was an exciting time in the life of the church. And yet at the same time, there was this emotional pull, because all of a sudden there were people that we didn't get to greet within one or two weeks, and people who we did greet, but we couldn't quite remember their names, and it becomes embarrassing to ask them the third and fourth time. So what's your name? These kind of emotional things. It's embarrassing not to remember someone's name. It's weird when there's new people who start to get involved in ministry and we don't know who they are. And we talked about these kind of emotional aspects to a church where God is adding. We said we would address it by trying to clearly define the changes people can expect to see in the coming years. We would teach on how to accept the changes. Whenever there is growth, there is by necessity change, change in structure, change in just the way things are. And how do you cope with that kind of change? And we would try and help those who might be struggling with these changes to renew their faith, to see God's hand and to remain faithful to Him through that. I think this passage that I just read to you this morning is a good passage that kind of addresses those kinds of emotional barriers, because certainly the church in Acts chapter one, those who were with Jesus and listening to him, were 120 folks, 120 folks. And so on the day of Pentecost, when it tells us in verse 41 that God added 3,000 people to them, that's, we might say, explosive growth, mushrooming, kind of amazing. And I would imagine that there would be some difficulties. Just think about the size problems, the building problems. Of course, they may spend most of their time in the temple could accommodate all sorts of people. But how would this happen for this small band of believers? How would they continue to have fellowship and such? I want us to look at that a little while this morning. And I want to do it under kind of two headings, two main headings. The first one is, what did God do? And then the second one, what did the disciples do? It might be better put, how did they respond to what God was doing? Because in fact, that's what they had to do. They were kind of, in a sense, playing catch-up with God and what he was doing. But let's start by asking the question. So what did God do? Well, number one, first thing, very obvious is, he sent the Holy Spirit, right? Kind of hard to miss that. That's what Peter Sermon was all about. You know, people are speaking in tongues. There's these weird flames of fire that are, tongues of fire that are appearing over the heads of the 120 believers, as they speak the various languages of the world. And people are hearing them speak of the mighty works of God in their own language. And they're just kind of surprised and wondering about this. And Peter preached, he says, this is in fulfillment of what Joel, the prophet, said that God would send his spirit in the last days. And he tells us, by the time he gets to verse 33 of his message in Acts 2, therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured forth this which you both see and hear. So the first thing God did is he sent the spirit and that's significant in and of itself. With the coming of the spirit, there was power, right? When Jesus first talked about this, at least as we have it in the book of Acts, he taught more in the gospels. But in Acts 1, 8, he says that when he left, the disciples would be filled with power by the Holy Spirit and would be his witnesses. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest parts of the earth. And so the power of God was there to proclaim the Word of God and to be a witness to what God was doing. This is important for us as we think of the Spirit's work in our lives. He empowers us to magnify God, to proclaim the praises of our great God that he has sent to Lord Jesus Christ into the world and that Jesus has paid the debt for our sins. That Jesus has conquered sin and death. He's been raised from the dead and we have life and reconciliation with God by faith in Jesus Christ. This was their message. They talked about it in terms of personal testimony of what Christ had done to them. They were His witnesses. It seems the power of the Holy Spirit came in such a way that those who had not yet been converted could, at least those who God was calling, could all of a sudden hear an exercise faith and repentance. Verse 37. Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart. They heard. It's not the first time that the gospel had been in Jerusalem. Jesus had just finished three years of public ministry. The whole world had heard about him. The Gentiles were coming to hear about Jesus. But now they hear. The Spirit of God had done His work. They were pierced to the heart and they said to the apostles, brother and what shall we do? And verse 38, Peter said to them, repents and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and on he goes. So verse 41 says, so then those who had received His word were baptized. We see that the power of the Holy Spirit opened the ears of those who were responding so that they could hear the message of the gospel and receive it with faith and repentance. I can point this out in this crowd without too much problem or explanation in theology. I remember this when I was just newly converted and studying and then into seminary as a young Christian that this idea of the order of salvation was taught that what happens first, how God calls us and chooses it. Well, I won't go into all the detail. But when they come to faith and repentance they never separated them. It was regeneration, conversion by faith and repentance. It was on one line. And I remember at a seminary meeting, one of the questions, which comes first, faith or repentance and the answer that they were looking for is while they're together, they come together. And we see that in this text that they hear and there's a repented spirit because all of a sudden by faith they're believing what God has said. And that's the power of the spirit. One more thing and then we'll move on. The power of the spirit brought power to fear. We might not see that in verse 43 in the way the new American standard says it, it says there. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe. The New King James translates it really more literally according to the words that were there in the Greek. Then fear came on every soul. And that sounds weird to us. But think of the Old Testament concept of the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. That's kind of what's going on there. It's a sense of reverence of awe. And that's why the NIV in the New American standard would translate it. There was a feeling of awe, a feeling of reverence. I told you I'll be going to Austin, Texas to celebrate my father's 85th birthday. It was kind of amazing to me how this happened. My brother, I'm going to use terms as I see him as a believer. It's not just so happened in God's providence. He had a training class to take in Dallas, Texas. And he thought to himself, self, I'm going to be so close to my dad. I had to take off a few extra days. So he did. And he called my dad. And yeah, that's great. By the way, you'll be here during my birthday. And so in my brother who lives in Baltimore, in a conversation he was having with my sister who lives in New Mexico, he told her this. And she said, well, you know, my husband and I were going to go visit dad in April. Maybe we'll bump it up and sure enough they do it. And then my sister's calling me to tell me something news about my mom who also lives in New Mexico. And she tells me, oh, by the way, you know, Andy and I are going to be there for dad's birthday. And I was like, hmm, would it mess things up if I came there too? And she's not going to be cool. And as I started to think about this, like this happened Monday morning, I thought, okay, I got a call Sarah and make sure she's good with it. A whole another story of how I made out like Homer Simpson. Sarah wanted me to go to visit my dad for my birthday, which was last month. And I said, nah, it's not going to work out. I want some other gift. And I got it, you know, they gave me this great GPS thing. And so now here I am going to. I got both of them. I think it's just great. Now there's providence for you. But anyway, I called Sarah and she, of course, was good with it. And I called Fred. Could he preach for me next Sunday? Yeah, he can. And I started to put together an email to get approval from the session to be away. And I sent it to Sarah asking her to edit it so that it would be intelligible. And that sort of thing. And she sent it back to me. And it had this sentence that I had not put in there about my father had just emailed and asked if I would come. And I called her and I said, what's this? And she goes, well, I've got it. Here, I'll send it to you. And the same, you know, inload from the, from the web came his email as well as Sarah's boarding coffee. So, and can you come? You know, the session responds to email, but not always very quickly. But this time it happened in an hour that they all responded. And by the end of the night, I had tickets to go. My dad said, won't you call your sister and tell her this. Sorry for all this story. But this is just kind of how it worked out. When I told my sister, she's crying. I'll have to be careful. I'll start crying again. And we're just amazed. There was this sense of awe. Even I saw the hand of God. And I saw his providence. I saw him leading in just amazed at his kindness to my father, not to mention me. But my sister could see it too. And just my sense of awe. I heard a sense of awe from some guests we had last week in the services of worship. You know, we had a hundred and one hundred and five, something like that in the first service in the singing was just spectacular. You're doing great today as well. But it was just amazing. And second service, the music was good. And it was sounded good. And the guest preacher, Tom Jones, his wife was commenting about the sense of joy. And just the sense of the presence of God and worship. That sense of joy, that sense of reverence. That's something that the Holy Spirit brings when we see God at work. May experience that as well. Quickly number two, another thing God did, he proved his message with signs and wonders. Verse 43, everyone kept feeling a sense of awe. And many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. Okay, the signs and wonders. Hebrews chapter 2, the second part of verse 3 and verse 4. It says, after it was first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard God also testifying with them both by signs and wonders and various miracles. And by gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to his own will. You know, it's not unusual for God to give signs and wonders when he brings his word to pair. When God is doing something significant, when God rescued his people Israel out of the Egyptians hands out of bondage. He sent Moses and remember Moses was like, well, I'm going to tell him God sent me to say let my people go. And they're really going to believe me, Lord. How are they going to know? And there's the three signs, and we know all the plagues, the signs, the wonders that God did. When God raised up that mighty prophet Elijah, signs and wonders. When Elijah asked for a double portion of his spirit, he does double portion of signs and wonders. And when God sends his son into the world, again, he wants to give emphasis and testimony to say, this is from me, this is the hand of God who has raised Jesus from the dead, who is calling his people to be reconciled to himself. This is God speaking. And so God gave testimony this way. And then number three, God added to the church. He added to the church according to his plan. You know, Jesus spoke about this. This isn't the first place where the church is mentioned, but it is in the gospels. Matthew chapter 16 and verse 18, I also say to you that you are Peter, and you know how this goes. And upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not overpower it. We can get sidetracked into what's up with Peter and all this sort of stuff. But one thing is very clear, the words, I will build my church. Acts chapter 1 and verse 8, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses. And then 41, verse 41 of chapter 2. And that day there were added about 3,000 souls, verse 47. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who are being saved. Chapter 4 and verse 4, and many of those who had heard the message believed and the number of men came to about 5,000. Chapter 5, verse 14, and all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women were constantly added to their number. 6, 1. Now at this time while the disciples were increasing a number, and I could go on with other verses from the book of Acts that show that it's God's plan. And that God is adding to his church according to his plan. That's what Jesus is all about, and that's what we're waiting for, right? And then he teaches to pray, thy kingdom come, are we not waiting for his return where he will finally put the last enemy under his foot and death will be conquered, and his people will be raised, and those who remain alive at his coming will have new bodies, and we will all be with the Lord forever. He has a plan, and he was acting according to his plan. I think that's really important to understand today, not just in little old South Dayton Presbyterian church, but God's adding to his kingdom, his churches, his disciples, through all the nations of the world. We might not see it so well because of the decline in the U.S., and what's going on in the church here. But if we were to look at South America, if we were to look at what's going on in Asia and East Asia, if we were to look at the number of disciples that are increasing in the Muslim countries, we would see that, yes indeed, the kingdom of God is still growing. I could easily get off track here. Let me make one more comment. I'll go back to my notes. One of the things that's really oppressed me, those of you who like to study end times, this is for you, is there's passages that speak about the victorious church and the church just growing and filling the earth, and the kingdom of God, it just kind of has this incredible power as time goes on until Christ returns. There's also passages that speak about the persecution of the saints, and because lawlessness has increased, most people's love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, Jesus says, shall be saved. There's what's going on there. And I think that the church is the body of Christ, and we should expect God to build this kingdom the same way he sent his son. His son comes as a mighty, victorious king who dies, and through his death and resurrection, the church explodes in size, and God's holy will is done, and he disarms the evil one at the cross. Okay, on to the real sermon here. It's God's plan that we grow. It's God that causes the church to experience growth, and I want you to see, you know, in our day, we see these mega churches, and they just seem to mushroom. And I said it myself, you know, can't be of God. It's not the way God works, and yet here it is and acts. And he does it. And another thing is like, well, this one isn't of God because look at all their problems. Look how shallow they are. And then I read the book of Acts. And it's like you got an an isentifier lying to the people as well as to the Holy Spirit. You have the appearance of racism when the Hellenous Jewish widows are overlooked in the daily distribution of food. You have this incredible legalism unless you're circumcised and keep the law of Moses, you can't be saved. And they have to go to the council and say, okay, apostles and elders in the church, what's the deal? There was persecution and oppression and imprisonment and martyrdom. And that's before we get to Corinth or Galatia. And the spirit of God was at work mightily. And we shouldn't be surprised. I mean, what's different between that and what God used Moses to do when he brought Israel out of Egypt? Mighty hand of God, powerful signs. Lots of problems. That's just an amazing thing to me that God works his sovereign will that way. And so I call on us. Look at the mighty hand of God. Not again, look at him here. What he's doing in our midst. It's wonderful. It's beautiful. God is adding to his church. God is moving us out into various areas of ministry to share our faith. And it's wonderful. And it's not only here, it God's building us kingdom throughout the world. And we need to see that his hand is mighty to save as we sometimes sing. Especially in days like today when we have problems and triply and unrest and other nations. All right. Let's move on. This is what God was doing. He was sending his Holy Spirit. He was proving his message with signs and wonders. He was adding to the church daily, those who were being saved. But what did the disciples do? Well, they exercised faith and repentance. We kind of mentioned that already, didn't we? God moved. God's spirit came so that they could hear God's word and respond. And they responded. Remember, it's what did they do or how did they respond to what God was doing? Well, the first thing that those who hadn't come to know God did was they responded by faith and repentance. I want to move on to the second thing, verse 42. They continually devoted themselves to four things. The apostles teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread and prayer. Let's think about those things for just a minute or two. The apostles teaching. We have that today. We call it the New Testament. Remember, these were Jews. These were Jews that had come to Jerusalem for the celebration of Pentecost. They were from all over the world. They had been dispersed and they had learned all these other languages. But they were Jews coming to worship Jehovah God in the temple of God. And those who stayed and the church that was there, they were Jewish at this point. So when they were listening to the apostles teaching, it wasn't some radically new thing. It was maybe a radical interpretation to what the Scriptures had always taught. What about this? When Jesus was raised and he's walking on the road with the guys through Emmaus, it says he opened, he said to them of foolish men and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter his glory? Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, he explained to them the things concerning himself in the Scriptures. The rest of the apostles teaching was, they were saying, well, look, this is what God's been saying all along. That's why we see so many old Testament quotes in the New Testament and saying this was fulfilled this way. This was fulfilled this way. This is what God meant when he said that. They were devoted to the word of God where God speaks. By the way, there's a conversation, right? Word and prayer. They were continually, not just everyone. They were continually devoted to the apostles teaching, to what God had to say, right? What God was communicating, and on the last one, prayer, they were responding. They were talking to him. They were saying, okay, God, is this what you mean? Is this what you want? How do we live this out? Okay, a little more Holy Spirit for the power please, these sorts of things. In the middle of that, we have the fellowship and the breaking of bread. You know, the fellowship, the Greek word is Coenania, the sharing of participation. It's the things they have in common. It's not the polite conversation over coffee and donut, not that there's a problem with coffee and donut. Some people, it's the sweetest part of the morning, right? Maybe not. But the fellowship was something that was very important to them. It's what they held in common. It's what God was doing in their midst. It's what they participated in. We might think of it in terms of our church's vision. You know, our vision statement is always right here in the front of the bulletin. Our vision is to glorify God by boldly proclaiming His word, worshiping Him in spirit and in truth, maturing believers in Christ, likeness through the power of the Holy Spirit and reaching out to each other, our community in the world with the love of Christ. That's where we have our fellowship. That's where we have our common interest, our thing we're striving for together, the point of our unity. Because we believe this is what God wants. This is what God's doing. This is how God would have us to live. That's kind of what it means when it says they were continually devoting themselves to the fellowship. And very much connected with that is the idea of the breaking of bread. You know what we sometimes call that communion. And I won't take you to the Latin, to the Greek, just take you to the Greek, to the Coenania, to the fellowship. That's what Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, 16 when he says, is not the cup of blessing which we bless a sharing a Coenania in the blood of Christ? Isn't that amazing? In this continual devotion what they're devoted to is their common life together with God. They listen to what God says and respond. They commune. They have a meal with God in their midst, a participation in the body and blood of Christ and with one another, a mystic, sweet communion with those whose rest is one. That's how they cope. That's how they deal with change. That's how they respond to God. I think that's really significant if you think about it. They're very emotional trauma of not knowing everyone, of having to figure out all the space issues with 3,120 people and numbers growing. It's 5,000 men by just a couple chapters. Their sense of unity, their sense of gladness, their sense of reverence and awe. What God was doing wasn't because they had good programs. It wasn't because they knew everyone's name. It wasn't because they recognized everyone. It was because they all loved Jesus and they listened to Jesus and they talked to Jesus and they communed with each other and with Jesus. The last point is this. They valued people over their possessions versus 44 and 45 and all those who had believed were together and had all things in common and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them all, sharing them with all as anyone might have need. This was the Holy Spirit inspired response that they're going to value people more than their stuff, more than their comfort, more than their convenience. They're going to love like God in their midst loves. That's another thing that's just absolutely true. Whether God causes us to grow or not, that we need his perspective on our stuff, that it's a good gift from him, no doubt about it, but it's not the ultimate end. Love for others, our service to others, our willingness to make sacrifice. That's what changes the day. Whether we were grateful for your work in our midst, we're grateful, oh God, for your mighty hand. We read a passage like this in the book of Acts and we think about it and it's historical context and there's no doubt they were, every soul was fearing. There was that sense of reverence, that sense of all that sense of wonder at what you were doing. And we ask, oh God, not that you replicate what you did there, but that we do, that you do pour out your spirit upon us, that we have your power to testify about Jesus Christ, to hear your word, to respond with faith and repentance, to have a sense of awe at your presence. God, move in us in such a way that we continually devote ourselves to your word and to prayer, to the fellowship, the vision you've given our church and the ministry we hold in common, to the Lord's supper, and all that it holds for us. We ask in Jesus' name, oh no.