ACTS 2:37-47 A CHURCH EMPOWERED BY THE SPIRIT2016 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Acts 2:37-47 A Church Empowered By The Spirit

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2016. Well, this evening we're going to be looking at Acts chapter 2 and finishing up the chapter with verses 37 through 47. And so let's begin by reading through that passage together. Acts chapter 2 verse 37 says...

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said to them, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are afar off.

Verse 41. Verse 41.

And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread and in prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. Verse 44. Now all who believed were together and had all things in common and sold their possessions and goods and divided them among all as anyone had need.

So continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. Here as we finish up Acts chapter 2, the title of the message tonight is, "'A Church Empowered by the Spirit.'"

And what we see here in the final portion of Acts chapter 2 is really the establishing of the church. The Holy Spirit's been at work this day. It's been a big day. It's the day of Pentecost. That's what's happening all throughout Acts chapter 2. And we've spent the past few weeks looking at different aspects of this day of Pentecost. Starting in the beginning of chapter 2 when the Holy Spirit is poured out upon the disciples. And

As they were there waiting, as Jesus said, he told them to go out into the world and make disciples, but wait, don't go just yet. Wait for the promise of the Holy Spirit.

And so they were in Jerusalem waiting, as Jesus said, and then on the day of Pentecost, while they were gathered together in the upper room, there was a sound of a mighty rushing wind, and the Holy Spirit came upon them, and there was this like tongues of fire that was over each of them, and there was this mighty work that was going on. They began to speak in tongues, and it was such a commotion that

The people around them, whether they were at the temple or a house nearby the temple, there was a large group of people that could hear the commotion that was going on. And so they gathered together and then Peter stands up to address them.

Now the people are a little bit confused and they say, well, maybe, you know, they're just drunk and this is just a commotion from drunkenness. And Peter stands up and corrects them and says, this is not about drunkenness. It's only nine o'clock in the morning. This is a work of the Holy Spirit and the fulfillment of Joel chapter two. The Holy Spirit has been poured out upon these people.

And so as he begins now to preach the message, he goes into the gospel. He first, you know, explains they're not drunk, they're filled with the Spirit, but then he boldly testifies of Jesus. And you can see the empowering of the Holy Spirit in his life because he is bold and clear in his presentation of who Jesus is as the Savior. And he concludes his message really in verse 36, saying, therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly

And so he makes it very clear as he's preaching to these Jews who have gathered together. He says, You crucified the Lord and the Savior.

And so as he preaches this message, there's a boldness that he has, there's a clarity that he has, and then we'll get now to see the response of that message in the verses we're looking at this evening.

But as we look at these things unfold, what we're looking at again is the establishing of the church. Prior to this, they were gathered together. Prior to this, there was the times of prayer. But really what makes the church the church is the working of the Holy Spirit, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And so we often look to this as the beginning of the church.

even though they had gathered together prior to this. This is now the fulfillment of the things that Jesus had said of what the Holy Spirit would do amongst the gathering of believers. And so there's four characteristics we're going to look at as we see the result of what unfolds here as these people gather together, empowered by the Spirit. And as we look at each of these four characteristics, I would ask you to consider the

Is this a characteristic that's demonstrated in our midst? This is good for us to consider as a church. And as we're gathered together this evening, you need to know the church isn't the building. The church is us gathering together. You know, if we were at, you know, the Denny's down the street or at Farmer Boy's across the street, and we were gathered together going over these same things, it's still the church. It's not about where we meet, but it's about us gathering together and

And so as we consider these things for our own selves, are we a church that manifests these characteristics as well? And of course, as we look at those characteristics and consider our fellowship, our church, we also need to understand that the only way for us to be a church that's empowered by the Spirit is for us individually to be empowered by the Spirit. The only way for us to be a church that's empowered by the Spirit is for us to be empowered by the Spirit individually.

ourselves. And then as we gather together, we're a church empowered by the Spirit. And for these characteristics to be at work in our midst, these characteristics need to be at work in our personal lives as well. And so there's some good things for us to consider about who God's called us to be as the church here as we look at the final portion of Acts chapter 2.

A church empowered by the Spirit. The first point we'll find in verses 37 through 39, and that is a church empowered by the Spirit calls people to repentance. That's the first thing we see here in verse 37. It says, And then in verse 38, Peter says to them, repent.

The people here are responding to the message that Peter has been preaching. He's been very clearly and boldly declaring who Jesus is and what has happened to him and the fact that he has been crucified. He is the Savior. He is God. And yet he was put to death for no crime of his own.

And as he's explaining this, as he's explaining the truth about Jesus, it tells us in verse 37 that they hear this and they're cut to the heart.

Have you ever been cut to the heart? You know, like, man, the Holy Spirit is just able just to take a word and just take it right to the core of your being. And that's how it is. They're experiencing. This isn't like they've never heard these kinds of things. They were probably, you know, likely part of the whole process as Jesus was crucified not that long ago. They were around for that. They'd heard about that.

But now at this time, at this occasion, the Holy Spirit has been poured out and he brings this message right to their heart. They're cut to the heart. It's a work of the Holy Spirit. It's a work that only the Holy Spirit can do.

I know that there's many times that we wish we could cut people to the heart with, you know, our words. You know, we can cut people and hurt people with our words, but we can't cut to the heart like the Holy Spirit can and really reach to the core of what's going on within a person. That's a work of the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit uses the Word of God and the gospel message to do that.

You might remember in Ephesians chapter 6, as Paul talks about the armor of God, he refers to the sword of the Spirit, and he says that's the Word of God. It cuts to the heart. It pierces. Hebrews tells us, you know, it's sharper than any two-edged sword. It divides between joint and marrow. It's able to cut through and to really deal with the core issues that are going on within.

Well, as the Holy Spirit cuts to the heart, there's two kinds of responses that we see in the scriptures to that. You can have a rejection and a hardening of your heart whenever you're cut to the heart, or you can have a softening and a receiving whenever the Holy Spirit cuts you to the heart.

Later on, we'll see in Acts chapter 7, Stephen brings forth the gospel message to religious leaders. And as he goes down the history of their people and talks about who Jesus is and what happened to him, it tells us in Acts chapter 7 verse 54 that the people were cut to the heart and then they gnashed at him with their teeth and then they take him outside and they stone him.

And so here you have a people that are cut to the heart. The Holy Spirit really has struck the core of who they are. But instead of submitting to that and receiving that, they reject it and they put the messenger to death. Well, here in Acts chapter 2, we don't have that kind of response. Instead, we have the good response. In verse 37, it tells us, they say to Peter and the rest of the guys, what shall we do?

What shall we do since we have crucified Christ, since Christ has been crucified in this way, since this is who Jesus is? I kind of like this. The crowd interrupts and gives their own altar call. That would be quite a church service to watch, right? Or quite a harvest crusade to watch, right? Where the crowd interrupts and says, what do we need to do? Like, get to the point. We want to get right with God. We want to receive Jesus Christ. The people are convinced Jesus is the promised Savior.

The people are convinced we crucified him. Now, what do we do? We recognize that Jesus is the Savior, but what do we do about that? And how do we respond to that? When the Holy Spirit cuts a person to the heart, they have the option to fight against it or to receive it. And it's not up to us to manufacture that. We can't force someone to receive something.

It's up to them as the Holy Spirit does the work. And we can't cut people to the heart. That's a work of the Holy Spirit. It gives a little bit of freedom because you can see Peter's message here was not like mind-blowing. I mean, look at the physics, you know, that he used to demonstrate the gospel. Look at, you know, his knowledge of, I mean, very basic. He tells them who Jesus is, what happened to Jesus, and they're cut to the heart.

It's not up to us to manufacture a situation or a scenario where someone is cut to the heart. We don't have to manipulate people or trick them or, you know what I mean? Like, get them in an emotional state. Like, if you can just get them crying, you know, then you can give them the gospel and they'll receive Jesus. No, our job is to share the truth as best we can and let the Holy Spirit do what he wants and let the person respond the way that they want. Some will receive and some will reject.

But these guys, their hearts soft and they say, oh my goodness, we're cut to the heart. What do we do? And so Peter gives them the instruction in verse 38. He says, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Peter responds to this question. What do we need to do to be saved? What do we need to do because this is who Jesus is? And he highlights really three things. Repent, be baptized, and receive the Spirit. Repent, be baptized, and receive the Spirit. Now, when he tells them to repent, it's a word that means regret, regret.

But not just sorry for, you know, something that we did or sorry for something that happened. It's regret that's accompanied by a true change of heart. There's a real change that happens with repentance. It's not just, you know, I wish it had gone better. I wish it didn't happen that way or I wish I hadn't got caught. But it's a real change of heart in that I'm not going to do that again. I'm not going to live that way again. I'm not going to behave that way again.

And as Peter calls them to repentance, specifically, he's talking about a true change of heart regarding Jesus. It's a true change of heart about who Jesus is. You used to believe one thing about Jesus, but as he calls them to repentance, he's calling them

To believe the truth about Jesus and receive Jesus as he is, as he's been explaining, this is who Jesus is and this is what Jesus did. This is what Jesus requires. Now accept that.

and live accordingly. That's repentance as he calls them to repentance. The commentator Thomas Constable puts it this way. He says, if a person just thinks of repentance as turning from sinful practices, repentance becomes a good work that a person does. And a lot of times I think we do think of repentance this way. It's like, you got to stop doing the bad stuff. There's a part of that in repentance, but that's just one part of repentance.

And if all we think about repentance is you got to stop doing the bad stuff, then when we're sharing with people the gospel, we can kind of turn it into, you know, just clean up your life and live a more moral life and try to do better at life and try not to do so much bad stuff and commit so many crimes. But repentance is more than that. It's first and foremost, a change of heart about the Lord.

and accepting him as Lord and Savior, and submitting our lives to him. Turning from sinful practices is part of the work that God does within us as we accept who Jesus is and follow him. And so repentance is turning from what we used to think, our mind, our heart, our attitude about the Lord, and turning away from that to turn to

to accept Jesus as he is and walk with him and pursue him and love him. Now, this is really important for us because I think many times we get distracted by sinful practices. As we're talking with people, we can be preaching reformation instead of repentance. Again, just, you know, you need to clean up your life. And sometimes we talk about getting back to church. You know, it's like, you know, it's those good things that you need to be doing, but

But if we're not careful, we can be preaching, you know, just be moral, be good. And now we're kind of relating to the Lord as if he's Santa Claus, you know, like you got to have, you know, good things on the list and not be on the naughty list. And, you know, we got to be careful that that's not the gospel message. The gospel message isn't just, you know, stop doing bad things or try to do better. The gospel message is accept the truth about Jesus and submit your life to him.

And so as he calls them to repentance, that's what he's calling them to. And of course, as they submit their life to the Lord and follow the Lord, then while those sinful practices, he'll also be dealing with. But sometimes we get distracted by those things and forget about the truth and forget about the core issue. It's about Jesus. It's about loving him and submitting your life to him and receiving what he has accomplished for us.

And so Peter calls them to repent, to be baptized, and to receive the Spirit. He says in verse 38, You need to understand this is not baptism in order to be saved. It's baptism because you are saved.

When he says, be baptized in the name of Jesus for the remission of sins, it can also be translated because of the remission of sins. In other words, as you repent, you're forgiven. And because you've been forgiven, be baptized. That's the idea here that Peter is explaining here.

repentance is internal. It's the acceptance of the truth of who Jesus is and submission to him. Baptism then is the external declaration of the truth of who Jesus is and your submission to him. And so baptism is the reflection. It's the public declaration of what you do internally in repentance as you accept the Lord and submit yourself to him. Now, this would have been an interesting topic

call for these people in that day because the Jews understood and had a baptism practice. Of course, they had seen the ministry of John the Baptist, but even prior to that, they knew of baptism because, well, they used baptism as part of the process of a Gentile becoming a Jew. If they were converting to Judaism, part of the process, well, part of it would include circumcision,

Part of it would include certain sacrifices, and part of it would include, well, come into the pool, be baptized, and as you come out now, now you are part of the Jewish family. Now you are part of the Jewish religion, and it signified for them a new identity. You used to be a Gentile, and now you are a Jew.

That was their understanding of baptism. That was how they used baptism. It was familiar to them. And the Lord doesn't really use baptism in a different way. It just is applied to something else.

So that as they are baptized, as Peter calls them to baptism, they understood he's calling them to conversion. He's calling them to change and to take on a new identity and to publicly proclaim, okay, I am going into the water this way, but I'm coming out as a follower of Christ. And it would be for them a very public and probably a very costly choice.

especially as they were there in the temple. Now, you'll see in a few moments, 3,000 people believe and are baptized. And the temple, a lot of times when we look at the temple, we're just looking at the inside of the temple, right? The furnishings, the light, you know, the table with the showbread and the altar of incense. We look at those things. Outside of the temple, inside the temple, that's where the priests were. Only the priests were there. But outside of the temple, that's where the people were.

And there was a huge courtyard and there were rooms that you could use. There was feasts that were going on because the sacrifices were really, you know, like fiestas. You offer part of it to the Lord, but the rest of it, you chow down with your friends, with your family. You have a fellowship feast together with the Lord there on the temple grounds.

On top of that, there was pools all over. And that was part of what they would do for the baptisms. But there was also these ceremonial washings and such. And so there was all of these pools available for them where the baptism would take place. But all that to say, when they were baptized that day, it was very public.

That was, you know, their friends and family were around there. They were watching them. They were seeing what was happening. It was in front of people. They were taking a stand and taking a new identity and say, I believe in Jesus. He's the Savior and I'm going to follow him. And it was a public declaration of that.

And so as Peter calls them to repentance, that's the internal. He calls them to be baptized. And that is now externally demonstrate that and declare that to all your friends, to all your family, to all of those who are around. It's a public declaration, a new identity where you now identify yourself with Jesus Christ and say, I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. Well, Peter says there at the end of verse 38, when you do that, you repent, you

you're baptized. He says, you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And so receiving the Spirit is the third part of this. And it's not something, you know, special that they have to do. He doesn't tell them, you know, here's, you know, here's the method, here's the formula. He says, you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. You're going to. It's a guarantee. It's a promise. You shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. You're going to.

Now remember, they had gathered together because of the commotion that they heard when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the believers. And so they gathered together. Peter explains, this is the work of the Holy Spirit. And now as they respond and say, what should we do? Peter says, well, repent, be baptized, and God's going to pour out his Holy Spirit upon you as well. Some scholars go back and forth. Is he talking about the indwelling of the Spirit or the empowering of the Spirit?

I would suggest he was saying both. You'll receive the power of the Holy Spirit. In verse 39, he says, for the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are afar off, as many as our Lord, as the Lord our God will call. Notice what he says. It's a promise. It's to you, he says to them. It's to your children and to all who are afar off. It's to whoever God will call.

And so as we've seen over the past few weeks in the book of Acts, we recognize the Holy Spirit is promised to every believer. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit happens for every believer, regardless of if you know it or not, whether you recognize it or not, it takes place. But then there's also the empowering of the Holy Spirit. And God intends for every believer to be empowered by the Holy Spirit. Now, what's the difference between these two? Well,

The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is received by every believer at conversion. When you believe in Jesus, you repent even before you're baptized. When you repent, change your mind about who Jesus is. You change your heart about who Jesus is and you accept him as Savior and Lord and you submit yourself to his authority. When you do that,

You receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It's received automatically. The Holy Spirit takes up residence within you. You're born again, and the Holy Spirit dwells within you permanently. It's a permanent condition. And the Holy Spirit then is at work within you, producing the fruit of the Spirit, transforming your life from the inside out. But then we also see the empowering of the Holy Spirit. And that is God.

Throughout the scriptures received by believers at various times. So it's not an automatic thing necessarily. And it's not, you know, a one-time thing, but it's received by asking and it's a repeated action. And we're commanded repeatedly to continue, to continue, to continue to ask God to fill us, to baptize us with his Holy Spirit.

And so there's this ongoing repetition of us being empowered by the Holy Spirit. And this is primarily for reaching unbelievers. The Holy Spirit, Peter describes as a gift and as a promise to all believers. This is a gift and a promise to you. As a believer in Jesus, you have the Holy Spirit indwelling. As a believer in Jesus, you have the opportunity for the Holy Spirit to empower you, to be a witness to Jesus.

But the difference really comes down to you need to ask. Ask God to empower you with the Holy Spirit, to fill you with the Holy Spirit, to give you the boldness to be like Peter and be able to bring the testimony of Jesus Christ to the world around you. And again, that brings us back to the message, a church empowered by the Spirit. When the Holy Spirit is upon a church, that church is calling people to repentance, repentance.

And so I would ask you to consider, is that a characteristic that we have here at Living Water? Do we call people to repentance? Are there these occasions where the Holy Spirit cuts to the heart as the truth about Jesus is clearly declared and people being cut to the heart have the opportunity to respond with repentance? We can only be a church that does this.

if we are people who do this? And so considering it a little bit further, are you a person who calls people to repentance? Now again, don't get distracted by all the sinful practices. That doesn't mean our job is to go around and point fingers at every wrong thing. But do we call people to repentance about who Jesus is? It only happens. It's only possible really for us as we're empowered by the Holy Spirit.

But as we're empowered by the Holy Spirit, our job is to share the truth about Jesus as best we can. And then we let the Holy Spirit do what he wants. And we let the person respond however they respond. We can't force anything. They have their choice and they have to work that out with the Lord. But our job is to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to share the truth about Jesus and call people to repentance.

To call them to correct their heart and their mind about who Jesus is and about their relationship with him. Are you that kind of person? We can only be that kind of church when we're that kind of people. Well, moving on to the point number two found in verses 40 and 41.

A church empowered by the Spirit grows as people receive the gospel. Check out verse 40 and 41. It says, And with many other words he testified and exhorted them, saying, Be saved from this perverse generation. Then those who gladly received his word were baptized, and that day about 3,000 souls were added to them. It kind of summarizes now. Peter comes to a climax with his message and says, This Jesus...

who God made Lord in Christ, you crucified him. And the people are cut to the heart. They say, what must we do? And he says a bunch of other things, Luke says here in verse 40, kind of summarizing the message that he gave there. But the bottom line is he was calling the people to be saved from this perverse generation. You need to be saved. You need to turn to the Lord. You need to call out to the Lord and be saved.

And it tells us in verse 41 that there were those who gladly received his word and those who did were baptized. And the result was 3,000 souls being added to the church. This is how the church from the very beginning began to grow. The day started out with 120 disciples and it ended with 3,120 or thereabouts followers of Jesus.

Now, what's interesting is you talk about growing in the church or the church growing. There's so many multitudes upon multitudes of theories and methods for church growth. And if you don't know that, just let me know and I can start forwarding you all the emails that I get to you, you know, and you can kind of see, you know,

Scheme after scheme, plot after plot, all kinds of offers and suggestions and techniques. And, you know, if you only do what we did and if you only do what we say, if you only follow this model or this practice or that practice, you know, your church will explode and you could double in, you know, the next 30 days. And, you know, all these suggestions, all these things, all these ideas about how the church grows, right?

Some suggestions, you know, we dismiss pretty easily, right? Don't talk about sin. Well, we know we can't do that. We got to be faithful to the Word of God. Don't call people to repentance. Well, we know that's very clear in the scriptures. That's what we're supposed to do. Sometimes it's a little bit more subtle. You just got to be more positive, you know, just give more positive. People want to feel good when they come to church, and so, you know, try to really focus on that and

There's all kinds of ideas, you know, well, if you shorten the message, or maybe if you have better music, or a bigger band, or, you know, better lighting, or, you know, there's all kinds of things that are suggested, that are given as, well, this is what you can do if you really want the church to grow. And, you know, some of those things can be good things as the Lord leads a church in doing them, but they can also be just a big distraction from what God's really called us to do.

Sometimes those things really just distract us from the primary mission. What is the primary mission? Well, it's found in verse 40. With many other words, he testified and exhorted them saying, be saved from this perverse generation. This is really our primary mission as a church. It's about calling people to salvation, making disciples. That's what Jesus commissioned the disciples to do. And that includes you and I as disciples of Jesus, as followers of Jesus, as

Now that we are disciples, now that we follow Jesus, he says, now go make more disciples. That's the great commission. It applies to all of us. And sometimes we get mixed up about this. We can sometimes think of the church as just kind of like a shelter. You know, it's like, well, it's only for believers. But no, really the church is primarily for calling people to salvation and repentance. Now, there's a balance to this, okay? Because I'm sure you're familiar with Ephesians chapter 4, right?

God gave, the Lord gave spiritual leaders to the church for the equipping of the saints. And so the church is a place for the saints and we need to have, you know, things for the saints. But the passage says it's for the equipping of the saints so that they can do the work of ministry. And so as we gather together, the big idea of our, you know, gathering together, the big idea of our existence as a fellowship is

is to preach the gospel and reach people who are lost, part of the way that we do that is gathering together to equip ourselves, to equip the saints, so that we can do the work of ministry that God has called us to do. And so here, Peter, empowered by the Holy Spirit, brings forth the gospel and says, be saved from this perverse generation. And then notice what happens in verse 41. It says, then those who gladly received his word were baptized. We don't know how many there were there that day.

that Peter was preaching to. As I shared in the past, there's room in the temple area for upwards of 100,000 people to be gathered in one spot. And so it could have been a huge gathering. It could have been 5,000. It could have been 10,000. It could have been 3,001. We don't really know. 3,000 of them, how many ever there were, gladly received. Not everybody gladly received. Not everybody responded. They were not necessarily cut to the heart.

And so these 3,000, they were cut to the heart. They gladly received. And it says they were baptized. And so the 3,000 souls were added to them. The church grew as the Holy Spirit cut people to the heart and as they gladly received. Again, it's not about us, you know, tricking people or manipulating people or just, you know, wanting them to feel good. It's about people responding to the word.

responding to the gospel message, responding to the truth of Jesus Christ. The church grows as people receive the gospel, as they receive the word gladly. Man, you know, we live in an interesting age, an interesting kind of culture here in Southern California, where we have a huge range of churches that you can choose. I mean, you just look at Corona. I remember when

several years back looking at how many churches were in Corona. And at that time, I think it was about 72. I think we have quite a few more churches in Corona now. I mean, that's a lot of churches. Such variety. Take your pick. You can go to probably close to 100 different places here in Corona. Now, many of them, I would hope, I would pray are good churches. Believe the word of God and teach the word of God. Of course, there are many who don't.

But amongst the good churches, amongst those who are faithful to the word of God, there's all kinds of styles and variety. And it's like, you know, what's your favorite flavor of ice cream? You know, just take your pick, you know, and maybe you want a little bit of Rocky Road today and you want some, what's that, Cherry Garcia, you know, next week or whatever. And that's how sometimes we engage and interact with the church. But here's the danger with kind of the blessing that we have of this multitude of churches is

Sometimes what we consider as growth is really just relocation. And I think maybe it could distract us from our primary mission. Sometimes relocation is good. Sometimes God brings people out of one fellowship into another fellowship. He's able to do that. He's the good shepherd. He can take them out of one pen and put them in another pen. He's free to do that. And many times the Lord does that.

Sometimes people relocate for bad reasons. They just have their own reasons, their own motivations, whether good or bad. But we can look at that and see, well, there's more people coming and think, all right, you know, we're doing something good. But getting back to the point here is growth should come as the kingdom of God is advanced. That's the way it operates with the church within a church that's empowered by the Holy Spirit.

The church grows as people receive the gospel. Now again, I would ask you to consider, is this a characteristic that we have here at Living Water? Do we grow as people receive the gospel? Is there an advancing of the kingdom of God with our fellowship, with our church? Now again, it's not about the building, but it's about us gathering together. Do we see advance in the kingdom of God in our midst, in our presence?

in our members? Is the work of the gospel going forth? Now, again, we don't control, you know, who receives it. That's between, you know, the Holy Spirit and the people. We don't control how they respond to it, but are we engaged in bringing forth the message, delivering the gospel so people have opportunity to respond? And it's really about our faithfulness to do that. Again, it's only possible as we're empowered by the Holy Spirit. We can only be a church if

that grows as people receives the gospel to the extent that we personally are sharing the gospel and giving people opportunity to receive. I know it's easy for us in our mind to kind of think and have the mindset, you know, our big mission is to get people to church and then the pastor, you know, gives them the gospel, but that's not the biblical model at all. The biblical model is all of us as believers are bringing forth the gospel. And as we bring forth the gospel,

then the Holy Spirit's at work within the people that we're sharing with. And maybe they're cut to the heart because the Holy Spirit is speaking to them. And maybe they receive it or maybe they reject it. That's up to them. But are we the kind of people who are bringing forth the gospel so that people have opportunity to receive it? Are we advancing the kingdom of God? And we can only be a church that is advancing the kingdom of God when we are a people who are advancing the kingdom of God.

Continuing to verse 42 and 43, we have point number three, and that is, a church empowered by the Spirit continues steadfastly in spiritual growth. Let's look at verse 42 and 43 again. It says, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles.

So again, we see here in Acts chapter 2 the establishing of the church. It really begins with Peter preaching the gospel and calling people to repentance. And now the church begins to grow as people are receiving the gospel and responding to it. But that's not the end of the life of the church. It's not the end of the life of a member of the church. Now there's the continuing steadfastly of these people who have responded to the gospel message.

They continued steadfastly, and four things are outlined here in verse 42. They continue steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, in the fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. Now, when it says they continued steadfastly, it means to be constantly diligent. It's describing here a serious commitment. Their lives are now changed.

not just in that they were forgiven, not just in that they are free, but their lifestyle has now changed and they are committed. And now these four things are a significant portion of their life. And they are consistently diligent to be engaged in the apostles' doctrine and in the fellowship and in the breaking of bread and in prayers. These are the things that the church is to be constantly diligent in.

There's a lot of other things that can distract us and we can get caught up in, but these are the things that the Lord would have us to focus on. These are the characteristics of this church that's empowered by the Holy Spirit. And it's pretty interesting as you look at these different things. Notice I put the word the before each of them.

That's because actually in the Greek, it is very specific and it is a definite article there before each of them. So he's not talking about general or vague concepts, but he's talking about very specific activities for the church. And so let's look at these. What are they? The apostle's doctrine. The church continued steadfastly in the apostle's doctrine. What was the apostle's doctrine? The word doctrine could also just be, you know, said as teaching. Right?

And so they were steadfast to be engaged with the apostles' teaching. What did the apostles teach? Well, we're blessed because we have a record of much of what the apostles taught in the New Testament. We have the Gospels, where the apostles taught about Jesus, the life of Jesus, the teachings of Jesus, the miracles of Jesus, the death of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, the

And so the church was committed to, they were diligently consistent to be hearing, to be learning about Jesus. We also have letters from the apostles in our New Testament. Many of them are from Paul, the apostle, writing to the Romans, the Corinthians, the Ephesians. We have a couple letters from Peter, a couple letters from John. And in those, we have all kinds of teaching, all kinds of truth, all kinds of things that are

that are appropriate and pertinent for believers in Jesus. And so we have these truths also before us. And they had those probably, well, we do know that they were reading the letters, but earlier on, you know, as far as the day of Pentecost is concerned, they had the apostles right there teaching them audibly, verbally. And so they were faithful to show up and hear as the apostle John was sharing. They were faithful to show up and pay attention as Peter was sharing. They were listening to the truths that were being taught.

We also have in our New Testament prophecy, like the book of Revelation, we have the prophecies of the rapture, the second coming, the end times. They were faithful to learn these things. They were faithful to hear these things. The apostles also were teaching the Old Testament in light of the Christ, the Savior that had come. You might remember, even in this message here in Acts chapter 2, Peter's quoted from several different passages from the Old Testament. He

And so they're going back and those scriptures that they had known as Jews now have new life and new meaning. And so the apostles are expounding on those things. They were consistent. They were steadfast. They were continuing in the apostles' doctrine. It's the first thing on the list. It's an important part of who we are as believers in Jesus. We need to be committed to the word of God. This is the doctrine of the church. And we as a church are to be steadfast and diligent to teach these things and to obey these things.

I like what Dave Guzik says about this. He says, every pastor should seek to be unoriginal. Kind of counter what we might think, right? It's like, I got to come up with something new. But he says, no, in the sense that we don't have our own doctrine, but we have the apostles' doctrine. My job isn't to preach Jerry's doctrine, but to preach the apostles' doctrine. And our job as a fellowship is to continue steadfastly in the word of God in that way.

Well, then he also says the fellowship. They continued steadfastly in the fellowship. Now, today we use the word fellowship to really describe any kind of hanging out together. You know, we went to In-N-Out, we fellowshiped. You know, we went and watched a movie. You know, we had some good fellowship. We went and played basketball, had some good fellowship. We went to church, we had some good fellowship. It's just any kind of like we're hanging out, socially interacting. But the word for fellowship here that Peter, yeah, that Peter is using or that Luke is using to describe this is fellowship.

It's the word koinonia, which I'm sure you've heard before as a believer. But there's a depth to it. There's a greater intimacy that's involved. It's more than just, you know, talking about the weather or our favorite sports. It means to share in something is what the word literally means.

And the idea here is it talks about continuing steadfastly in the fellowship is that we as believers in Jesus are members of the body of Christ and we share in each other's spiritual life. I've shared this many times. God has designed us as the body of Christ to be interdependent. You can't be the believer that God's called you to be all by yourself.

You need to be intertwined with, interacting with, engaged with the other believers that God has placed around you and vice versa. They need you and they can't be all that God's called them to be without you. But it requires this koinonia. It requires us to have time together and more than just, you know, surface time, but really a depth of relationship with one another where we're part of each other's spiritual life.

where there's a real ministry to one another, contributing to each other's spiritual growth and praying for one another, bearing one another's burdens. You can see all throughout the New Testament, there's the one another commands in all the ways that we are to relate to one another, helping each other have victory in life and overcome sin and exercise their gifts and achieve all that God has for them. And God says, I want you to be part of each other's lives in that way.

Be steadfast and continue in the fellowship. It's important for you to be engaged with other members of the body of Christ this way. That's what a church empowered by the Spirit does. They're engaged in each other's lives. Well, he also makes mention of the breaking of bread. Now, the idea of breaking of bread can refer to any kind of meal. Breaking bread together is just having a meal together. But when he says the breaking of bread, he's probably speaking about communion.

that which the Lord introduced and said, hey, do this often in remembrance of me. Gather together and remember the cross. Remember what Christ has done. And so that needs to be something we continue steadfast in, that we continue. We do that here at Living Water once a month on the first Sunday of the month. And then other times as the Lord leads, if the Lord prompts our hearts in different services. But we want to continue steadfast and remember the cross. Remember the gospel. It's why we gather together.

And they continued steadfastly, finally, in the fourth thing, in the prayers. And again, he speaks of the prayers, not just they continued steadfastly in prayer. If it was they continued steadfastly in prayer, you know, that would be speaking about their own personal times of prayer and just, you know, general prayer. They were praying people. But as he refers to the prayers, it seems that he's referring to specific times of gathering together for

Four prayer, corporate times of prayer. Not their individual personal prayer times, but their times of getting together with the other believers to pray. And this was an essential element. Again, their lifestyles have changed now. Now, these four things are crucial to who they are and what they do and how they live. These four things they're committed to, they're faithful to engage in. They're living according to these things.

Being constantly diligent. These are the things that the church is to be constantly diligent in. The apostles' doctrine, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. And as the church is steadfast in growing spiritually and engaging in these things, it tells us that God works miracles. In verse 43, it says, Many times,

People ask the question and wonder, how come we don't see, you know, some of the things like we see in the book of Acts, some of the miracles and those things take place. I would suggest here's one aspect of that. You know, part of that is it's God's will and he does what he wants. But another part of that is, are we steadfast in spiritual growth corporately? Are we gathering together to grow spiritually?

And you know, as we gather together to grow, God works and he changes lives and he sets people free. And we do get to see God work miracles as we continue steadfastly in these things. Is this a characteristic that we have here at Living Water? Do we continue steadfastly in these things? Again, we can only be a church that does this if we are a people who do this personally.

Are you engaged and committed to and steadfast in the apostles' doctrine? Again, this is one of the reasons why we continue to encourage and exhort, join with us in the Bible in three years, because you need to be a people who are steadfast in the word of God, in that time on your own and reading the word, but also in the time of teaching. The apostles would teach the truth from the word of God. And we also need to be a people who are faithfully attending service,

Are you faithful? Are you steadfast in the fellowship? Do you have deep and meaningful relationships with other believers? Are you part of each other's lives and are able to engage in one another and help one another? Are you faithful and consistent in the breaking of bread, partaking of communion, allowing that to be a meaningful time of remembering and reflecting on what the Lord has done? And are you continuing steadfastly in the prayers? Do you participate in corporate prayer?

On Wednesdays, we have the opportunity for some of that. We pray for our missionaries.

On Sunday morning at 9.30, we pray. After first service ends, before we get ready for second service, we take the time to conclude that first service with a time of prayer. And I would invite you. You don't have to come to first service to come to prayer at 9.30. Just come at 9.30 and walk on in and join us for a time of prayer. Our Sunday evening service also is largely devoted to prayer as we spend time with prayer requests and praise reports. And we do that, you know, bearing one another's burdens and helping one another in that way and fellowshipping in that way.

And then we also have the time on Monday nights where people gather together for prayer here in the sanctuary. There's plenty of opportunity, but are you steadfast in gathering together and joining in those corporate times of prayer? Well, finishing off the passage in verses 44 through 47, we have point number four, and that is, a church empowered by the Spirit lives life together.

Now the things we've just been looking at, we see the church was engaged with each other spiritually, but they were also engaged with the practical things of life as well. In verse 44, it says, Notice what it says. Those who believed were together. There was a gathering together. There was a physical presence. There was a, you know, they were with one another.

And again, that's God's design for the body of Christ. It's much more than for us to just sit in the same room once or twice a week for a Bible study. That's not church. That's not God's design for church. But God's design for church is that we are together, that there's more to our relationship than just, you know, having to sit in similar seats or just a couple seats from one another.

And these believers express that here in verse 44. It says that they had all things in common. And verse 45 says, And so what that means is we all have to sell our homes and cars and move into the church parking lot in tents, and we're just all going to live together here. No, that's not what it means.

This is not, you know, a vow of poverty. It's not a disregard of stewardship or wisdom. It's not forced. Everybody had to do this. It's not communism. It's not socialism. All those arguments have been made throughout the years. Here's what this is. This is an expression of great generosity. It's an expression of great generosity that was appropriate to the needs that were present at that time.

Remember the day of Pentecost, it was a feast where people would come from all over. The Jews would come from wherever they were to participate in this feast. Now 3,000 of them got saved. They don't live there. They don't have jobs there. They don't have means for providing for themselves, but they want to be there because they're steadfastly continuing in the apostles' doctrine. At this point, this is the only church. This is the only place to get the apostles' doctrine. So they're sticking around. They're sticking together to grow spiritually. And in order for that to happen, they're sticking together

Well, they needed some provision because they had run out of whatever they'd brought from their home. You know, they could only last for so long on that. And so the church now seeing the need is being exceedingly generous and providing for those who want to be there to continue to grow spiritually with the church. Now, as you go through the rest of the book of Acts, you don't see this practice in other churches anymore.

So this isn't like a dictate, a command. Every church has to do this. But this is just the church being generous and responding to the need that's there. That's how we are called to be as well. We are called to be generous, to meet the needs of our fellow believers as is appropriate and as God provides.

Now again, this isn't them, you know, abandoning everything and having, you know, no future, no ability to sustain themselves. But this is them saying, you know, I have this extra land. I have this extra property. And so they sell it in order to contribute to the church, in order for the church to be able to meet the needs of the people that are there.

we need to be careful, you know, because we, again, it does not throwing out like stewardship and all of that. We, we need to be careful, but at the same time, we need to be generous. And we've seen that happen a lot of times here at Living Water. We're blessed, you know, when people have surgeries or illnesses or big events in their life, and we're able to help with meals for a while. It's an expression of that. We're called to do that. That's part of what we're called to do.

Or, hey, you need help fixing a car? You know, hey, I'm a mechanic. I can help you with that. I'm not speaking. I can't help you fix your car. I can bang it with a hammer, but that's about all I can do. But, you know, people have contributed in that way, and there's an opportunity for us to do that. At the same time, you know, there's been all kinds of doctrine about this over the years, and we also need to be careful. It doesn't mean, you know, just freeload off of everybody else, right?

and the scriptures are very clear with that. I would remind you of 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 10, where Paul says, when we were with you, we commanded you this, if anyone will not work, neither shall he eat. So it's not like, I'm poor, I don't have anything, you have a lot, you're supposed to give to me, because look what they says here in Acts chapter 2. No, no, you need to earn. You need to work. That's what God calls us to do. But then he also calls us to be generous with the talents and resources that he's given to us.

And so as is appropriate, as the Lord leads, we are called to do similar things, but not necessarily this exact same thing according to what the Lord calls us to do. Well, going on in verse 46, it says,

praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved. And so again, we see the Lord is growing the church as people are being saved. But that happens while the church is being the church and fellowshipping together. We looked at the spiritual aspects. They continued steadfastly. But this is really just talking about just outward practical things.

They met practical needs. They went to church together. They hung out with each other throughout the week. They enjoyed each other's presence. They praised God together. They were spending a lot of time together. It was just being around each other. That's what they were doing. That's what God called them to do. They lived their lives together. God called them to be like a community. Now,

Some people take this too far and say, okay, now we got to just only hang out with Christians, only shop at Christian places, you know, only buy from Christian market. Like that's not at all what's happening here. It's just, they were excited about being together. They wanted to live life together. And so as they had opportunity, as much as they could, they would spend time with other believers. And that's what God wants us to do. That's something he calls us to do, to live lives together. It's not about hiding from the world. It's about working together to reach the world.

And as the church interacted in this way and had this time together, the Lord was adding to the church those who were being saved. A church empowered by the Spirit lives life together. We do things together. We have recreation together. We fellowship together. We eat together. We play together. We

Of course, we gather together for worship, but also for other things. We gather together to help someone who's in need. We gather together to meet needs, to do things, to have fun, to live our lives together and encourage one another. That's what he's called us to do as the church. Are we that kind of church? Are you that kind of person? Do you interact with other believers in that way? It's something that God desires.

it's, I'm glad that this kind of part is in there. You know, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, right? Sometimes we can kind of go over spiritual, like every interaction, you know, it's got to be super spiritual, super holy. You know, we got to pray for four hours and then we can, you know, leave. You can also just hang out. And so as I talked about fellowship, you know, we use that kind of casually. That's the kind of fellowship that's talking about here, you know, living life together. Like we are supposed to have that kind of fellowship, right?

But we also need to have the deeper, more intimate fellowship where we're helping each other overcome and live life to the fullest of what God has called us to. And so this is the way that God has called us to be as a church, empowered by the Holy Spirit. We want to finish up the evening with a time of worship. And I want to encourage you during this time to consider these things. Consider what the Lord has been speaking tonight about a church empowered by the Spirit. And let me remind you,

The only way for living water to be a church empowered by the Spirit is if the people of living water, it's not about the walls, it's about the people of living water being empowered by the Spirit. Do we call people to repentance? You know, that begins with us. Judgment begins at the house of the Lord. Do we call ourselves to repentance?

Is there sin? Is there things you know are not right that are in your life and God's calling you out of that? Do you call yourself to repentance and say, I need to turn from sin and really be submitted to the Lord, recognizing him as savior, as master? Are you asking for the Lord to empower you that you have the boldness and the ability to share the gospel and give people opportunity to receive it?

Are you steadfast in growing spiritually, steadfast in your commitment to the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and the breaking of bread and prayer? Are you steadfast to engage in these spiritual disciplines to make sure that you yourself are growing, that you're not the same that you were last year or last month, but that you are going forward in your relationship with God? Are you hanging out with other believers?

Being generous as is appropriate, as you have opportunity, as God provides, to be able to bless one another and fellowship together and have some good times together. I'd like to share one last thing in closing, and that is a quote from Warren Wiersbe. He says, The Holy Spirit did a massive work there at Pentecost. 3,000 people were added as they were cut to the heart by the Spirit. But then also,

The Holy Spirit empowered them to fellowship together and be the church that God had called them to be. We need the power of the Holy Spirit. And so let's take this time as we close out in worship. Let's call ourselves to repentance if that's needed. Let's ask God to empower us with his Holy Spirit. Let's maybe recommit some of those spiritual disciplines and commit to those things that God's called us to be steadfast in.

And let's be faithful to minister to one another as the Lord leads. And anytime during this time, if you need prayer, just you can grab someone next to you and ask them to pray for you. Let's engage and start practicing these things right now. If the Lord put something on your heart for someone, go pray for them. Go encourage them with whatever God's put upon your heart. But let's worship the Lord. Let's ask God to fill us. Let's call ourselves repentance and be the church that God's called us to be. Let's worship.

We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of His Word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.