You realize, of course, that when the Holy Spirit saves you, that He didn't save you in order that you might enjoy this new fellowship or relationship with God in the closet, privately or by yourself, rather, the Holy Spirit moved in your life and regenerated your soul. He saved you in order that He might bring you into the church so that He might add you. We're talking about all these additions to the early church. Well, here we are, a couple of thousand years later, He's still adding to the church and you are one of those additions to the church. It is with that purpose you were saying that you might be added. That's what's implied in verse 41 and 47. I mean, certainly, if they were added, they had to be added to something. So, what were they added? They were added to the church. Well, what kind of church? What kind of priorities? What kind of commitment? So, that's what we're told. In verses 42 to 47, we're told, basically, that there were four commitments. There was a commitment to the apostles teaching to doctrine, to truth. There was a commitment to fellowship. In other words, there was a commitment to each other. There was a commitment to worship, very high commitment to worship. And then, finally, there was a worship to growing the church, to evangelism. How committed were they? Well, look at verse 42. It says, they continued steadfastly. The Greek word continued steadfastly. The meaning there is, they continued faithfully. In other words, it could be used to describe the meaning of this word, would be words like serious. They were seriously earnestly persistent. In other words, rather than they were committed, very committed. God was the most important thing in all the world to them. And because that was true, because God was the most important thing in all of their lives, to them, to them, they had this gladness of heart. That's what's mentioned in verse 46. They did everything they did with gladness and simplicity of heart. You might ask yourself, what am I committed to like that? What would I describe in my life as something that I am seriously and earnestly devoted? What am I so committed? You wonder how you could find out? Look at your calendar. Look at your schedule. Your schedule would tell us a great deal about what's important to you. That which you are pursuing, again, with great earnestness, with great devotion in your life. Well, what isn't it? Would you say that the lesser concerns of life tend to choke out the more important concerns of life? The lesser concerns of life being, you understand, you know this, the lesser concerns being perhaps money and material things and comfort, secular concerns, the more important concerns being those that are eternal. Ask yourself, what do I pursue with great thankfulness and great seriousness and great earnestness in my life? It doesn't take long to realize where those early Christians placed their priority. And again, look, break it down. You can notice in the outline, into four basic elements. You ought to memorize these. You ought to say, well, that's the commitment of the early church. That's what I want to be in my commitment personally individually. But that's the way I want, that's the commitment. That's the party I want to see in my own church, at Trinity Church. Commitment to the Apostle's teaching, commitment to each other, commitment to worshiping God, and then commitment to evangelizing the laws. The first being, the first mark of a model church, the first mark of a church that is filled with the Holy Spirit is a commitment to the Apostle's doctrine. Look at verse 42, they continued to act fastly in the Apostle's doctrine. It's very interesting because he could have so easily first commended on this bill on the fact that they were a joyful church. He could have talked about how they were a vibrant church, how they were an expanding church. But that's not the first commitment that's given. Calvin says, he begins with doctrine, which is the soul of the church. That's interesting in itself. They had all these experiences, they had the penicostial experience, they had the tongues of fire, they had the rushing wind, they had all these people talking in languages that they had never studied before, and where did the Holy Spirit lead them first to the feet of the Apostles, to their teachings, to their doctrines, to truth? Well, have they know who the Apostles were? Look at verse 43, fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the Apostles. I think we sometimes get the idea, and I know why we do because it's very popular thinking today. We sometimes get the idea that everybody was performing miracles, that all the Christians, if you really were a Christian, if you had enough faith, and you were out there performing all these signs and wonders with the Apostles, and that's just not true. If that were the case, it would have been the signs of the Christians, it's not the signs of the Christians, it was the signs of the Apostles. Paul is very clear about that. Second Corinthians chapter 12, at verse 12, he says, truly, the signs of an Apostle were accomplished among you, with all perseverance and signs and wonders and mighty deeds. Warfare, a great treat, and so miracles called counterfeit miracles, it's very clear. He says, they were part, from at miracles, they were part of the credentials of the Apostles, as the authoritative agents of God and the founding of the church. But this is really a gauge, as to whether a church is healthy, whether a church is vibrant or a church is alive, or if a church is orthodox, are they committed to the Word of God? Are they committed to truth? Are they committed to the Apostle teaching? You ought to ask them, if you're visiting this church, if you're shopping for churches, they say, you ought to ask about the churches, if you're looking at it, is that church committed to truth? Are they committed to doctrine first? You want to be a part of a church like that. How does it practically work itself out? You're visiting, you want to know what sort of things would I be looking for? You'd be a member here, still ask, well, how do we see that in our own church? Well, a lot of practical ways. One is almost every week, all but just many one or two things I've been here. We affirm the Apostles' creed. Not because the Apostles wrote it, they didn't write the Apostles' creed, but because of the doctrine that is summarized in that creed. Everything that we practice, everything that we believe, we practice and we believe, according to scripture, is it true in scripture? Do we find it in the Word of God? The very shape of our ministry, the very pattern of our ministry is determined by this very conviction. Is it found in God's Word? Personally, I praise exquisitely through books of the Bible because my task is not to give my opinion. My task is to give you God's Word, the teaching of the Apostles, doctrine, the truth. It works itself out and having an inquirer's class. It's why we have a communicance class. It's why we have an officer training course. It's why we sat down for the first 12 weeks together and determined, this is what we believe. This is who we are. These are our doctrines. These are the things for which men and women have given their lives and we would give our lives for it, if need be. That's why we need a study skill curriculum for our children. Much talk about our children today. We need to know the systemically. We take a child from his baptism and when that child graduates in 12th grade, we have taken them all the way through the Bible. You say, well, the junior high in the hospital, they get bored with the different curriculums that come out. It doesn't matter. It's our commitment to teachers. It's a teacher's role to bring it along to the children so that we know when they leave here, we've taken them all the way through the Bible. The same thing for adults on his good classes as well when there's a commitment, not to do the most popular book on the market, but to God's Word. Does this say what God's Word says is this reformed doctrine? Is this the doctrine of the Apostles? You want to separate the sheep from the goats in the church in our day, very quickly? You want to separate the wheat from the tariff? Announce to the church that the first priority is going to be doctrine. The goats will scatter, because the goats won't excitement and they won't experience. But we learn this morning that the sheep's mark of a church that's filled with the Spirit is to come in the Detroit. It's a commitment to God's Word, learning it and teaching it, not only publicly, but probably. The second mark of the church is fellowship, because they we learned in verse 42 as well that they weren't just committed to the truners. They were committed to each other, look at verse 42. They continued that fastly in the Apostles doctrine and fellowship and the Word. The fellowship in the Greek is where most of you have heard that word before, Coenia. It means mutual sharing, it means participation together, it means common. It means having things in common, imagine a fellowship of 3,000. Think of all those new converts, all those new members, they're bringing new members in every day. All those officers, this is spelled troubled on it, but that's not what we read in verse 44. Look at the description of their fellowships, now all who believed were together and had all things in common, and they saw their possessions and good and divided them among all as anyone had made. Let me tell you first what this is not. This is not describing the first attempt at communal living. This is not the Bible's endorsement of Communism, Communism is indeed, it is the sharing of good, but it's mandatory sharing, compulsory and forced sharing on the basis that no one has the right to own anything. You don't have the right to own property. Again, it's forced, it's compulsory to have anything to do with generosity. So that's not Communism, but neither is it socialism. Socialism says, well it's okay to own things, you have the right to private property just not too much. By somebody else's standard, not only so, but you'll be made to give, the more you have, the more you give, but that's frighteningly close to home, especially in April I know, but still it's not that. This is not what's going on in Acts chapter 2. These individuals in this church were generous. Not because they were communists or socialists or because they had to. They were generous because they knew firsthand the generosity of God. The mentality in the early church was, God has given me so much in my life more than I deserve, let me help you. Let me make sure, let me give out of the generosity that God has just lavished upon me. The point of the text is generosity really has a charity. It's a lack of selfishness in the early church and you could say, really that's the heartbeat of Luke. It was his passion more than any other New Testament writer that his passion was telling people what they should do with their possessions and that their possessions should not have a tight hold upon them. Luke is the only one that gives us the story of the good Samaritan. He's the one who gives us the parable of the rich school that built these bigger and bigger barns. It was Luke that told us the story of the great banquet and all the people were invited, but then they said, we can't come because we've got to tend our fields and we've got to tend our cattle. Luke was the one who told us about the dishonest manager. He was the one who told us about the rich man in Lazarus. Luke is very quick to tell us what place our possessions should take in our lives and the danger of holding on to tightly. Rather than when you pray for this church, I hope that you pray for her fellowship, that you pray down from having prayed down to Coenina, real giving, mutual sharing kind of fellowship and pray out pettiness. Pray into this church, an early church kind of fellowship, very loving, very uplifting kind of fellowship and pray out in a personal drive. Pray out of the church, always pray daily that they would not be disgruntledness in the church. You realize those, when you join a church, you devote yourself, if you don't mind me saying, to a lot of silly people. You devote yourself to a lot of foolishness and the reason they were all sinners. You've just got to realize that, that's a good starting point, we're all sinners. And if you stick around here long enough, if you stick around for any church long enough, you're going to get hurt. You are, you're going to be disappointed, probably by me first. But if you've run for the hills, every time the pastor disappoints you, we're not going to have a church. So you have to understand at first and look again, look at verse 46, you'll love this. Continuing daily with one accord in the temple, breaking bread from house to house. Don't you love that? Ain't there food and gladness and simplicity of heart? They love having people in their homes, they love fixing meals and preparing them for people in need. Now obviously, this kind of thing is described in 46 and 47 as well can be overdone, it can be underdone. I think the question being, do you have people in your home? Do you open your home? Do you feed people that are in there just to have an object like to just end myself, you know, with the fat shakes up here? That you are a people that love to feed, you love to feed the pastor, sure you do. For let me point something out, Terry Johnson said this, there's a difference between entertaining and hospitality. Intertaining is done when it's convenient. Too often for personal glory, hospitality is shown as needs arise. That's what you've got to ask yourself. And just in that context, are you committed to the people in this church? Are you seeking fellowship with Christians? Are you seeking fellowship with your brothers and sisters in this family?
Long range of Christianity is not biblical. It's just isn't, it's no place, there's no flight board in this church. And that's what they do is somebody being shy or somebody personality. It has everything to do with realizing we're all sinners and we desperately need each other. And then we thrive in fellowship, our own fellowship with each other. The second work of the Spirit-filled Church is this devotion to fellowship, mutual caring, mutual support, the third is worship. Verse 42 continues step by step, apostles, doctrine, fellowship, and then thirdly, breaking a bread and in prayers. And when we look at the uses of that terminology in the breaking of bread, no doubt that's what Paul calls the Lord's Supper. The early church was obviously committed to the regular participation in the Lord's Supper if not weekly, certainly, regularly they were given to the Lord's Supper. And then we're said in prayers, as the plural noun preceded by a definite article actually reads, the prayers, more than likely this is a reference to formal prayers, prayer meetings, possibly. I don't know, but they were prayers formally presented. And some people say this verse 42 is characteristic of just what the church was doing generally. Others will say, no, this was, this is a list of what they were doing weekend and weekend. It really doesn't matter as long as you understand that the early church was committed to these elements of worship and so should we. Look at 46, the first part continuing daily, it says, day by day with one accord in the temple. Praise the God, that makes no strange to you. What are the Christians doing in the temple? Shouldn't they've gotten away from the temple? Actually, this is a transitional period. New faith, all habits, all they weren't about to miss a day of the time of prayer in the temple. This will come up again next week, Lord willing. Interestingly enough, the temple course sometimes referred to as the courtyard of the Gentiles. Do you know that? Let's just look at the typo and what I was reading. They could pack in 200,000 people in the temple course. And that's where they were going for this time of praising God. But worship is an ultimate priority in the early church. It's an ultimate priority for us in Trinity Church. That we are about the business of the very things which God has created us and that is worshipping the father-seek worshippers, which is only to say very simply that when the doors of the church are open for worship, you should be here, period. That's not a guilt trip and that's not trying to brow-beach or anything like that. That's just the fact that when the doors of this church are open, you should be here for worship. And do you know that the really this church doesn't ask a lot? It's not like you're going to be up here just all the time. And beside we're talking about his day, the Lord's day, and when the church doors are open again for worship, you should be here, Falcon, where would you rather be? Where would a Christian rather be? What is more moving in your life? You name one thing more moving throughout the week where you would be rather than raising up your voices with about 500 other people in one voice praising God. Where are you going to where you're going to find something more captivating than someone accomplishes ahead on the organ, lifting that organ up to the ceiling in praises to God? Where are you going to find that? Where are you going to find anything more challenging to your life, your mind, than the reading and the preaching of God's Word? Where would you find anything more soothing and repression than bowing your head with God's people and confessing your sin and realizing that your sins have been forgiven through Christ? Where would you rather be on a Sunday morning or Sunday evening right here with God's people? So let me ask before we move to the fourth and we'll do it quickly, but can you say that you are continually devoting yourself with seriousness and earnestness, devoting yourself to the truth and to fellowship and to the sacrament and to prayers to all of worship? Not only in this place, but in the privacy of your own home. Finally, evangelism in growth, 47, verse 47, really the second part is that the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. That may be another reason why they were going to the temple and again Lord willing will look closer to that next week. But one thing is certain God was adding to their numbers. You hear that? God was adding to their numbers. God saw my Peter preached, God added, sovereignliness, our apostles never wanted to forget that. Verse 3, verse 6, I planted a polished water but God gave the increase. Well, what were the people doing? What was their part? Obviously, they were living exemplary lives. Look at verse 47, it says praising God and having favor with all the people. Now listen to this, we need to know this, that their love, it was their charity, it was their godliness, their generosity, it was the way they treated one another, that got the attention of the pagans. And the pagans, the unbelievers, watching those Christians in the way they treated each other in such generosity, it was an attraction to the church and to come and to be saved so much so it was overheard. One of the pagans in the early church said, oh, how those Christians love one another. That's what needs to be said about us. You know, that needs to be said about us in the PCA in Montgomery. It should be said about young matters in Eastwood and Fates and Covenant and Trinity and people ought to see the PCA in pushing this church and they never hear a negative word. Come out of our mouths about any other church and all the unbelievers should look at our witness and say, oh, how those Presbyterians love one another. And they will be drawn to the unbelievers will be drawn to the figure, the opposite effect. If they hear you talking about a brother and sister and Christ within this church, do you think they're going to want to be a part of this fellowship? No way. But if they say your love, believe me, they will be drawn. I got a letter back this week from a guy in the Montgomery County jail listening to our services on the radio. He said, when I get out, you think that I'll be accepted in your church. I intend to write him back this week and tell him he better believe that he would be accepted in with wide open arms and law in this church. And obviously, their witness was aggressive. I think of a lot of safer places than the San Hedren to be witnessing in that day. They were very bold. So let me just say in closing that a spirit-filled church will grow. Trinity Presbyterian church will grow. God will honor preaching in prayer. Those are the two means that he says he will honor and grow the church, but you must be witnesses. You must live such lives in this town that people see your life and they praise God for it. And there's wrong of this church. You also need to invite people to church. Are you inviting people? You need to be inviting people to this church. You should covenant. You should say yourself, I'm going to make sure I invite this one person back through my back trouble the last two weeks. God has put somebody in my life. And I know I've got to ask that guy to this church. We need to do it. We need to be recognizing who the visitors are. You need to look for them in church on sunny mornings, tell them how glad you are. Just love all of them and that's what we need to do in this church. They need to see us as a place of great love. Children, you need to invite your friends. You ought to know, I think we're fifth grade enough in here. You're old enough to find out every person, your class, if they go to church alone, you should find out. And if they don't go to church, you invite them to church. And your mom and dad would be more than glad to go and pick up that child and bring them to our church. But it tastes boldness. But do you, can you imagine the joy of God adding to our numbers day by day? Perhaps they will. If he searches high and low and he finds men, women and children who are continually devoting themselves to truth and to each other and to worship and to evangelism, God would be pleased to send people to this church as we pray together.