Christ is Life Podcast

Okay. Well, with that being said, we are going to dive into God's Word together. And so if you have your Bible, if you have a device with a Bible app on it, I want to invite you to turn to Acts chapter two. We're going to be starting in verse 42 in just a moment, all the Scripture references will, of course, come up on the screens. But as we often say, I love for you to follow along in your own Bible, so that you can highlight you can take notes. You can write down the things that the Spirit is saying to you along the way. Acts two, we'll be in verse 42 in just a moment. This is week five of this message series that we've been in. We're going to work our way all the way through the entire book of Acts, verse by verse. And so we're just barely kind of getting started. But here is the scene, because we're jumping into the end of a chapter, and so we just need to be caught up make sure we're all on the same page. So far, we've noticed, and we've seen that Jesus has died on the cross for the sins of the entire world as the payment for the sins of the entire world. Three days later, God raised Him from the dead. He met with the disciples off and on for 40 days and continued to teach them. One of the last things that we saw him say in Acts one to them was to wait on the promise of the Holy Spirit, and then when the Holy Spirit came, they would receive power, and they would be his witnesses all throughout that community region and all around the world in Acts chapter two, after they waited on the Spirit, the Holy Spirit came and moved in power so much so that it garnered the attention of 1000s of people who were in Jerusalem, and they came to see what was going on. And now Peter, one of the disciples that had spent three years with Jesus and was now filled with the power of the Holy Spirit, stood up, and the Holy Spirit is going to speak through him, or did speak, excuse me, through him to share the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, all that was going on, what was happening in that moment at Pentecost was the finished work of the Cross for God to send his one and only Son through the Incarnation, to come and be born, to take on an additional nature, to live a perfect life, to die as a sacrifice, substituting himself for each one of us and paying the penalty for the sins of the world, rising from the dead and then the sending of the Spirit. And he just kept pointing to Scripture over and over again to show them, this is what was happening. And as their eyes began to be opened again by the power of the Holy Spirit, 3000 of them responded and said, Oh my gosh, we missed Jesus. We missed it. We're cut to the heart with our sin and what we've done. What can we
do?
And the Holy Spirit led Peter to say, to repent, to change your mind about who Jesus was, and to put your faith and trust in Him and be baptized. And 3000 of them were they had their lives transformed and changed in that moment. And that is where we left off last week. So now with 3120
people that have put their faith in Jesus and had the Holy Spirit come to dwell in them. What do they do? What happens to them? I'm going to read through the entire passage we're looking at today, and then we'll go back and break it down, verse by verse. Acts 242, says they those 3120
people who had now had their sins forgiven and the Holy Spirit deposited in them, they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship. A highlight underline that word, fellowship right there. We'll come back to it in a moment, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles, all the believers were together. Had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day, they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people and the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. So
we have 3000 people that come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. They're empowered by the Holy Spirit now, and the very first thing that we are told about their new life in Christ is not their individual walks and personal relationship with Jesus, but their lives together. Over and over again. You see the words together together. They were together. You get the sense that they were involved in community. As a matter of fact, I told you to underline or highlight this word here in the very beginning, that they devoted themselves. One of the things that he mentioned there was fellowship. Now you and I, if we're we've grown up in church. We've been a part of church for any time we hear, okay, we have a fellowship. We're involved in a Sunday school class. We're gonna have a fellowship this month, and in our minds, that means there's a social coming up.
We get to go have fun and hang out together, and that can be a good thing, but when they're using the word fellowship, here, it's the Greek word Koinonia. And Koinonia is so much more than just a social event where we get together and have some fun or some relational time together. As a matter of fact, Koinonia is the word that Luke is using here in a number of times, and the biblical writers often use to talk about the unique, the one and only kind of relationship that you can experience through having a common faith in Jesus Christ. Luke wasn't the only one to use it. The apostle John used it here and helps us see a little bit more about what we're talking about. And John in the letter, he wrote first, John, chapter one, verse three, he says, We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so that you may have Koinonia with us and our Koinonia is with the Father and this and with the son and with Jesus. And so we see that there's this unique relationship that he's inviting them to have with them, but that that fellowship comes through the relationship with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit being deposited in to them. And so there's this, this unique relationship between you and I and all those who receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. We share life through the Holy Spirit, and while we certainly have a personal, intimate walk with Jesus and can talk to him and experience Him in our own lives, wherever it is that we're at if we're by ourselves, we're never, ever alone. It's not just that. It's never just that we share in that union with Jesus together to become brothers and sisters in Christ. Here's the way that Gary Burge writes about this in his commentary on acts and this meaning of Koinonia a little bit long, but it's so good, I hope you'll really pay attention to what he says here fellowship. Koinonia is not just the coincidence of a shared experience of God, where we compare our private spiritual walks. It is living and experiencing the father and the son together as believers Christian Fellowship Koinonia is triangular. He says, My life in fellowship Koinonia with Christ, your life in Koinonia with Christ, and my life in Koinonia with yours. The mystical union I enjoy with Christ becomes the substance that binds the church together. Therefore, as a result, Christian community, Koinonia, fellowship, is not some passing association of people who share common sympathies for a cause, nor is it an academy where intellectual consensus about God has discovered it cannot be so superficial. He says,
Christian community, Koinonia, fellowship is partnership in experience. It is the common living of people who have a shared experience of Jesus Christ. They talk about this experience, they urge each other to grow more deeply in it, and they discover that through it, they begin to build a life together unlike any shared life in the world,
the relationships that you and I get to experience through a common sharing of the Holy Spirit, the third member of the Trinity, the eternal Holy Spirit, unites us together in a way that is unlike. We get to share a life in the Holy Spirit through Christ that is unlike anything else that's found in the entire world. There is no relationship
that will match the union and relationship that we share together. And so when we talk about life in the Spirit, I mean, that's what this series is, life in the Spirit, we're learning, what does life in the Spirit looks like? Look like? Well, life in the Spirit is shared life with other believers. It's a shared life that we have with Christ in an individual way, and that we share together, which plays itself out in doing life together. And so that's the first thing that I just I wanted to read the whole passage to go we've got to get the sense and see overall that when these 3000 people have their lives transformed and changed forever, the first thing that we see is not just, how do they live out their own personal walks with Jesus, it's, how do we live it out together as the church? And so this is important for us to see as we go back and now break down what this shared life together really does look.
Flag and how the Holy Spirit works in us and through us as the church. The first thing that we saw that the Holy Spirit does when he pulls people together as the church is he leads them to devote themselves to the apostles teaching. Now, why is that so important? Well, that's important first and foremost, because we know that the apostles did what for three years, they spent life with Jesus. Jesus taught them publicly. He taught them privately. And now we even have record in John 14 of when Jesus was teaching them about the Holy Spirit that was going to come, he said that he would remind one of the roles of the Holy Spirit, is that he would remind them of the truth and the things that he said. So now the Holy Spirit's living in them. Now they're around all these other people. He's reminding them of all the things that Jesus taught them, and then using them, using him and the other disciples, Peter and them to teach them what truth?
Why is that so important?
Because there is an enemy,
and the enemy is out to steal, to kill and destroy, and his number one tactic that he uses to steal, kill and destroy and rob you from experiencing the abundant life that you were created to experience is through lies and deception.
Satan's role is to lie and to deceive you. He does not want you to know the truth about who the real God is, which is why we spent a whole summer series going over the attributes of God, so that we would know who the real God is the truth. He
doesn't want you to know who you are. In Christ. He doesn't want you to know that you've been regenerated, that you have been reborn, that you have new life in Christ and you are so different than you were before you said, Yes, Satan doesn't want you to know that. He doesn't want you to believe that he doesn't want you to know that the Holy Spirit empowers you to also work through you in a way that makes Kingdom impact and real things that matter out in this world and will be talked about for all of eternity. He doesn't want you to know the truth about that. He's gonna lie to you, keep it from you, deceive you, or even if you do kind of find out, well, that's not really true about you. And so this is what the apostles are doing. They're teaching them about who God really is. Their new life in Christ, how the Holy Spirit works in and through them as well. So with that being said, with them, good for them, they had the apostles, and they got to spend time listening and devote themselves the early church. Ah, missed out on it, right? Well, no,
here's here's what John Stott says about where the way this plays out for us. He says, Since the teaching of the apostles has come down to us in its definitive form in the New Testament. What does that mean?
Jesus spent time with them, taught them truth. Holy Spirit comes in them, reminds them of that truth. They taught it to them, and they what. They wrote it down. So they used the apostles to write the Gospels, and everything in the New Testament was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write down the apostles teachings so you and I can devote ourselves to their teachings through the what New Testament. And that's what he goes on to say. So since that's true, contemporary devotion to the apostles teaching will mean what submission to the authority of the New Testament. What is a spirit filled church? A spirit filled church is a New Testament Church in the sense that it studies and submits to New Testament instruction the Spirit of God leads the people of God to submit to the Word of God.
Amen. Amen.
Now does that mean that we throw out the Old Testament? No, all scriptures God breathed. It's all useful in ways, but we filter, we look at it through New Covenant lenses. We've got to read the Old Covenant with New Covenant lenses to see what still applies to us and doesn't apply to us in the way that God transformed and worked through all of that, and it plays out in our lives today. But it is important that we talk about God's word and the authority of the scriptures, because this is the apostles teaching and what they devoted themselves. This is what life in the Spirit looks like us submitting ourselves to the Word of God
so that we can know the truth about him, the truth about ourselves and the way he works in and through us. So they devoted themselves the Holy Spirit. Life in the spirit looks like learning and teaching and all of the things from the Apostles in His word and to fellowship. Koinonia, we've already talked about that. The third thing that we see in the opening verse is that the Holy Spirit led them. Life and the spirit looks like breaking bread together. The disciples who spent that three years with Jesus, on the night before he went to the cross, shared the Last Supper, the Passover meal, with them, and he took the bread and he took the wine, and he used those elements to say this.
This bread represents my body that's going to be given for you on the cross. This wine represents the blood that was be going to be paid for the sins of the world. And then what
did he tell them do this in remembrance of me?
So the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in them, the church is formed, and now the Holy Spirit is leading them to lead the rest of the church to remember him, through what the Lord's Supper, through those elements in this finished work and in remember, because we're going to do this later. This is not just about, oh yeah, that's that thing that we do that helps us remember that Jesus forgives us. Now the full work of the cross means that we're forgiven. The Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us. The Holy Spirit breathes new life. We become a completely different person. On the inside, we're born again. We're new creations in Christ, and we're united together as a church. And so when we partake of the Lord's Supper. And we're looking at the bread and the juice. We're reminding ourselves of the complete finished work of the Cross, all that that's taken place and changed in me, and that I get to be a part of now. And so the Holy Spirit, life in the Spirit, looks like participating in the Lord's supper together. And we will be doing that later on in the service as well. And then finally, the last thing we see, again, the opening verse, apparently we hear for two hours today,
is to prayer. Right to prayer. And again, we think, okay, yes, that's the thing where I go into my closet, or I kneel at my bed and I spend time individually praying. And yes, the Holy Spirit is going to lead us into that he did in Jesus's life. I mean, he Jesus retreated to solitude and spent time in prayer, and so expect him to lead that way. But again, in this context, it's all what? Together, together, together, Koinonia, fellowship. So this prayer is community. Prayer together and listen. I've I love my prayer, time with Jesus and alone and just me and him, the intimacy, and it's sweet, but man, there is something about when we come together and I get to pray with you, and when I'm praying, sometimes other people will agree with me in what I'm saying, and they'll kind of give a little bit of a soft Amen or Yes, Lord, Do that. Like I'm in agreement with what he just prayed. And all of a sudden, you know what happens in me? Like, oh, I'm fired up now, like we're about to pray, we're about to get in and give him some more, right? Like he's using you in prayer together to get us going about what he's doing in that moment. And then when I hear you praying and going, Oh, that's what's on their heart and the way they're giving glory or honor or this difficult season, and I can agree with you in that. And so my point is, if
we're talking about life in the Spirit, one of the ways that the Spirit will lead us to live that out is to pray together. And some of you are going, Yeah, I don't really do that. Well, if you were submitted to the Holy Spirit, you would, that's what it says. And so don't put yourself in a box and God in a box and just go, Hey, I'm afraid I'm gonna get graded, you know, like, Oh, everybody else is going, that was a c minus prayer, right there? No, no. It's the Spirit leading you and doing whatever it is that he does. So my point is, don't miss out on part of life in the Spirit
when we're praying and we're involved in it together, and he's leading you to pray. Then you pray and forget about whatever else is going on. Hey, we made it to verse 43 we're gonna pick up some steam. Now here we go. Everyone was filled with awe and at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. Now, if you go back and you read the gospels, which is all about the life of Jesus, Christ and the disciples, time with them, you'll see a number of wonders and signs that were performed by who
Jesus, right? Jesus performed those signs. But here's the thing, Jesus is fully God, and he's fully man. And in Philippians two, we're taught that he made his deity as if it was no account. So in other words, he didn't take advantage of it. He was still God, but he lived out of his humanness, and he submitted to the Holy Spirit to do these things in and through him. So the Holy Spirit produced wonders and signs through Jesus, the God man, and then the Spirit gets deposited in the apostles in the early church. And that same spirit that did those wonders and signs through Jesus is doing what
wonders and signs through them. And people see supernatural acts that are happening, and they're filled with awe and respect and probably fear at times. But this gives validity. People are looking going, what is this whole community thing about? Well, God is showing them. This is a movement from God, supernatural things are happening that you cannot explain any other way. Verse 44 all the believers were together. There's that word again, they were together. They.
Had things in common. There's Koinonia. There's sharing of things. Specifically. How did that play out? Verse 45 they sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. When you see this word sold here, what you don't maybe see is the way it's written in the original Greek has the idea of ongoing, like it wasn't a one time, okay, they sold everything that they ever had. No one had any individual possessions or private property, and they just shared everything. So sounds kind of like communism or something, right? Well, no, no, he's saying it was ongoing. So if they were selling things as need arise, then that means that they continue to have what private property that they could sell otherwise they wouldn't have had anything to continue to sell when the need arises. And so that's the first thing that we want to see here. What does that mean for us? Well, Jesus gives us possessions as our provider, but he doesn't just give them to us. For us,
there is an aspect of that, but all of our stuff is ultimately his stuff, and then we bring it before him. Life in the Spirit will look like, hey, if someone else is in need, the spirit is going to use me to share my stuff with them, maybe even sell some of my stuff to help give them something that they need, knowing that he'll continue to provide for me, but the way that he wanted to provide through them was through me as the vessel and the instrument. This is life in the Spirit, life as the church together looks like us taking our things before the Lord and saying, how do you want me to use them to worship and glorify and honor you and help people who are in need. Verse 46 every day they continued to meet. Oh, well, together again, right in the temple courts. Well, I thought this was the New Covenant. Why are they going to the temple? I thought that meant we were done with all of these sacrifices and all the things that they had to make, isn't that? Yes, we that is what that meant. But watch, the temple is where people would gather. This is where people would go in the community. And so watch the Holy Spirit is indwelling them now. He's leading to them to this new life in this community and all these things together through their shared experiences. But what did Jesus tell them was going to happen when the Holy Spirit came on them in Acts? Chapter one, verse eight,
you'll have power to be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and all the way to the ends of the earth. In other words, it's going to be outward focused. So he sends them into the temple, where there are people who are going to be gathered, who don't yet know Jesus, who are still doing the sacrifices and all the things of the Old Covenant, because they haven't produced or put their faith and trust in Jesus as the one time sacrifice for all of their sins. And they're building relationships with unbelievers there, and they're serving unbelievers there, and they're sharing the gospel with unbelievers there. How do we know this to be true? Because at the very end of it that I read to you, what are we told
the Lord added to their number daily? Well, how could he add to their number daily if they weren't in relationships with people who weren't part of their number already,
you see, so that even though there's so much of this is about life together, there's a way that the Spirit uses that to capture the attention of the world and go, Whoa. That community doesn't look like anything I've ever seen. What is that about? And an aspect of this where that community moves into other parts in the community to be around unbelievers and share with life, life with them, and serve them and love them and the gospel with them, so the Lord can add, continue to add to his number daily
verse 46 continues. They broke, broke bread in their homes and ate, oh, wow, together again, right, with glad and sincere hearts. This time when we see bread here, we're not really referring to the Lord's Supper in an official way. We're talking about they met together in homes and they ate together. Apparently, life in the Spirit looks like inviting people over for dinner and enjoying a meal together.
Did you know that?
I don't know life in the Spirit is prayer and and scripture reading and being here on Sundays and in kneeling and the all yes. And life in the Spirit is inviting people over for dinner, sitting at the table and sharing a meal. Why? Why in the world, would that be a spiritual activity?
Well, have you ever noticed how the best conversations, like the best conversations, happen, where
around a table in a home?
I mean, you've had conversations with people in here and they were maybe good, but it's usually, Hey, how's it going good? Hey, how you doing good? Okay, we talked, right? You went to Sunday school. Maybe you went a little bit deeper and talked about some things there. But my guess is that when you've been in someone's home, you've been sitting around a table, all of a sudden things get real, like I can let my guard down around here. I can talk about real things that are going on in my life, and then other people are helping me and encouraging me and promoting truth in front of me and pointing me to Jesus and all of those things. And let's be honest. I mean, the joy of the Lord is our strength. He gives joy, fruit of the Holy Spirit, right? And so we're not even gonna say, Listen, if the Lord leads you to invite someone over and enjoy a meal, and there's laughter, and there's telling stories, and you're just having fun and enjoying some great food that the Lord blessed you with together, that's still life in the Spirit. It's the joy of the Lord.
So where we going for lunch today?
Your house? No, but let's, let's not, you know what? I mean, let's not just put it in a box and go, Okay, maybe this is what the Lord is leading you. I mean, we're asking ourselves throughout this, this whole thing, what is the Lord wanting to do in and through me and life in the Spirit looks like maybe one of the things he's going I need to invite more people into my home, how to be doing life together and sharing meals with people in this kind of way. Okay?
Verse 47 says praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people life in the Spirit
means that the Spirit will lead us to worship,
to praise God. Sometimes that may be around a dinner table,
maybe in a home. I mean, we have a young adult life group that meets in our home every other week, and they come over and just what we do, we have a meal, and we talk around the meal, and everybody laughs, and it's great, and we're building relationships and hearing stories and all the things that are happening, and sometimes they'll bring guitars, and we'll sit in our living room or the area upstairs, and we'll sing together, and we'll praise the Lord together, and then we'll talk about the sermon and how it plays out in their lives, or the questions that they had, the things they didn't agree with, or what didn't make sense, and all the above and just working that all the way down. But then it also happens, of course, here, I mean, this is what we gather together for each and every Sunday to praise God and to worship life in the Spirit means he's going to bring us together to worship
and I would venture to say that life in the Spirit means probably more so than the average church attender,
because statistics say that most people attend church once a month, sometimes twice a month. And so I'm doubting very seriously that the Holy Spirit, life in the Spirit, is going, Yeah, I want you to be together with other believers, praising and worshiping God 12 times a year out of the 52 Sundays that we can gather together.
So maybe we're going, Oh, okay, yes, it looks like us being in it, enjoying all of this together. And then finally, is what we get to, where we we we said this earlier and pointed to the reference of them going to the temple courts and using their community, and the Lord added to their number daily those who are being saved. So now there's more than 3120
disciples, because the Spirit is at work. But here's what I just need us to focus on as we finish our time,
the Lord added to that number.
Notice then what it doesn't say
in all the people who walked into their community and fellowship signed their name up for a membership on a roll.
It doesn't say that they paid some dues to be a part of a club.
It doesn't say that they joined a service club or a social club.
They didn't do anything. They received it in the Lord added to the number those were being saved, in other words, to become a part of the Church takes a supernatural experience in your life. It's not something you can just go, You know what? I'm going to start being a part of the church. You can come and attend a gathering that happens in a church building, but you cannot become a part of the church, unless you enter into a saving relationship with Jesus Christ, where you recognize that your sin separates you from a holy and a perfect God, and put your faith and trust in Jesus to be your Lord and Savior, to apply that forgiveness that He purchased for you, to you and to have the Holy Spirit come dwell in you, uniting you to him, the head.
And to each other, the members of the Body of Christ, it takes the Lord doing that work in and through you.
And so as we look at that, and we think about that, as far as the way of application today with all of these verses, let's start with this, right? Maybe that's what the Lord's leading you to do. Become part of the church like, like, the Lord adds you into the number. Well, how does he do that? Well, it's his work that he does that you just received. I've said it a billion times before, if I wanted to give you my cell phone, you'd have to, you can have it. You just got to come receive it. You got to grab it, right? And it's like, here's your forgiveness. You can be a part of the church. You can have new life in you, and your life changed forever, but you've got to receive it, and the way that we receive it is putting our faith and trust in Jesus for salvation, and then he does that work of leading us into his own family. Now for some of you, you've said yes to Jesus. You are a part of the overall, what we would call the universal capital C church, because the moment we have a salvation experience, we're united to every other believer across the world who has also said yes to Jesus. And we're all part of the church, regardless of whatever denomination you say, if you have put your faith and trust in Jesus, we're all together church, but
you're not really a part of a local church.
You come here, maybe you go visit a bunch of other places, but you just kind of attend, right? And so again, you saw all the things that we talked about today, the Holy Spirit. Life in the spirit is learning together, praying together, praising together, eating together, meeting these together, witnessing together, being a part of something together. And there is a response of life in the spirit that says, hey, I'm leading you to get plugged in and not just attend and kind of show up and watch something and leave, but to do these things that I want to work out in your life, in the context with other people together. And so maybe you've been coming for a few weeks, maybe you've been coming for a few months. Some of you may have been coming here for years and just attending, but you've never yet taken the step of membership. And
so maybe that's one of the steps that the Lord is leading you to take today. And then finally, if you look at this list and you go, Okay, well, I've officially joined and partnered together in those things. Well, how's that continuing to play out for you?
Like, does this describe life in the Spirit with you? Do you find him leading you and working through you to learn together in this setting and in Sunday school and other groups, and praying together with other people and praising and eating and all of these things. And if not, then what's the next step for you?
Is it more regular? This? Is it getting involved in a Sunday school class? Is it? Is it a small group and inviting people over? You know, together we're in the work we had a discipleship group of leaders come to my house to eat dinner, to eat together, and to praise together, and to study and pray all the things together, to lead us in where we think we're going together in discipleship, and how he's leading us to help make sure that we're discipling people and growing in their relationships. And as we walked through that, the main thing that we felt the Holy Spirit saying, If I could sum it up, in the in the eight weeks that we're saying is moving
into more of a relational based discipleship setting, that there are certainly times for learning together, and we see all of that stuff and focusing on kind of an educational aspect of things. But what we really see when we see all of these things happening together is discipleship happens in the context of relationships with other people over meals and eating and praying and talking and discussing and all of those things. And so we have some some nine month home groups that are meeting right now with some leaders that will walk through things this first year and help transition into some formal things, hopefully that we have opportunities for people. But I'm just going to go ahead and say it, and I didn't even plan on it or whatever, if the Holy Spirit is leading you to start getting together in homes with other people, and eating together and praising together and learning together and meeting needs together, and all of those things. You don't have to sit around and wait on something formal for us to offer you. Just grab some people and start. There's testimonies of people in these pews that did just that, and their group began to meet over meals and do things, and I'll print out sermon based discussion questions every single week, where you could just print them out or look them up on the website. Somehow we'll figure that out. And you just gather together with your people, and you eat and you go, here's the questions. What does this mean to you? What questions do you have, and how does this break down and work out in your life? And so maybe that is something that the Holy Spirit is leading you to do based on what we've.
Talked about today. So whether the Lord's leading you to take that step of putting your faith and trust in Him and becoming part of the church, becoming a member of this church, getting more involved together, or it playing out in a certain way, where life together is what the Lord's dealing you with and around then you respond however the Lord's leading you, as we pray you.