There are many good reasons to make church a regular part of your life. Today I want to address only three than flow out of our text in Acts 2:42-47

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1 1 4 ~ What is the Church and why is it important? - Acts 2:42-47 We have been seeking the Lord to help us understand certain truths that are imperative for us to know for our spiritual wellbeing. There are things we need to be reminded of regularly. The demon of doubt can afflict the most seasoned saint, so we must be constantly assuring one another about those things we know to be true. It is wise to remind ourselves of those things we know for certain, those truths that sustain us and empower us. In our walk with Jesus, we need regular reminders of the truths that enable us to walk in faith and confidence. So for several weeks we have been sharing some truths we feel that are essential to our growth and wellbeing. Paul encouraged the churches to do this. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. (Col. 3:16) I think every believer should be absolutely sure of his/her salvation. We dealt with that truth first. Then we considered the fact that every believer should be assured that the Bible is the absolute Word of God, truth without any mixture of error, and utterly dependable for all aspects of belief and behavior. Last week we looked at the imperative of prayer and what that looks like in practice. Today I hope that every person here today will leave knowing the importance of the church in his/her life. Every believer should ask, What is the Church and why is it Important to Me? I trust you will have an answer to that question before you leave today. What is the church from heaven s perspective, the Church is the Bride and Body of Christ. The church is the redeemed in Christ throughout the ages. What is the local church a body of believers who partner together for the cause of Christ. The local church is NOT the building, nor is it the sum total of what happens in the building. God s church has no walls, only ministry. The church is people God s people redeemed, born again people who magnify Christ s presence in the world. The church is God s one and only plan for the redemption of mankind. The church is God s nursery, His training institution, His family, and His mission and ministry presence on the Earth. Why Is Church so Important? There is a sense you have to wonder why that question is necessary in light of what I just said the church was, but it is good for new believers and those just growing in their faith to have a clear answer to it. There are many causes that vie for our attention, our attendance and our resources these days. Our children and grandchildren are busy to the point of distraction with all the activities they can be involved in. So today the Church has to compete as never before for the heart of their own members! There are many good reasons to make church a regular part of your life. Today I want to address only three than flow out of our text in Acts 2:42-47 First, church is important... I. Because We Have Spiritual Needs (42) If we want to understand the importance of attending church the best place to look is from the ones who started it all - the very first Christians who formed the church in Jerusalem. ~ The first thing we learn about them is "All the believers devoted themselves..." The verb translated "devoted" (proskartereo) is a common one that connotes a steadfast and singleminded fidelity to a certain course of action. The meaning is that, they continued in faithful adherence to the newly formed community and the truths that were taught." The word is used often with the idea of "obstinate persistence in something.

2 The early church was completely sold out to these truths and practices. This was not a pastime, a hobby, or something that they did when they had nothing better to do. Rather it was something that was priority in their lives. It was a vital, life-giving commitment. There was a sense of belonging that I fear has been lost in our day. I remember when one spoke of belonging to this church or that. It may surprise many of you to learn that many churches do not have membership at all. If you are there, you are a member. If not, you aren t. Derrick and I were talking about this fact earlier and he quoted from a book he had read. We have become a nation of believers but not belongers. We have come to view our church membership on the same level with a subscription to a magazine. There is not sense of investment in the body. How very different that is from the early church. Being a part of the community of faith meant something very important then and it should now. We need to recapture that importance! 1 - So what did they devote themselves to? Luke tells us that, "All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles teaching..." Considering that Jesus spent so much time teaching the crowds and His inner band of followers, it is not surprising that teaching had a central place in the early church. Not only did they take a firm stand for Christ with the apostles, they also had a persistent desire for instruction. It was not enough for them to merely have their foot in the door or to be a part of a community. They had a continual, insatiable hunger to learn more about the Lord and their newfound faith. They knew what we often forget, that the rule and standard of faith begins and ends with the Word of God. This was so important that they made arrangements for the early ministers to not be incumbered with administrative matters to were allowed to give themselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. (Acts. 6:4) Remember from two weeks ago when we looked at how important the Bible is in our lives? We read from 2 Timothy 3: All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. Too many modern churches have lost the imperative of teaching and practicing doctrinal truths. It is not enough to teach theory without application. The Apostle James insisted that we be doers of the Word and not hearers only. (James 1:22) I suggest to you that there is a famine, a drought in our land. People are dying without the Word of God! When the prophet Samuel was young, it was said, the word of the Lord was rare in those days; there was no widespread revelation. (1 Sam. 3:1) I find it rare in our day as well. The church of Jesus Christ is vital for distributing the truth of God to the world. Paul said, I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. (1 Tim. 3:15) The church is the repository of insight into the heart of God. Don t ignore that fact. The church has been entrusted with the Word of God to practice and spread throughout the globe. That is why we make so much over what the Bible says. It is our rule, our standard for all of our belief and behavior. Why? Because God uses the Bible to prepare and equip His people to do every good work. Now let s go back to the importance of the church. That very same Bible instructs us, And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching. (Heb. 10:24-25) That is pretty clear, isn t it? We should be careful not to forsake, to abandon or take lightly the assembling of ourselves together. When we are together, we can consider one another, and stir up love and good works, and exhort one another. That is important! It is a vital role the church plays in our lives. 2

3 If you are not in church, who is doing those things for you? Odds are, you are not being loved on, inspired and exhorted. So the church was devoted to the apostles teaching. 2 - The next thing that Luke tells us they were devoted to was "to fellowship..." Fellowship was experienced in the process of learning and doing the Word. Now I don t want to bust any Baptist bubbles here, but fellowship had nothing to do with fried chicken! Imagine that! Fellowship is the word koinonia: an association involving close mutual relations and involvement. It also carried with it the idea of partnership. For you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now. (Philippians 1:5 NLT) The nineteen occurrences of koinonia in the New Testament suggest that the church used this word for the unique sharing that Christians have with God and with other Christians. It was more than getting together. It was a brotherhood, a family. It was a partnership in the purposes of the Church and a sharing in its message and work. Our spirits need to be fed as much or more than our bodies. That is what koinonia addresses. We need one another! We need fellowship with one another. It is essential for our growth, our ministry, and our care. The church was devoted to spending time together. They shared life together. 3 - Another thing that they were devoted to was "to sharing in meals (including the Lord s Supper)..." You knew I d get to the eating part eventually didn t you? This phrase literally means "the breaking of bread." This phrase "was a technical expression for the Jewish custom of pronouncing the blessing and breaking and distributing the bread at the beginning of a meal. The blessing we say at meals is to bless God for meeting our spiritual needs even as the food meets our physical needs. It recognizes God is the source for all we need. Believers could not observe the Lord s Supper in the temple, so this was done in their homes, at first in connection with a meal (since Jesus instituted it at the close of the Passover meal). We see this in Paul s writing when the church at Corinth abused the love feast. (1Cor. 11:17ff) So fellowship included eating together, sharing table fellowship, and from time to time, the Lords Supper. The church was devoted to sharing meals together. 4 - The last thing that Luke tells us they were devoted to is the most important. He says they devoted themselves "to prayer." The emphasis is on collective prayer. We can and should pray privately and in our families. We learned last week that God does His best work in our lives in private times. But for the early church, prayer was clearly a high priority and an important part of their life together. Prayer was an integral part of their daily life. It kept them connected with the Lord of the Church and was necessary to the work He had for them. This refers not only to individual prayer, but their corporate prayer as a community. In Acts, where there is a lot of praying, there is much activity of the Holy Spirit; and where there is much activity of the Holy Spirit it is because of much prayer. All successful churches place a high priority on prayer, and a prime example of that is perhaps the most successful church on the planet, Yoido Full Gospel Church of the Assemblies of God in South Korea, whose membership in in excess of 830,000 members. The Senior pastor s name is David Yongi Cho. In May 1958, Cho held his first worship service in the home of a friend. Only Choi and her three children attended the service, but the church grew rapidly and soon reached fifty members. They created a place called Prayer Mountain, a sanctuary where individuals can lock themselves away in small cubicles for prayer and fasting. The church expanded in 1982 to accommodate ten thousand people. More than a million people now visit Prayer Mountain each year, including some ten thousand foreign pilgrims. 3

4 The church continues to grow exponentially. The point is that this powerhouse of a church family was founded on and successful because of prayer. In much the same way the early church was devoted to prayer. They were obstinately persistent in learning and doing the apostle s teaching, spending time together, sharing life together, and praying together. In that unique fellowship, their spiritual needs were met, and prayer for one another was at the very core. Let me share a story with you. Mr. Jones called his pastor from the hospital one day and frantically said, "Oh, pastor come quickly, my son, John was just bitten by a rattlesnake and is at the point of death." Of course the pastor hurried to the side of the worried father. "Pastor, pray for my son!" cried the father. "I have promised the Lord that if my son recovers, I will come back to church and bring my family and will start living for the Lord." Of course the pastor prayed. He said, "Dear Lord, we come to you now in behalf of Mr. Jones son. We pray that he might recover from this snakebite. We want to praise your name for sending this rattlesnake to bite John! This one rattlesnake has done what neither I nor the church has been unable to do in the life of Mr. Jones now for over 5 years. During all this time, he has not been interested in his spiritual wellbeing or the spiritual wellbeing of his family and this one rattlesnake has turned his mind back to you. Lord, could it be, what we may need in the lives of many of our other church members are more and more snakebites?" We all have spiritual needs. God has created us with a need for Him and it is proprietary. I ve learned that word from computers and smart devices. The manufacturers make them in such a way that only their parts, accessories, programs, etc. will work on them. It s just like carmakers make cars that are impossible for anyone but the dealer to work on. God has placed within each one of us a need that only He can fill. He also designed these spiritual needs to be filled within the context of community. And He has chosen the community in which these needs are best met His church. People like to say, "Well I can pray and read my Bible at home!" Yes, but unfortunately, most don t do these things at home, and even if they do, they still have spiritual needs like the need to be prayed for, encouraged, and cared for that can only happen in the context of a community of believers. Choosing to stay away from church is like telling God, "I can do this on my own. I need You but I don t need your bride." He has created a means by which your most important needs can be met, and to ignore that is the same as telling God, I don t want your help. It is like being really sick and refusing to go see the doctor. It is like being on empty but passing the last gas station for a hundred miles. It is like dying of thirst and refusing a drink of water. Life is tough enough without ignoring the spiritual help that God offers. First, church is important because of our Spiritual Needs. Then it is important II. Because We Have Physical Needs (43-45) Another important need that everyone has that church can help with is physical needs. The early Christians shared everything. Now please don t misread the Word of God and think this was a form of socialism or communism. Every member was not required to surrender all their worldly goods in order to join. Rather, because of their devotion to Christ and one another, they took very seriously all the physical needs of the Body. They were willing, happily willing, without reservation or grudging, to share what they had with one another. There are all kinds of physical needs that we reach out to meet in church. We have physical needs caused by sickness. While doctors and hospitals can help with much of that, they cannot take care of everything. There are something s that only God can fix. 4

5 James told those who read his epistle, Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven. (James 5:14-15 NLT) This passage describes the Body life of the church. If I hurt you hurt, if I laugh you laugh it is being the church to one another. Paul would later write, And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. (1 Cor. 12:26) This is the wonder of small groups meeting needs in the church. It is impossible for the pastor or staff or even the deacons to meet all the needs of the membership. But the CHURCH, the people of God the members of our church are the font line for meeting needs. If you are not in a small group, you are inviting Satan to overcome you and overtake you in your physical needs. Get in a small group, a Sunday school class, or a ministry group. There you can be loved, encouraged, taught, held accountable, and find an area of ministry. Notice that the criteria for being healed is for you coming to the elders of the church and ask for prayer. The ball is in your court! Other aspects of our physical needs involve food and clothing. The early church was mostly common, everyday workers. Not long after it was founded, there was a famine in the land and Paul took it upon himself of request an offering of his churches to help the saints in Jerusalem. Luke tells us that, "all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had." What is easily missed in our English translations is the fact that two different words translated together are side by side in this Greek sentence. There is a word of being in the same place with others. That is one kind of together. Then there is another word for being together in one mind and heart. These words appear together and can literally, word for word, be translated, They were together together. No only did they meet together in homes and occasional large groups, but they were on one mind and spirit. They were together physically but they were also together spirutally. It was out of that togetherness that the willingness to "share everything they had" demonstrated the extent of their unity and fellowship. They were family! Holding everything in common was not socialism or communism because it was voluntary and specific to needs. Their goods were not evenly distributed but were given to meet needs as they arose. This is the love of Christ at work - simply walking the talk. They were family. You know how it is in family. You do whatever you have to in order for the family to be well. The early church was so much like family that, "They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need." Many sold pieces of land they owned and personal property as well. The money was distributed to those in need. "Anyone as he had need" is a key statement. They did not sell property until there was a need. Believers were so near the cross and the resurrection and so filled with the Spirit, that for a while selfishness was swallowed up in love. It was thus easy to sell possessions and think of the good of all. ~ In the Bible, Church is all about family. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the parts are glad. All of you together are Christ s body, and each of you is a part of it. (1 Corinthians 12:26-27 NLT) When one hurts we all hurt. When one is sick we all are sick When one lacks we all lack. In the Bible, Church is about sharing. Sharing with those in need. Sharing with those who don t know where to turn. Sharing with those who need a hand up. In The Bible, Church is about caring. 5

6 6 Caring for one another when we are down. Caring for one another when we sick. Caring for one another when we have lost hope. But it s hard for us to care when you are not here! The church is important because it is God s choice place to meet our spiritual and physical needs. It is also important III. Because We Have Social Needs (46-47) Once the church was the center of the social life of a community. Now we have to fight for a moment of time in the community s social calendar. Nowhere is this more obvious than in school related events. Just a few short years ago, the school system kept Wednesday evenings free so the kids could be in church. Not so any more! From sports practices to club meetings and rehearsals Wednesday is no longer sacred. But more troubling to me is the incursion on Sundays! I am alarmed by how many of our kids cannot attend church related ministries because of school functions. When it comes to calendar, we are having to compete with not only the school but the community for dates and times to do stuff. So what were some of the social needs the church met then and meet today? 1 ~ The Word says they Worshiped Together. Just as important as spiritual and physical needs are our needs to worship with others. Luke says that the early church "worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity." The concept of worshiping together means, "to associate closely and continuously with - to stay close to, to associate closely with. This reality blows the whole argument of I can worship God at home by myself right out of the water! The worship of God is meant to be done in community. I m not saying you cannot worship privately. Of course you can and you should. But worship is primarily done individually in a corporate setting. If you want to see that in royal style, read Revelation 5:8-13 (NLT) And when he took the scroll, the four living beings and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp, and they held gold bowls filled with incense, which are the prayers of God s people. And they sang a new song with these words: You are worthy to take the scroll and break its seals and open it. For you were slaughtered, and your blood has ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. And you have caused them to become a Kingdom of priests for our God. And they will reign on the earth. Then I looked again, and I heard the voices of thousands and millions of angels around the throne and of the living beings and the elders. And they sang in a mighty chorus: Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. And then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea. They sang: Blessing and honor and glory and power belong to the one sitting on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever. Now does that sound to you like and individual in private worship? No! This is how you re going to be worshiping alone in heaven! Real joyous celebration is never meant to be done alone. Soon it will be football season. I enjoy football. I love to watch my favorite teams play. But you know what else, I love to watch those games with others who also cheer for my teams. When the GA Bulldogs play, I usually call my son Jonathan and we plan to watch the game together. It s just better together. A good football game must be celebrated together. Now watching a football game is nothing like worship, but the similarity is in the fact that we do it best in community! We get all excited about watching our favorite team as they play, or going to see them play. And somehow we don t get the fact that we are celebrating the King of Glory and grace together??? God created us to have fellowship with Him and one another. There is no substitute for corporate worship!

7 Furthermore, they didn t just worship together, once again, they ate together - "...and shared their meals with great joy and generosity." It s just as important for us to meet together outside of the worship service as it is for us to gather together in worship. The totality of our social needs cannot be met in an hour on Sunday morning. Rather, the fellowship that begins here continues into the week, in our homes and community, as we do life together. Notice that they enjoyed each other s company with great joy! The joy came from the heart, because people were not trying to impress anyone. They had developed an attitude toward each other that enabled them to truly enjoy each other. That is one thing I love about us meeting together. It gives us time and opportunity to be together together. Look what happens when we do these things. Luke says, "all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved." When God s people come together and enjoyed fellowship, "praising God" is the natural result. True fellowship focuses on God and helps people to remember the good things He has done, which, in turn, causes praise. Such fresh and powerful community life would win the admiration of people outside the church. Others saw their unity, their devotion to God, their daily worship in the temple, and their love for one another. People naturally want to be a part of something that is so enriching and life changing. 2 - The Word of God says, They Needed One Another Has it ever occurred to you that one hundred pianos all turned to the same tuning fork are automatically tuned to each other? They are of one accord by being tuned, not to each other, but to another standard to which each one must individually bow. So one hundred worshipers [meeting] together, each one looking to Christ, are in heart nearer to each other than they could possibly be, were they to become unity conscious and turn their eyes away from God to strive for closer fellowship (A.W. Tozer in "The Pursuit of God"). Just as we need God, we also need each other. We were created with a need for human contact. We were created with a natural dependency for one another. We all need a place where we can get away from the pressures of life and find real meaning in our lives. Being with others is good for us. It helps us spiritually. It helps us psychologically It helps us physically We need a place where we can be known and cared for. The theme song for the sitcom Cheers is old but still has a good point. "Sometimes you want to go Where everybody knows your name, and they re always glad you came. You wanna be where you can see, our troubles are all the same You wanna be where everybody knows Your name." Folks, the Church is that place. We are all the same here - sinners saved by grace. We are all in this together. 7

8 8 We are all just as important as everybody else. The bottom line, church is good for you and Sunday is the best day of the week. Why is church so important? a. Spiritual Needs b. Physical Needs c. Social Needs Do you want to go where everybody knows your name? Are you ready to join our family? Don t worry, we ll leave the light on!